“Thank you,” Tegan said as I rolled out of bed to put the washcloth in the hamper.
“It’s no problem,” I mumbled. I slid into bed beside her. “Come here.”
Tegan shimmied closer to me, and I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her tight against my chest.
“This is nice,” I said. “Actually, everything about tonight has been amazing.”
I kissed her head, taking a deep inhale of her hair. She smelled like flowers.
“It has been amazing, hasn’t it?” Her fingers absentmindedly played with my chest hair, and I felt her breathing slow. “Tell me more about yourself. I want to know more.”
“Like what?” I asked with a laugh.
“What happened with your ex? Why do you hate this house so much?”
Woof.
She was going right for the difficult questions.
I took a deep breath and watched Tegan’s head rise and fall with my chest. I couldn’t tell her that Jade and I were engaged, at least not yet, but Icouldtell her why I ended things.
“She just—we—we were too different. She was putting a lot of pressure on me and I—I just wasn’t feeling it. It wasn’t the commitment that scared me. It was her.”
Tegan tilted her head to look up at me, obviously waiting for me to keep going.
“Have you ever been with someone where it just feels like you’re going through the motions? You’re in so deep that it feels hopeless. Like you’re trapped and there’s no way out?” I took a deep breath. “That’s how I felt with her. And one day, I was just tired of it. I told her it was over and that she needed to leave. She made a huge scene. Talked shit about me to all her friends. It was a really low point in my life. I had never felt so alone.”
“Atlas.” She snuggled closer to me, the physical connection I had with her spurring me to continue.
“Fallon and Cyrus stuck by me the entire time. We hung out every day for months. I threw myself back into training, and that’s about all I’ve been doing since.” I gripped Tegan’s hand. “Andthen I met you and my stupid fucking tail hasn’t stopped wagging since.”
Tegan giggled and propped herself up on her elbow, putting her face-to-face with me. “Well, I’m glad you chose what was best for you, Atlas Oberon. And I happen to like that stupid fucking tail of yours. Very much.”
Gods, she was everything.
Here we were, lying in bed after having sex for the first time, and I was already unloading my emotional baggage on her. The exact opposite of what Fallon told me to do. But Tegan took it in stride, like she did with everything else.
I leaned forward and pressed the cold tip of my nose against hers. “A moment of discomfort is nothing compared to a lifetime of unhappiness. Knowing that it led me to you, I’d make that choice again and again.”
Fuck.
I couldn’t believe those words just came out of my mouth. She was going to think I was a total creep. I might as well have said that I was in love with her.
Truth be told, I think I was.
Twenty-Seven
Tegan
The full moon crested thenight sky, bathing the field in bright white light. Tall grass swayed around me, the light breeze pebbling my bare skin. Off in the distance I could hear something—the faint rustling of footsteps—slowly moving closer.
My heart kick-started, beating so fast I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears. The rustling moved closer, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Fear overwhelmed me. My instincts took control, and I started to run.
My feet pounded against the earth and my lungs screamed, but whatever it was that was following me—hunting me—slowly closed in. It leapt out of the grass, the moonlight catching the silver fur spanning across its broad back.
Instead of slamming into the ground, I was gently lowered, wrapped in a strong pair of arms. A cool nose pressed against my neck, a purr resonating out of its chest and into mine—as if it was trying to soothe me. I inhaled deeply, fighting to catch my breath, only to be met by a familiar scent. Atlas’s familiar scent.
“Tegan,” he said, my name rumbling out of him like thunder.
