Dire Wolf Mates - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

The bass was thumping, and the guitar sounded amazing. Serious Moonlight always had the best bands, she thought and shimmied where she stood. Ariella really liked this song. Not usually a dancer, she could hardly keep her hips from moving.
“Ari, did your mother put something in your drink?” Sheila whisper-screamed, leaning over the bar.
“Ow, Sheila my ears! Don’t worry about it. My mom is always putting something’ in my drink,” Ari replied, and giggled.
Wow. She never giggled. Mom must have gotten a higher concentration than she’d had the last time she’d dosed Ari. That was on her spring break eight years ago in Florida.
Ariella had been dumped by her boyfriend the second they’d gotten to their hotel for a skinny Fox Shifter in a two-piece. Miserable and embarrassed, she’d called home and her mom was there within three hours. She’d crashed Ari’s vacay, but in a good way.
The week-long festivities had ended with only a couple of tickets and a fine for indecent exposure after she and her mother had been caught lounging naked in the fountain outside of the Miami Grand Hotel.
"Should I call someone for you?” Sheila asked.
“Nah! I’ll be fiiiiiine.”
Ari nodded her heavy head and stretched her arms wide, spinning in a circle. The only way to get the catnip out of her system was to sweat it out. Simply nothing else to be done, so she might as well enjoy it.
The effects would wear off soon—about twelve hours, judging from last time. And like the last time, hopefully, Ariella’s clothes wouldn’t be staying on tonight either. Staying a virgin was just not appealing at the moment.
“I got it!” Ari said aloud with a wicked grin plastered on her face.
“You got what, honey?” Sheila asked.
“The solution to all my problems!”
“Oh, fuck” the she-Wolf grumbled.
But Ari was not going to let her bring her down. She knew what she had to do to get out of this rut she seemed stuck in. Ari was going to lose her virginity to some lucky guy, and afterward, she would use her newly acquired seductive wiles and smexy time skills to find a mate despite Brock Laurent!
“Ariella, please tell me what is going on in that head of yours,” Sheila said, taking hold of Ari’s hand.
“I got it all figured out, cuz. No more rejected mate blues for me. I know what I’m gonna do,” Ariella told her.
She squeezed the woman’s hand and smiled like the cat who ate the canary. Her plan was a little foggy, but Ari blamed that on her catnip and tequila soaked brain. It would all come together. It had to.
Her mother, who upon closer observation turned out to be wearing a pair of practically painted-on leopard-spotted pleather pants—a sort of irony if you will, being everyone knew Lionesses were better than Leopards any day—was currently shaking and grinding between two enormously buff strangers.
“Mom!” she yelled, but Patricia waved her away.
For an older woman, Patricia Golden sure knew how to get her groove on. She was her hero and Ariella knew she was lucky to have Patty as a mom. The older feline would know just how to help Ariella lose her maidenhead.
Then maybe she could forget all about men who didn’t want their mates.
“Earth to Ariella. Hey, talk to me, honey. What are you talking about?”
Sheila seemed to be speaking rather slowly, but Ari just winked at her. Silly she-Wolf. So lucky to have her mate. She just did not understand Ariella’s predicament. Grabbing the bottle of tequila from the bar, Ari chugged the last of it.
“You are sweet to worry about me, Sheila, but I got a plan. I’m gonna lose my virginity tonight,” she said.
“What did you say?” Sheila shook her head and pointed to her ears.
Dang it. Her friend couldn’t hear her above the noise.
“I said,” Ariella yelled loudly—and wouldn’t you know it, the band stopped playing that exact moment. “I’m going to lose my virginity tonight!”
She looked around and laughed loudly as the rowdy group of bar goers applauded and cheered her on. Giggling at their encouragement, she took off to join her mother on the dance floor.
“You go, girl!”
“I can help with that.”
“Virginity is overrated!”
“I’d tap that!”
“Hey, knock it off!” Sheila yelled at the customers still waiting for their drinks.
“I can fix your problem, baby,” one of the strangers said, and Ariella giggled.
He wasn’t even unpleasant looking. Maybe finding a sex partner wouldn’t be as difficult as she thought.
“Back off, buddy, or you are out of here! Shit. Ariella, don’t you move,” Sheila ordered and grabbed her cell phone from behind the bar, but Ari was already walking away.
She felt too good and loose for any yelling and nonsense. Ari didn’t want to do anything but have a good time. What was so wrong with that?
The music was loud and sounded like a carnival ride. Between the band and the lights, and the catnip of course, Ariella felt young and pretty and alive for the first time in a long while. The crowd was bouncing up and down joyously and she joined them, clapping her hands and shaking her booty for all she was worth.
“Hey, baby girl. You look great,” her mother yelled.
