Twenty-Three

Jesse fell asleep around two AM. 

He snored on my bed, snuggled up with his book, and it was kind of adorable. 

Kind of. 

I was too jealous of him to find it completely adorable. Thanks to the second cup of coffee he made me twenty minutes before he crashed, I managed to stay up all night, and made a dent in the load of makeup work. 

I nudged him awake ten minutes before it was time to go. He disappeared into the bathroom for a one-minute shower and came back smelling like river rocks and manliness that I probably shouldn't have been attracted to, but was. 

He disappeared down the stairs while I finished shoving my stuff into my backpack. 

The wolf in me threatened to surface with his absence, but I was so tired that she too seemed sluggish. When I landed at the bottom of the stairs, Jesse was waiting with two travel cups of coffee and a set of keys. 

He handed me the coffee, and his hand met my lower back as he guided me out the garage door and into his car. It wasn't until he was pulling out of the driveway that I remembered his friends' story about the tickets. 

"Wait!" I yelled. He slammed on the brakes, nearly killing us both in the process. "What? Who?" His head jerked side to side as he searched for a reason for my shout. 

"You're a terrible driver. Swap seats with me.” I reached down to unbuckle my seatbelt. Jesse's hand blocked me, but he cracked a grin. 

"I'm a great driver. My friends just prefer to live on the slow side of things." He let go of my seatbelt and turned the wheel, pulling away from the house and heading down the road.

 "I can't afford to get pulled over and miss this class," I warned Jesse. 

"Then I won't get pulled over." The bastard winked at me. I was starting to wish I could get the wolf back, though the human came with plenty of perks. The way he looked was at least half of those perks. 

Maybe more. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't terrified while he drove. He didn't go too much over the speed limit and never took a turn too sharp or anything. I assumed he’d taken my worry into account, and I appreciated it. 

I finished my coffee halfway through the drive. When Jesse noticed me starting to fall asleep, he handed me his. I tried to protest, but he claimed he didn't want anymore. 

Since I was pretty sure I'd crash without the extra caffeine, I drained the remaining half of his too. He parked in the same place I always did.

 When I reached for my wallet, he shot me a dirty look and then paid while I got out and tugged my backpack over my shoulders. 

"I'm not going to let you pay for everything," I told Jesse as we started walking. "I know exactly how many dollars you have left to your name, Tea. Soon you're not going to have a choice." 

He strolled beside me, his body at ease. He wore a backpack too, but I wasn't sure what he'd put inside it. "Over my dead body," I growled. 

"You already defied death once. I doubt you'll have to tempt it again shortly.” The calmness of his words and his level of chill were frustrating. A few people glanced our way as we walked past them. 

I felt my wolf threatening to take control, and my shoulders tensed. "You know the money in that envelope is yours," Jesse reminded me, distracting me from my wolf. 

"I know it's yours." A beautiful brunette stared at Jesse way too long as she walked in the opposite direction from where we were going, and I nearly fell on my face as a wave of pain sliced through my spine. 

Jesse caught me, practically carrying me to the side of the walkway without letting anyone else see that he was holding nearly all of my weight. The pain vanished when his hands were on my skin. 

"What the hell?" I hissed. "What pissed your wolf off?" he murmured. "I don't know," I spoke through clenched teeth. "Some girl was staring at you." 

He gave me a sympathetic look. "Yeah, she's going to be possessive while she chases me. It'll help if we're touching." I scoffed. "I hate this werewolf crap." "I know." He helped me back to my feet. 

"Here," his hand slid down my arm, stopping when he linked his fingers with mine. The contact felt like... the most natural thing in the world. My body was at peace, my fingers warm. As cheesy as it was, our hands fit perfectly together. 

"See, this isn't so bad," he remarked, as we started walking. Not so bad? It was a hell of a lot better than 'not so bad'. "Plus, anyone who looks at us will know we're together," he added. 

