My eyes widened. “So?! I don’t want people to think I’m another one of your whores.”
He stopped, turned toward me, and growled. “One of my whores?” he asked. His words sounded so sour. “I don’t sleep around.”
I turned my head toward the window. “All wolves who aren’t mated do it.”
He growled louder this time, canines emerging from under his lips, and stepped toward me. Jaw clenched, almost visibly shaking, he asked, “Is that what you’re planning when you turn eighteen?”
No, I planned on doing something that’ll make me feel a lot shittier at first but would hopefully play out well in the end. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Maybe…” I said, my wolf whimpering inside of me.
He grabbed my chin roughly in his hand. “Maybe? What the fuck does that mean?”
I shoved my hands into his taunt chest. “It means that maybe I’ll get tired of this little game that we’re playing and want someone to actually fuck me right.” And to actually love me. I stepped toward the window, soaking in the rays. “And, besides, does it even matter?”
“Yes, it matters,” he said through clenched teeth. He stepped back into my line of vision, golden eyes shimmering.
“Stop getting butt-hurt over it.” I shook my head. “Do you expect this little thing between us to go on forever?”
“Yes.”
“And what happens when you find your mate? Or when I find mine?”
He parted his lips, then immediately closed them. “Isabella.” His voice was suddenly softer. He swayed slightly, and our fingers grazed against each other’s. I swallowed hard, tingles shooting up my arm, and pulled my hand away.
We’d been physically intimate before, but that was…
“I don’t expect this thing to go on forever,” he said and stepped away from me. We gazed at each other for a few moments; his eyes shifted slowly between gold and green. My wolf stirred inside of me, wanting to run, wanting to do something. I just couldn’t understand what that something was.
My breathing hitched when Roman closed his eyes softly, his minty scent becoming incredibly intoxicating. He stepped away again, and I felt hurt. “I expect you to be with your mate when you find him. Stay with him, mark him, lie with him,lovehim.” Then he turned and walked right out of the room.
His words sounded so… sad. And, for some stupid reason, a part of me felt sad for us. This thing was purely physical, but I didn’t want to leave. Every single day, he made it harder and harder for me to choose the Lycans.
Roman was aggravating, but I liked aggravating. Roman was infuriating, but I sort of liked infuriating now. Roman was everything I wanted in a man, but he wasn’t mine.
Sure, I might’ve been able to get away with things with him, but he was the alpha, three whole years older than I was, and was of-age to find his mate. He would’ve told me if I was… his. Alphas were always so possessive, they would take their mate as soon as they could. The tingles were just becauseIliked him. Not my wolf.
Playing with me, teasing me, dominating me… it was just a way to pass the time until he found his mate. Just like all alphas did. He would never be mine. He was another girl’s alpha. He was another girl’s mate.
My wolf growled lowly inside of me, and I shushed her. Now wasn’t the time to be growling over Roman. I sat on his bed, digging my claws into the blankets and inhaling his scent. This was so stupid. I didn’t even like him. I never had.
Lie.
He was a good alpha, a good leader, a good guy, and damn good in bed. But that was it. That’s all that he could be. He couldn’t be my mate. He couldn’t. Mates didn’t hurt each other. Mates supported each other.
No matter how hard I tried to imagine a life without Roman, I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him.
In my past. In my present. In my future.
Running through the forest with each other. Playfully fighting each other in the snow. Laughing deep into the night under our blankets inourbed.
I shook away my fantasies and walked aimlessly through the room, fingers brushing against the bedsheets. No, I couldn’t think of him that way. I didn’t even know who he was. Since his parents died, he had closed himself off to almost everyone… but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t figure out who he really was.
My fingers brushed against the knob to his closet, and itaccidentallyopened. I peeked my head into it. Khakis that made his ass look great. Grey sweatpants that I bet would make his ass look even better. T-shirts. V-necks. Boring. Boring. Boring.
After searching through the pants, he wore last night for some note from a secret love and finding nothing, after looking under his bed and finding just one small dust-bunny, I sat up and sighed through my nose.
Jeez, Roman wasn’t interesting at all.
