We’d spent the past six months in what people might call the honeymoon stage. We did everything together and never argued or fought. I was committed to not having the sort of relationship my parents had had, where Dad was never around much and Father kept me close under his dragon wing.
I took Cassius to all my favorite places. We would get hotel rooms and play tourist in different towns. We went to casinos and gambled like fiends. We went to the mountains, the deserts, the beaches.
It was winter so everything was decorated in fancy crystals of frost. But we dressed warmly and hiked a lot. We kissed beneath a dozen sunsets, half a dozen full moons and several snowstorms. We celebrated Winter Solstice by decorating the entire house. My porch was filled every day with packages from so much shopping online.
I still hadn’t contacted Dad. He knew nothing about it. And he didn’t try to reach me to ask. I wondered if he was curious. I remembered the invitation to Remington’s birthday party I’d completely ignored.
I looked up at the touch of Cassius’s hand on my shoulder. The water swirled around us.
“Are you feeling some sort of longing?” he asked.
We were that close. The mate bond had us experiencing each other’s emotions as if they were our own.
“I was thinking about my dad.”
His hand tightened on my shoulder. “Tell me.”
“If not for him, I wouldn’t have all this.” I waved my hand through the chilly air. “I wouldn’t have you.”
“I get it.”
The muscles around my eyes hardened. “I didn’t do anything to deserve all this.”
Cassius laughed, which shocked me. I was being serious. “You didn’t do anything? Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s true what people say. I’m a spoiled, pampered, privileged?—”
“Hey, stop.” Cassius had learned to get firm with me when I sank back into my darkness. “Do you think I’m some puppet of your father’s? We haven’t even met. I have my own mind. If you didn’t do anything, how did I get here? How am I now your bondmate?”
“Everything I do is for selfish reasons.”
“I disagree. You rented me for that first night and never touched me. How was that selfish? You were saving me when I couldn’t save myself. I needed you. I’m the selfish one who went along with it even though I was scared you might do something. At least you’d shown me some attention that was more than just sexual.”
A wave of hot water broke over my chest as Cassius swam toward me. He put his legs around my waist and grabbed my shoulders, his naked ass in my lap.
I held onto him, looking past him at the snow spotted landscape.
“I’m so in love with you,” I whispered into his ear.
“Prove it.”
When I lifted him up, his legs stayed wrapped around my waist. Water fell in sheets off our bodies. The coolness of the air felt good.
Holding him up by his ass as he clung to me, I stepped out of the hot tub and walked inside, kicking the door shut. He said nothing as I took him upstairs and laid him on the bed, my sweet omega offering.
Afterward, as we lay side by side catching our breaths, Cassius said, “Do you want to go see him?”
“Who?”
“Your dad.”
My first thought was no. Never. I bit my tongue.
Cassius added, “I mean not right away. But maybe some time?”
I stared up blindly at the ceiling. My voice came out rough. “Maybe some time.”
That time came sooner than expected. Cassius had had his second heat right when the wildflowers began to bloom. It was warm enough to swim now. When we weren’t fucking, Cassius loved to spend time in the pool to cool his fevers.