"That should help our inner monsters." Someone shot us a weird look, but I ignored them. It wasn't like I'd ever see them again, anyway.

 And crazy shit happened at college all the time. Jesse and I ended up holding hands for most of the day. 

Every time we let go, my damn wolf would shoot the worst pain through my spine as she began to take control. It was miserable. 

Not the hand-holding, but the wolf. The hand-holding was... odd. Oddly nice. I didn't want to like it so much, but I did. We headed home right after my last class. 

Jesse was as cheerful as he'd been all day, not seeming to mind one bit that he’d spent hours upon hours sitting in on lectures about stuff that had nothing to do with his degree. 

While I spent the day trying to listen to the lectures rather than focus on how freaking good his hand felt in mine, he read articles about stuff that went right over my head and built some kind of 3D model on some engineering program he was a wizard at. I'd thought he was a dumb jock when we met, but clearly, I was very wrong. 

And what was his backpack stuffed full of? His laptop, and snacks. Like he was a mom with kids, in a grocery store. 

He seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing when I was getting hungry, which was often and would hand me a granola bar or a bag of nuts or something before my stomach could even growl.

 I can't lie; it was nice. Not as nice as the way it felt when he held my hand, though. Letting go of him when we reached the car was almost physically painful. 

"You've got three tests to get through tonight?" he checked, as he pulled the car away from the school. I nodded. 

"Yeah. They're all proctored online, so you'll have to be quiet." He made a motion like he was zipping his lips. 

"Would you be up for pack dinner between exams?" I hesitated. I'd sort of been avoiding his friends since the whole abduction and kissing situation; they were his friends, not mine. 

And clearly, they only liked having me around because their werewolf buddy decided I was his mate. I wasn't really into that friends-through-someone-else thing. 

Either we were friends, or we weren't. And Jesse's packmates weren't my friends. But… he’d spent the day following me around, feeding me. So I kind of owed him. 

"You went to school with me, so I can do dinner with your buddies." He shot me a look I couldn't read. 

"We don't have to. It was just a question." "Yeah, but I'm sure you miss your friends. You've been stuck in wolf form for a long time, and—" 

"And they're not friends, they're family. They get it. I do too. If you don't want to do dinner with them, we won't." He paused. 

"But they're nosy bastards. I give it three days, tops until they start pushing to see us more." I lifted an eyebrow in his direction. 

"They left me alone for way more than three days."

 "That was before you were a female wolf," he said simply. "And before you wore my wolf's marking." Shit... 

I still hadn't looked at that. I tugged my shirt upward, exposing my hip where he'd bitten me. 

I wasn't sure if there was like, a typical place for a bite or anything, but it looked pretty gnarly. Though it was healed, the skin was a deep red color that marked it as a scar from a bad injury. 

"It's freaking huge." I shot Jesse a glare. The scar was twice as big as my hand, even with my fingers spread apart. 

"My dick? Yes, yes it is." Even surprised and pissed about the scar, I snorted at the joke. 

"The bite, moron." "I didn't tell the wolf to make it that large if that's what you're getting at. I can't communicate with him. If I could, I would've told him that breaking his promise to a lady was a damn good way to lose her trust."

 “Is this normal though?” He shrugged. 

"Every wolf uniquely marks their mate. Some prefer small markings in hidden places, others prefer large scars in visible locations. Your mark is larger than most, but it's also fairly well hidden." 

"Well-hidden? I can't wear most of my clothes without flashing at least a little of this, Jesse." I gestured to my hip. How had I not noticed the size of the thing? So much homework, so much coffee... dammit, it had distracted me. 

"It's not on your arm or face," he pointed out. "I will rip your freaking huge dick off your body if you don't quit arguing with me.” He shot me an amused grin. 

"Hey, Teapot. Quit calling this poor kettle black." "Most teapots are not black, Kettle. That's not the saying. And—" I cut myself off, realizing I'd only confirmed his joke. "Dammit."