Ours.
This time, it was like Case heard the rumble of his wolf’s voice in his chest, not his head. It seemed to reverberate from somewhere deep inside him, like it was too primal to be athought. It was like it was a feeling so deep it had to be tied up with blood and bone, inseparable from him on a cellular level. This must be what the mate bond felt like.
No matter how cautious he wanted to be, Case couldn’t argue with such a fundamental part of himself. He added to it:
And we’re hers.
That was the part he could control. He couldn’t guarantee that Lydia would want him around forever, but he could sure as hellofferforever.
His wolf’s satisfaction was savagely joyous.
Yes,it said, in that same warm growl that reverberated through him.We are hers.
“So, I was thinking,” Lydia said. Her breath was a gentle breeze across his chest.
“What about?”
Is your wolf doing cartwheels over this like mine?
“We may have just exhausted ourselves and had an incredible time doing it, but it’s still not that late. So that means two things. Number one: we might be able to haveanotherincredible time before we go to sleep.”
Her voice turned husky and low on the last few words, and Case ... well, yeah. Case was pretty sure a second incredible time would not be a problem. He would be willing to try for it immediately, in fact.
“I am absolutely one hundred percent behind that idea.”
He could feel the corner of Lydia’s mouth turn up as she smiled without lifting her head. “I was hoping you would be.”
“What’s point number two?”
“Not as brilliant as my earlier work,” she said solemnly, “but I think it’s still a winner. We could order room service for dinner.”
“I’m good with that too. You know, I’ve never actually had it? If I’m not traveling in the RV, I’m usually somewhere a little plainer. Clean and quiet, sure, but more likely to have a vending machine in the hallway than a menu by the phone.”
“And I don’t usually go anywhere at all, so I’ve never had it either.”
It was funny. They were perfectly matched on the inside—he couldn’t think of any other way to describe therightnessthat he felt with her—but they’d lived very different lives.
That was good too, of course: puzzle pieces had to have different shapes to fit together. She knew what it was like to have a home, with a sense of roots and responsibility and family; he knew what it was like to have a wanderer’s freedom, with its unique combination of openness and loneliness. They gave something to each other, something more than he thought either of them had initially counted on. Something they could never have found on their own.
This was even better, though. This wasn’t about her life adding to his, or his to hers. It was about theirnewlife, the one they had just started sharing.
Neither of them had done this before, and they were only going to do it now because they were together and their shared road had brought them here.
Case liked that.
Lydia hauled the heavy, leather-bound room service menu off the bedside table, and they perused it together.
“These people really like rosemary,” Lydia said, darting her finger back and forth between rosemary-sprig lamb, saladsgarnished with fried rosemary, rosemary flatbread, chicken noodle soup with rosemary .... “I mean, I like it too, but wow.”
“Maybe the chef’s name is Rosemary too, for consistency’s sake.”
“In that case, do you think she’ll be offended if we order anything rosemary-free?”
Case pressed his lips together in mock thought. “We might not want to risk it. Not when it comes to the main course, anyway. We’ve still got everything from the bakery, so we can have a rosemary-free dessert.”
He ordered the rosemary-sprig lamb with the rosemary and garlic potatoes, and Lydia went for the tenderloin with a rosemary breadcrumb crust and rosemary-roasted root vegetables. (And, to ensure Chef Rosemarywouldforgive them for not picking the lemon rosemary olive oil cake for afterwards: a rosemary gin fizz to drink.)
Lydia curled her toes into the sheets and let out a satisfied sigh as Case hung up the phone. “We’re probably going to eat ourselves to death and leave two rosemary-infused corpses, but I think it’ll be worth it. As long as we do get in round two before we die.”