“Thanks, Mom. I feel pretty great,” she yelled back.
“That’s good, honey. I got that ‘nip from a new guy. It’s supposed to be extra potent,” her mother informed her with a winked.
“Mama, I think I want to lose my virginity tonight,” Ariella yelled into her mother’s ear while keeping up with the bopping and swaying.
“Okay, honey, but be careful,” her mother said.
Patricia Golden pinched her daughter’s cheek, then turned around to dance with a very tall and thin older man with an Aussie accent. One sniff and Ari was sure he had to be an Ostrich Shifter. Again, thoughts of their Pride leader plagued her, but that was her mom’s affair, not hers. She’d learned early to stay out of her mother’s love life.
Ariella hated to admit it, but this was the best she had felt in weeks. Not something she expected after meeting her fated mate. But then again, nothing had gone as planned since she laid eyes on Brock Laurent. All her childhood fantasies of happy-ever-after’s had been tossed to the wind the second he walked away from her.
Bastard never even looked back.
That was it. She was done. She’d tried everything she knew to get him to acknowledge what they were to each other, short of tattooing the words claim me already on her forehead—or as her brother George insisted, Ariella was rocking a solid a fivehead—five fingers fit on her forehead. Gods, she hated her brother sometimes.
Jerk.
Sniff.
Whatever. If her forehead was big, it was because she was a smarty pants. That’s what Mom always said in her defense. Anyway, back to that dang dog boy. NO matter what she did, Brock still stubbornly refused to accept she was made for him. It was both insulting and infuriating.
What was so bad about her, anyway? What was so horrible that he didn’t want her?
Ariella wasn’t ugly. Heck, she was downright cute, even if she wasn’t blonde, regardless of what her snooty cousins said. She’d spent the last few months alternating between lust and anger for the hunky Dire Wolf. But no more. She decided tonight was her night and it was time to check out her options.
Like the big, sniff , Bison Shifter, who’d sided up to her during the band’s lively cover of Paradise City. Ariella always was a Guns N’ Roses fan. If she squinted hard, the stranger kinda looked like Slash.
They jumped and swayed, clapped, and sang along until the stranger felt secure enough to lean down and whisper in her ear. He smelled a little like hay, but that was alright, she supposed.
“Hey, baby, how about we get out of here?” he grunted against her ear, and his beard kind of tickled her skin.
“Well, I was planning on losing my virginity tonight. I’m interviewing for the position, you interested?”
“Hell yeah. I can help with that, baby,” he returned, and she smiled at him through a haze of tequila and catnip.
His hair was curlier than hers, she thought giddily and nodded her head. Sounded like a plan. She could finally have sex, just to see what the fuss was about, then she could walk away.
Isn’t that what men did? No strings sex?
Yep, that was a damn fine idea. She looked at the big man and frowned. He seemed even bigger than before.
“Hey,” she said, swaying slightly. “Are you getting taller or am I shrinking?”
“Aghhh!” the Bison Shifter yelped.
Before Ariella could utter a response, she noticed a pair of big hands gripping the Bison by his wide shoulders. Suddenly, the man was flying through the air.
“Hey! We didn’t even get busy yet?” she growled, disappointed.
Next thing she knew, Ari was staring into the steely blue eyes of the one man she’d just given up on. Her heart pounded, and she felt both bitterly disappointed and confused when she looked at the outrageously handsome Dire Wolf.
“Ariella,” he growled her name, and she seemed to sober up for a split second as every inch of her went on high alert—like it always did around him.
Brock was the only man in the whole world who could make her Lioness purr like a kitten. Damn him.
“Geez, Brock,” she shouted and stomped her booted feet. “I was gonna have sex with him!”
“The hell you were,” he growled, and she wanted to roar her outrage.
Stupid pussy-blocking, butt-sniffing, asshat!
“Ooh, you make me so mad,” she stomped her foot one more time and narrowed her eyes at the snooty Wolf.
“Ariella, I am warning you⁠—”
“Oh, are you warning me? You know what? You can just eat my fur!”
Even as she yelled the old childhood taunt, the same one she and her siblings used to taunt each other, her inner, perverted she-Cat had another type of eating in mind instantaneously.
Traitor, she scolded her feline, but it was no good.
Brock crowded her personal space, and before she knew it, his face was directly in front of hers. She breathed in his forest fresh scent, and damn if she didn’t feel even more intoxicated from that one good whiff of him.
“Why do you always smell so good?” she asked, but did he answer?
Of course not. Ariella huffed out a breath and turned to walk away when he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Mine,” Brock growled so softly she almost missed it.
Ariella blinked up at him in sheer surprise at the possessive one-syllable word. Next, he scooped her up in his big, strong arms and walked out of the bar with her. Where he was going, she didn’t know, but oh, could she hope.