I pulled one of Connor’s shirts out of his closet. I would’ve preferred to put on a pair of the boxer-briefs I found in the drawers too, but I wasn’t going to borrow the underwear of a man who was going to hate me in a few minutes.
Yes, he’d been hard when I woke up on his lap, but that wasn’t enough to make us friends.
So, I padded out of his bedroom with my hair hanging in wet, tangled knots to my collarbone and his shirt falling a little below the tops of my thighs.
Man, I wished he was about to call megood girlagain instead of despising me.
Maybe I should proposition him first. Telling him the truth after having sex would probably make it go over easier, right?
If only I had no morals, that would’ve been great.
Connor was standing in front of the stove when I found him. Unfortunately, he had found pants to cover the shockingly large erection he’d been sporting since before I shifted back.
My eyes widened as I looked at the table. It wascoveredin food. I was hungry, but there was no world in which I could consume even ten percent of the food there. Hopefully Connor was starving.
He pointed at a stack of sandwiches that must’ve used an entire loaf of bread. “Alright, we’ve got the vegetarian PB&J there. Ethan drinks oat milk, so I went and stole some of that, as you can see there. The bowls have pasta in them. I threw a buttersauce on that one, but the other one just has jarred spaghetti sauce. I’m not sure if you avoid any forms of dairy.”
My face warmed.
He had gone to the trouble of gathering and making all that stuff just for me.
And I’d mate-trapped him.
My throat swelled, and my stomach growled.
“Dig in. Eat as much as you can. It takes a lot to power a new werewolf, so don’t be self-conscious about how much you need.” He turned back to the pan.
He was cooking the PB&Js. Making grilled sandwiches. With oil to brown them instead of butter, just in case I stayed away from some kinds of dairy.
“I have to tell you something,” I said, sitting down in front of the sandwiches.
Dread had settled heavily in the empty pit that was my growling stomach.
His back was to me. It looked more tense with my words. “We can talk after you eat.”
“I’d rather tell you now.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
My forehead creased. “What’s fine?”
“You’re not interested in having a mate. You’re with someone already. I get it. Your wolf will reject me in a few days at most. It’s not a big deal.”
The crease deepened. “That’s not even close to what I was going to say.”
He looked over his shoulder. He was frowning too. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I tucked some of my wet hair behind my ear. The tangles felt extremely unpleasant. “I was going to say that I only went to your book club to find a mate, and I need you to marry me.”
He went still.
Very still.
I let out a harsh breath. “It’s kind of a long story, but my family is wealthy, and cruel. My parents manipulated me into signing a contract when they loaned me money for the elite, expensive college they convinced me to attend. The terms of the contract are messy and not super airtight, but they do have the means to either enforce it or ruin my life.”
“What does that have to do with marriage?”
I winced. “I was young and stupid… and may have agreed to marry a much older man in exchange for the money.”
