As the memory faded, she noticed that the furniture in this room was very large. The couch was brown leather and there were two matching chairs on either side. The end tables looked as though they’d been made by hand out of wood that had been hand cut. Each was unique and beautiful. The coffee table was the same—hand cut wood with the knots from the tree visible in some places. Bethany walked over to the windows that lined the back wall. The curtains were made out of a soft, but thick brown fabric, unlike anything she’d felt before.
“They’re suede,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.
She looked over her shoulder to find Drake in a pair of jeans pulling a red t-shirt over his head. He’d been shirtless the entire time he’d been in the cage, but for some reason, seeing him outside of the cage, freshly showered, had a different effect upon her. Her cheeks warmed and she turned back to examine the suede curtains.
“Brown seems to be a favored color,” she said teasingly.
He chuckled. “Our own rooms are decorated to our taste, but this, this one was set up as a generic suite for visiting guests. I guess they wanted neutral colors.”
“The color isn’t bad…it just feels empty,” she told him. “Not super inviting, I mean.”
“You can change whatever you want.”
Bethany turned around, her eyes wide. “Change?”
His hand swept over the room. “If there’s anything you don’t like, you can pick something different.”
“But this isn’t your suite,” she pointed out, as if he didn’t know.
Drake walked toward her, his steps slow as though not to startle her. Bethany wanted to roll her eyes. She wasn’t a frightened rabbit. Wait, maybe he saw her as a rabbit. “Do you see me as a rabbit?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
He paused his pursuit and tilted his head slightly. Seeming to come to a conclusion, he continued forward. Once he was standing less than a foot away, he reached up and placed a hand on her neck wrapping his fingers around the back while his thumb stroked the sensitive skin just below her chin. “First, I would like it to be our suite—a place we can both call home—a place of warmth that reflects our shared lives. Second, I see you as my mate and I would never describe someone as brave as you as a frightened rabbit.” He paused as he continued to stare down at her. His touch was affecting her in ways that she didn’t really understand, but she liked. “I will sleep on the couch and you can take the bedroom.”
Bethany tilted her head to the side to look at the couch. Sure, it was big, but not long enough for Drake to stretch out comfortably on. She shook her head. “No, I can take the couch. I’ll fit better on it than you will.”
“I want you to feel comfortable and safe, Bethy. And I’d prefer to sleep between you and the front door.”
He wanted to protect her, Bethany realized. Jen had been right; these werewolves took protection to a whole new level. Assuming any argument would likely be fruitless and only stress him out or cause more problems, she consented.
“Alright, if that is what you want,” she told him, staring up into his eyes that, though some might call grey, she saw as a shimmery silver color.
“Sometimes what we want and what we need are miles apart,” he told her. “I want to be able to give you space so that you don’t feel smothered. I know that you are probably still very confused. But I need to know you’re safe and I need to be near you. That is not something that I can change. That is an instinct that is controlled by the wolf.”
Bethany could tell that those words had been difficult for him to say. She felt through the bond that Drake was ashamed.
“Is it really shameful to need someone?” she asked him, truly wondering. Because if so, then she should feel ashamed too because she was rapidly coming to understand that she needed him as well. He made her feel wanted, safe, and cared for. Those were things she had not felt in a very long time. Drake gave her somewhere to belong again—a new family, a replacement for her family that had been ripped away from her. She didn’t want to feel ashamed of needing him.
“No,” he answered quickly and pulled her closer to him.
She could feel the warmth from his body seeping out of him and into her. She wanted to get closer, so she did. Bethany took another step, closing the gap between them so that their bodies were now touching. Drake froze. She didn’t even think he was breathing. Had she done something wrong? She started to take a step back but Drake dropped his hand from her neck and wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. She held back the sigh of relief his embrace brought, but just barely.
“There is no shame in needing someone, Bethany.” His voice was rough with emotion and that same emotion filled his eyes. “I am ashamed because I feel like I am taking your choices from you. I don’t want you to feel like you went from one prison to another. I fear that you will one day resent me if I don’t let you go and experience life before deciding to commit to me.”
She blinked several times as she mulled over his words. She understood what he was saying, but she also thought that there could be a way where they could both get the things they needed.
She took a breath before looking back up at him. “If I want to go back to America, would you come with me?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“And if I want to go to” —she thought about the few countries that she could remember learning about when she was a girl— “China, would you go with me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I wanted to get my first cell phone, will you help me get one?”
“Of course,” he answered.
“And if I decided, after all the time we’d spent together, to leave, to live a different life than this one, would you let me go?”
