“Holy shit,” I said, completely out of breath.
“Fucking hell.”
“I think I’m about to pass out.”
“I think I did pass out. What year is it?”
“Um, 1996, right?”
“Right. Yeah.” He laughed and leaned in to kiss me before he gently pulled himself out and put my legs back down, my feet planting on the plush rug. Tingles coursed through me, little postorgasmic shocks that cumulated in a shiver that ran all across my shoulders.
Gabe went into the bathroom and came back out with a damp towel. He wiped my stomach clean for me before setting the towel in the hamper and offering me water.
“No, I’m okay.” I glanced at my watch. Holy shit, it was one o’clock in the morning, I thought it was still much earlier. Gabe probably needed to go to bed.
“Do you want to stay the night?” he asked as if reading my mind. There was something in the tone of his question that I couldn’t quite place.
Excitement?
“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to play it cool. “If you don’t mind.”
He gave me a look that said “of course I don’t fucking mind” before he climbed into bed and got in next to me. It was like an instinct to lean into him and cuddle against him. The way a baby sea turtle knew to follow the light of the moon toward the ocean or the way a salmon knew how to swim back home.
Or how a wolf knew to howl at the moon.
I wonder if they do that… Have to file that question away for another day.
I put my head on his chest, my hand on his furry abs. That crescent-shaped scar from today’s earlier attack was raised but no longer red or inflamed. It was as if he’d gotten that scar from a childhood accident and not from a battle that took place hours before.
It was proof that what he said wasn’t a farce, wasn’t afairy tale. This was all real, and I was now tangled up in it—tangled up withhim.
I should feel like I was in danger. This man could rip me to shreds in a heartbeat if he wanted. There was another shifter actively hunting me for reasons I couldn’t even begin to guess at. Millions of years of evolution honed my fear instincts for absolutely nothing, because even though everything about this situation screamed “run!” all I wanted to do was stay.
And so I did.
Chapter Twenty-One
How Do You Like Your Eggs?
GABE
Bacon sizzledon the pan as I transferred some onto a plate. Admittedly, I wasn’t the best cook in the world and could only really handle breakfast, but thankfully, Eli didn’t seem like a very picky customer. I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and poured us both full cups of coffee. The smell alone was enough to give me a little boost of much-needed energy.
“Smells great,” Eli said as he shuffled into the kitchen. He was shirtless still, only wearing a pair of red and white boxers I’d given him since his underwear still sat somewhere out in my yard. He ran a hand through his messy, wavy hair. He had put on deodorant—I could smell the piney, perfumey brand—but his natural (and intoxicating) scent pushed through, past the bacon grease and cheesy and peppery omelettes.
“And you look great,” I said, my dick twitching awake in my shorts. I had to control myself. I’d already gotten a taste of him and wanted another bite.
And if I had any doubt before about Eli being my fatedmate, I had zero questions this morning. Not after that visceral, almost out-of-body experience I had last night when I pushed inside him for the first time. I’d never felt anything like it. And I’d been with men before. I wasn’t a virgin—I had fucked guys and then sent them on their way with an ironclad NDA and without a second thought about them.
Last night was different. It was what I imagined a religious experience to be like. I’d been converted to the Church of Eli Sager and was ready to chug whatever flavored Kool-Aid he wanted to hand me.
It started first as an intense wave of pleasure. I thought I was going to come from just burying myself inside him. But the pleasure morphed; it cocooned me. My vision shimmered as if I were looking through a magic portal. It felt as if an invisible hand had wrapped itself around us, picked us up, and launched us through eons of space and time. I flew past the dinosaurs, past the Roman Empire, past the Britney Spears and Madonna kiss at the VMAs, experiencing everything and anything all at once.
Then he said my name and yanked me right back to the present.
Yeah, I remembered thinking as I regained control of my body.This is fate.
He smiled as he grabbed one of the plates. “Thank you for making breakfast.”
