Chapter One
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D ecorations had never been a thing at Iron’s bar before, but today it looked like a party store had decided to throw up over it. Iron had stopped counting at color number 35 and just shook his head every time a new one came into view.
“Stop grumping.” From behind him, warm, slender fingers ran up his arm and landed on his shoulder, right beside where lips pressed a quick kiss at the place where his neck and shoulder met. His mate’s mouth-watering scent filled the air around him, and as he always did, he took a reflexive breath, wanting to absorb everything about her.
Iron grabbed Bella’s hand and brought it to his mouth, placing gentle kisses on the pads of her fingers, then biting down on her thumb. That earned him a smack and a giggle, and he turned, bringing his gorgeous spitfire of a mate into his arms and leaning down to nuzzle into her neck.
More smacks, and Bella pulled back, the half-giggles and glow of happiness demanding he keep trying to snatch her up and kiss her senseless. “Don’t you dare start. I am not getting dragged away from Doc’s retirement party because my husband is a horny wolf who can’t keep it in his pants for more than half an hour at a time.”
“It’s been ninety minutes,” Iron said, finally able to grab a handful of her ass and squeeze , and fuck if her ass wasn’t the most luscious miracle ever put in his grasp. “I should be getting a fucking medal for staying away this long with you in that dress.”
Never had truer words been spoken. Red. The dress was red, and clung just right, and the bitch almost had him on his knees when she came out of the front door of their house, and he loved every minute of it.
She refused to let him see the dress before then, and his woman was damn smart, because if he had they wouldn’t have left the house. As it was, if he wasn’t waiting around with Brick and House, he would have dragged her back inside.
More like it was Danny that kept him in check, the little boy with his dads to help do the last minute pick-ups all parties somehow needed. Mel was already at the bar, finishing the decorations and making sure Doc Stevens’s retirement party went off without a hitch.
Bella smirked at him as she walked past, all swinging hips and pure seduction, and the only thing stopping him from pulling her down and mounting her right there was Danny’s sweet, “You look pretty, Bella.”
Fuck , even he couldn’t drag her away after that, though it was still a damn close thing, and the woman tortured him the entire car ride, crossing those legs back-and-forth and constantly playing with her skirt hem, straightening it, then pulling it up so it almost showed the holy land, only to pull it down again.
House snickered when he told everyone to go in the bar without them, while Bella gave him a smoldering look and made sure when her back arched and her dress pulled up when she got out of the car.
Ten minutes later he was in the bar, and House had the good sense to hide behind Mel and keep the shit-stirring to a minimum.
Because Bella in that dress was breaking him down, and every minute stretched him thinner, made the wolf stronger, and the wolf wanted skin-to-skin with its mate, wanted buried inside her, wanted come and scent and sweat over every square inch of her, to mark her and proclaim her mine .
That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, and Iron pushed against the wolf hard. Thank fuck most here were mated themselves, or he might have gone over the edge, and Bella would have killed him if he messed up tonight.
There was no worry of that. Doc’s retirement party was a success, and Mel and Bella had outdone themselves. It wasn’t fancy, but the food was fantastic and there was a ton of it, family and friends were laughing, and Doc was in his element, free to tell embarrassing stories to the kids about their dads, which had the younger generation wide-eyed and listening hard, while the adults were blushing for