I shrug. “It’s been a little while for me. I’ve barely even jerked off in the last six or seven months. I can’t remember the last time I tugged on my dick. Too much information, I know, but since we’re sharing and all that.”
Her laughter dies abruptly. She gets very serious. “Did you have a relationship with Jordyn? You did, didn’t you? She was the person you were last with.”
Fuck.
Why did I go down this road?
“No, I didn’t have a relationship with her,” I tell her. “We fucked. We only managed to form a partial mind-bond, so we had to have sex to make it stronger. Otherwise, I never would have gone there.”
“What’s a partial mind-bond?” she asks. “I’m assuming it isn’t a proper bond.”
“You’re assuming right…yes,” I tell her. “In order to strengthen the bond, we were encouraged to have sex a couple of times.”
I pause, remembering. “It was good. I enjoyed myself. Once the bond formed, we were told to stop fucking…”
“You didn’t?” she says.
I glance over at her. She has this look of hurt on her face.
Crap.
I forgot for a second that Wren likes me. Like really likes me. She was the one who insisted we sleep together last night. The one who said we had to keep it to this one time only. I’d almost forgotten that she has actual feelings for me. At least, I think she does. Maybe she was only ever attracted to me. That’s possible too.
“No, we kept going,” I admit. “In hindsight, she instigated it more than I did. I didn’t tell her no…I probably should have.”
“I’m sure she instigated it,” Wren says, her voice flat.
I look her way, frowning.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re good in bed, Grim. You have to know that. I take it you’ve had a ton of partners.” Her mouth falls open. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m prying again. I’m so sorry. Shit!”
“That’s okay,” I tell her, but I don’t say anything more.
“It isn’t. I don’t mean to pry; I’m just interested, that’s all. I’ve only had two…before you, that is,” she continues, filling the silence. “Not that you asked, but there it is. I met Jock in college. We ended up moving in together once we graduated, but it fizzled out quite quickly after that. I was single for two years before meeting Tim. We moved in together quite soon, but he turned out to be a great, big, fat liar. I came to realize it. He would lie about stupid little things. I ignored it. It wasn’t a big deal until it was.”
“He started lying about big things,” I say.
“Yep. Turned out he had a gambling addiction. He started borrowing money from loan sharks. He lied all the time to cover it up. I found out when some thugs came over. They broke two of his fingers right in front of me and then threatened to break his arms if he didn’t come up with the money.”
“That must have been traumatic.”
“It was.” She nods, her eyes hazy. “I gave him all of my savings and then maxed out my credit card. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if they had come back and hurt him for real. I also asked him to move out, and that was the end of that.”
“I’m sure.” I negotiate a turn, my eyes on the road. “Good thing you didn’t marry him.”
“You’re telling me.” She huffs out a breath. “That’s one thing I really like about you, Grim. You don’t talk a whole hell of a lot, but when you do, you just say it like it is. I respect that.”
Shit! Shit!
I haven’t been straight with Wren at all. I only made friends with her so that I could use her. I didn’t tell her all I know about the vaccinations. I told her she might be allergic to dragons, when I should have told her that we nearly mind-bonded.
I’ve lied plenty.
I don’t deserve her respect. I feel fucking terrible.
“I’m pretty sure that we wouldn’t have ended up together even if Tim weren’t a pathological liar and a gambler. We’d been together for years, and there was no talk of marriage or children, or any of that stuff. In fact, he’d shut me down quickly if I tried to bring it up.”
“So you want kids, then?” I ask.
