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didn’t forget… but if I did, which I didn’t,” he added quickly, “how mad would you be?”
    Lucie cocked her head on one side and chewed her lip.  “I’m not mad at all.  It’s fine.  Valentine’s is no big deal.”
    Cutter uneasily chewed on a pancake.  Those were definitely the words he wanted to hear but… they didn’t sound quite right coming out of Lucie’s mouth.  This was a woman who dyed her underwear green and baked a hundred cookies in the shape of four-leaf clovers for St. Patrick’s Day.  She loved holidays.
    “If you’re sure…”
    “Quite sure.  It’s all so commercial anyway.”
    She gave him a thorough kiss, and she certainly didn’t seem to be holding back , before bouncing towards the shower.
    “Hey!  Where are you going?” he called through a mouthful of toast.  “What about the…ah…”  He looked her up and down, shuddering at the mere sight of the filmy garment.  Surely, she was wearing that for his benefit.
    Lucie smirked over her shoulder.  “Oh, this is just a preview for tonight.”  With that, she gave him a slow blink – because she had trouble winking – and wiggled her ass as she sashayed out of the room.
    His wolf practically rubbed his paws together.  He couldn’t wait.  If she was excitable last night, just wait until…  Then he realized.  The reason she was excited was for Valentine’s.  She was probably wondering what exciting surprise he had for her and… he had nothing.
    Well, hell.
    *
    Cutter squeezed his mate’s hand as they stepped off the elevator.  “Are you sure?”  He’d asked her five times on the drive over and twice more in the parking garage.
    They both worked at the Los Lobos branch of the Supernatural Enforcers Agency.  Cutter was an investigator and Lucie was a nurse.
    Lucie shifted the box of cookies in her other arm and gave him a patient smile.  “Yes, of course.  I told you.  Valentine’s is no big deal.”
    The fact that she had baked enough heart shaped cookies for everyone in the building, and was wearing a tight, white, drool-worthy dress decorated with pink hearts begged to differ.
    Cutter wasn’t good at outwardly showing his affection in public.  He preferred to keep that kind of thing private.  Unless threatening any males who dared to look at his mate counted, which Lucie assured him didn’t.  But in deference to how shitty he was feeling, and his obnoxious wolf who was really rubbing it in, he sucked it up and pulled her hand to his lips to press kisses into her palm.
    “You know how much you mean to me,” he murmured.
    Her eyes dilated, and the black of her animal shimmered in her huge orbs.  “Of course, I do.  That’s why it’s not important that you forgot.”  He opened his mouth to object but she raised an eyebrow, and he hushed.  “I love you, and you love me – end of.  Now scoot, get your cute butt to work.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”  He almost believed her that time.  Were it not for the lingering disappointment he could sense in their bond, he would have let the matter drop half an hour ago.  But Lucie was trying not to be disappointed, and he guessed that was all that mattered.
    Lucie beamed and trotted down the corridor, handing out cookies to random people.  Yep, he’d won the lotto in the mate department.  He was constantly bad tempered, took her for granted more often than he cared to admit, got jealous and angry over absolutely nothing and was generally a pain in her perfectly peachy shaped derriere and yet she adored him.
    His reflective simpering was cut short as Mason, a burly gorilla shifter agent, hauled a guy in a diaper to the elevator.
    “Get moving,” rumbled Mason, his face stony.
    “But I am Cupid, the god of love!” proclaimed diaper guy.
    Cutter couldn’t hold back the snort.  The guy was middle-aged, balding and packing a serious beer gut.  He was also wearing a set of fake wings, holding a golden bow and had a quiver of golden arrows on his