She keeps full eye contact as she states, “Like you’re trying to remember how I taste.”
I consider denying it or even making some joke to break the moment and give her an escape route.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Would that be so terrible?”
Her body goes completely still. For a long moment, she doesn’t speak, doesn’t breathe, and doesn’t do anything except sit there with her eyes fixed on mine.
“Yes,” she finally whispers. “It would.”
I push my chair back from the table and stand because if I stay in this room for one more second, I’m going to do something we’ll both regret. The mate bond screams at me to grab hold of her, shove her against the counter, and claim her mouth and finish what we started with blood and magic in that clearing. To complete the bond and mark her as mine.
But no matter how much my wolf howls in protest, and no matter how much my body burns, I won’t take what isn’t freely given.
“I’ll be outside,” I manage.
She lets out a long breath as I shove through the front door and squeeze the porch railing until my knuckles go white.
The mate bond pounds in my chest like a war drum as it reaches toward the woman I left inside. Demanding completion. Demanding her.
I close my eyes and try to remember how to breathe.
This is going to be a very long night.
Chapter 8 - Skylar
Sleep refuses to come.
I’ve been lying in this unfamiliar bed for what feels like hours, staring at the ceiling and listening to Bryan move around in the next room. Every creak of the floorboards, every rustle of fabric, every sound he makes reminds me that he’s only a few feet away. That the man I’ve spent a decade trying to forget is now my mate, bound to me by blood and magic and ancient law.
The sheets smell like him.
I don’t know how that’s possible when he’s never slept in this bed. Maybe it’s the cabin itself, saturated with his scent after even just a few days. Maybe it’s the mate bond playing tricks on my senses, amplifying everything about him until I can’t escape it, no matter how hard I try. Either way, I’m surrounded by his woodsy musk, and my body is responding in ways I can’t control.
I roll onto my side and punch the pillow into a different shape. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
Through the wall, I hear Bryan settle onto the couch. The leather creaks under his weight, and then there’s silence. He’s probably lying there in the dark just like I am, staring at nothing and thinking about everything that happened today. About the ceremony and the blood and the vows, neither of us wanted to make.
Or maybe he’s already asleep. Maybe this is easy for him. Maybe he doesn’t feel the bond the same way I do, doesn’t have his skin crawling with the need to be closer, doesn’t have to fight the urge to get up and walk into the next room and—
I shut that thought down before it could finish forming.
The mate bond simmers in my chest, reaching toward him like a plant seeking sunlight. I can feel his presence on the other side of that wall and sense the edges of his emotions bleeding into mine. He’s not asleep. He’s just as awake as I am, just as aware of the distance between us and how easy it would be to close it. The knowledge makes something low in my belly tighten with want.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think about something else. Anything else.
Work. I should think about work. Tomorrow I have three scheduled appointments in the morning and then a staff meeting after lunch. Fern wants to discuss expanding the trauma support group, and I promised to help her put together a proposal for Nic. There’s also the supply inventory that’s been sitting on my desk for a week, and I really need to follow up with that elderly patient about his cough. Maybe I should check on the teenage girl with the twisted ankle too, make sure she’s staying off it like I told her to—
Bryan adjusts his position on the couch, and the sound derails my entire train of thought.
I can picture him out there, lying on his back with one arm folded behind his head and his chest bare because he never could stand wearing a shirt to bed. The scars I noticed earlier when he was naked in the woods would be on display, mapping a decade of violence across his skin.
That sensitive spot between my legs throbs at the image, and I press my thighs together in frustration.
This is ridiculous. I hate him. I hate what he did to me. He left without explanation, then he came back and forced me into this bond because his demons followed him home. I should notbe lying here thinking about his body and his scent and what it would feel like to have his weight pressing me into this mattress.
Stop it.
I flip onto my other side and stare at the wall instead of the ceiling. The mate bond wants me to go to him. It wants me to stop fighting and give in and let nature take its course, the way it’s been trying to since the moment our names were drawn together.
