“No!” Yikes, that was too loud. “No, not at all.”
Now his smile was wider instead of tentative, and he let out a breath. “That’s good, because well, this is probably too fast, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since we met.”
I got up and sat beside him. Our thighs touched, and my shoulder brushed against his.
“I panicked because of the intensity of my emotions.”
Weston took my hand and placed it over his heart. What I was experiencing, and I hoped he was too, was nothing to do with logic. That was for humans who didn’t fall for shifters and who weren’t fated mates.
But if I elected for us to fall onto the messy mattress and have riotous sex, I was mistaken, because though Weston was smiling, I sensed something wasn’t as it should be. There was tension in his jaw and shoulders.
“Is there something you want to get off your chest? You can tell me anything.”
He cupped my chin, and I placed a hand over his, and we sat not saying anything or moving.
“It’s me, not you.”
Damn, those oft-repeated words were like a guillotine, ending whatever we had. I glanced down, expecting to see my severed head in a wicker basket.
“It’s work stuff.”
My bear was shaking his fist at me.You’re such a pessimist.
Maybe that was a result of what happened to me when I was six but didn’t see the world in black and white. There were shades of orange and green.
“You don’t want to hear about it.” He waved his hand at the papers on the desk.
“Try me.”
“I think my funding is about to fall through.” He explained the grant he was depending on that he feared was going to be pulled. “I was going to study the polar bears in this area because they’re an anomaly. Someone else will study them, but they might not do it ethically and they’ll see the den as data points instead of living creatures that deserve respect.”
He cares.
I believe he does.
I told him to tell me about his research. “I’ve lived in this area my whole life. I know the wilderness and the wildlife.”
Weston was so animated when he spoke of this work. He explained how the tracking collars were designed to fall off after a few months and that they’d help understand migration patterns and territory ranges. He spoke of conservation, protecting habitats, and making sure human expansion didn't destroy what remained of wild spaces.
“I study them so we can understand what they need to survive.”
His passion was infectious, and what he detailed was fine for wild polar bears but not for shifters. But I’d identified and destroyed one stumbling block because he wasn’t going to harmmy kin. Actually, we’d overcome two. He didn’t hate me and appeared to reciprocate my feelings for him.
“I know how to approach the polar bears' territory without spooking them.”
That was stretching the truth. I hadn’t been near the den since I was a child, and they were shifters, not wild bears. Perhaps I could lead him to my wild cousins. But was that ethical?
“I care about them too.” I’d have to perform some fancy footwork to reveal myself to Father and engage him about the study and how we were going to get around creating an uproar in the scientific community.
“What if I could help you study them and make sure it's done right?”
I needed to come clean and tell him about shifters because the deeper I got into this, the harder it was to get out. I imagined myself in a maze without an exit and each fib I told brought the damned hedges closer together.
“You'd do that? Why?”
“Because I care about them and you.”
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away. But I didn't. His lips met mine. His kiss was tentative as if he was afraid I might vanish again if he pushed too hard. I returned his kiss and tried to say what I couldn’t in words with my lips pressed on his.
