She tried saying it a few times in her mind. Even in her thoughts, she sounded incredulous.Clark Wilson is my mate.
“Second,” he rumbled, hands stilling on her back, “from now on, if anyone gives you shit aboutanything,you tell me. I’ll handle it.”
It wasn’t really necessary, but Nelly wasn’t mature enough to say so aloud. Shelikedthat he was willing to fight for her.
Hiding her smile in his shirt, she said, “I thought you were supposed to be the nice neighbor.”
“I’m plenty nice. My favorite thing is when folks like me.” He leaned back, forcing her head up again. Staring down at her from beneath drawn brows, he told her, “But I’m not gonna be fucking nice when someone makes you uncomfortable, Nelly. Not now, not ever. If you need me to wear gloves inside my own house for the rest of my life, I’ll do it. What you need is between us and only us. No one else is entitled to a single damn opinion on the subject.”
He’s my mate.
Nelly stared up at him with wide eyes. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. Could it be that she’d finally, against all odds, gotten lucky?
“Okay,” she whispered, sounding awed even to her own ears.
Clark looked down at her for several seconds. Once again she got the impression that he was a moment away from leaning down and kissing her like he had the night before, but he didn’t.
Exhaling a slow breath, he said, “Glad that’s settled. Now where can I get a pair of gloves?”
ChapterNine
After Nelly foundhim a pair of thin, nearly see-through gloves that would fit his much larger hands in the first aid kit, Clark threw himself into making her dinner. It was all he could do to distract himself from the way she sat on the counter beside him, her legs dangling only a few inches away, as she nursed a mug of mulled wine and tentatively regaled him with stories about her strange life.
If he didn’t keep his hands busy, he was really worried he might just hoist her up, wrap her legs around his back, and march them into the nest he’d spied when he was working around the house.
It was a cardinal sin to peek into a woman’s nest when she hadn’t given you permission and he hadn’t. He’d just… glanced quickly through the partially opened door of her bedroom. Accidentally.
That one quick look hadn’t helped him at all. Now all he could think about was how soft and pretty it looked in there, and how desperately he needed to curl up in the blankets with her, where she’d be safe and warm and—
We’re getting there,he reminded himself for the thousandth time as he seared up a couple of frozen steaks he found buried in her freezer. He could feel Nelly beginning to soften, which should have made him less antsy, but unfortunately only wound him up more.
Just like masturbation wasn’t advised, neither was putting off the urge to nest with a mate. Clark had heard dozens of horror stories about orcs who smothered the urge, only to go absolutely nuts when they finally snapped. Usually that meant they ended up snatching their mate and holing up somewhere they probably shouldn’t, like a cave or a caravan or an abandoned house. Even a damn hole in the ground could look appealing when an orc’s instincts were out of control.
Put off long enough, the need to nest could morph into a feral desire to completely seclude a mate for weeks at a time — whether they liked it or not.
Even knowing that was a very real threat, Clark hadn’t ever given it much thought. He’d arrogantly assumed that when he found his mate, he’d have no trouble seducing them into a nest for a while. He had nothing to worry about.
I’m worrying about it now, though.
It was impossible not to. The pressure he felt to move her away from the windows, to sweep her up and lock her in the bedroom, was already immense — and getting worse by the minute. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to resist for days, weeks. At some point, he’d just become a senseless beast.
That shit was good in the bedroom, but not when he had to woo his mate in tiny, careful increments.
So he gritted his teeth and managed.
All things considered, he thought he did remarkably well through dinner preparation and then sharing their meal. He loved to listen to her talk, and he was fascinated by her childhood.
She told him all about how close she was with her sister, Clementine, and how they’d grown up drifting from one rural outpost to another. Learning that made him feel even worse about all hishelpfulness.Nelly was damn capable.
She was small, yes. She was physically weaker than him, certainly.
But she knew how to calibrate her generator. She could start a fire in ten seconds flat. She was trained in field medicine. She’d even lived on several different farms as temporary help with her sister as they took online college courses.
The more he learned about her, the more he realized that his mate was actually pretty damn extraordinary.
“People tend to think I don’t know what I’m doing because of how I dress or because of my… my habits, I guess,” she explained, shrugging helplessly as she speared a quartered and roasted fingerling potato. “I’m used to it, but it still sucks.”
Clark tried not to watch her mouth too closely, but it was hard. It was made even harder when the mulled wine stained her lips a lovely, freshly bitten red. “I love the way you dress and I don’t have a single complaint about your habits — ’sides you avoiding me, maybe,” he’d answered gruffly.
