Sloane shrugged. “A couple of hundred years, God willing. You’re not…angry with me for not telling you sooner?”
She shook her head and blinked. “Oh my.”
Sloane chuckled, then reached for her to pull her back down and tuck her into his side.
“Have you got any other bombshells to drop on me?”
“No, I think that’s it. Oh, apart from tomorrow, you’ve got to meet my mom.”
“What?” She shot back up in the bed again.
“There’s something you need to learn about shifter families.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re nosier than hell. I live at home and my mom would have made my life a damn misery if I didn’t bring you home to meet her and my brothers and sister.”
“You still live at home?”
“Yeah. It’s quite common in shifter families to live at home until you’re mated.”
“I guess I really have got a lot to learn about you, huh?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry about it. Like you said, you’ve got time.”
Ray put her head on Sloane’s shoulder again and let out a sigh of contentment. When she heard her cellphone ringing in her purse, somewhere on the bedroom floor, she heaved a sigh.
“Who would be calling you at this time of night?” Sloane asked.
“It’s probably Jack.”
She felt Sloane’s body go stiff beside her and leaned up on an elbow to look at his face. “I’m going to have to meet him at some point. Maybe tomorrow.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s been calling me since I got back yesterday, but I’ve been avoiding his call. I need to tell him that I’m not going to see him anymore.”
“Can’t you just tell him that on the phone?” Sloane asked.
“No, I can’t. I almost did, but that’s a cop out and something I’d never do. He deserves better than that. I wouldn’t have liked someone doing that to me, so I’d never do it to someone else.”
“I guess, I just don’t like the idea of you being with him.”
“We didn’t go out for very long,” Ray explained. “Only two dates, actually. Or, well, one and a half, I suppose? We were never, you know, intimate.”
Sloane seemed to perk up at that. “So, if we’re counting kidnapping, I’m already ahead?”
“You’re already ahead,” she agreed with a smile. “In every way imaginable. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I still don’t like it. Can’t help it. It’s a shifter thing. But I understand why you feel the need to tell him in person.”
They talked for a little while longer before Ray started to drift off to sleep, curled into Sloane’s side. She felt warm and comfortable and at peace. Being with Sloane was as easy as breathing and she couldn’t believe how quickly she had accepted that they were a couple now—that this was her new normal. Sloane would be in her life for a very long time and that made her unbelievably happy and content.
