Page 71 of Remington’s Mate

“Yeah.” He kissed her twice, just because he could. “We hung out, and then looked for game room furniture. It was bro-like.” He decided he liked coming home and having someone to kiss, so he kissed her again. “You seem to have had a busy afternoon.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “I had things to do.”

“I can see that.”

He idly picked up his can of shaving cream and put it back down, slightly out of place.

Her fingers twitched. She wanted to put it back.

Remy said, “We’re having a crew barbecue. You feeling okay to come down?”

“Sure. I’m almost done here.” She lined up his hairbrush and comb perfectly, and then put the shaving cream back in line. “There,” she said with satisfaction. “It’s perfect.”

Remy didn’t say anything.

Jaeda folded her arms and stared at him, daring him to object to having the fuck organized out of him.

He eyed the perfect line of stuff, not sure how to handle this. It was fine if she wanted to be neat, but this was beyond that. Plus, there was no way he was lining up his shit every day.

His leopard had become fixated on the toiletries. There are Things. On the high surface. All in a row. We should push one off.

He sighed mentally. Why?

Because we are a cat.

Mental facepalm.

On the other hand, maybe the leopard was right. Not because they were a cat, but because they needed to figure out what was going on with their mate.

Very slowly, Remy reached out with one hand and tapped his shaving cream out of line.

Jaeda’s fingers twitched again.

He pushed it again. Waited.

She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

He pushed it again and it fell off the edge of the counter. Jaeda reached her hand out and caught it, and put it back in place.

“You just had to do that, didn’t you?” she said.

He shrugged, watching her intently. “I’m a cat.”

“You’re a dick.” She started to push past him and he caught her, swinging her up and sitting her on the countertop so they were almost eye to eye. There were tears in her eyes.

He brushed her curls back off her shoulder. “What’s going on?” he asked her softly.

She didn’t look at him. “You said I could change anything I wanted.”

“You can,” he said. “You can even line up my stuff if it makes you happy. But there’s something else happening here.” And suddenly he knew what had been nagging at him. “Your apartment wasn’t like this. I mean, it was neat, but not…” he gestured at the toiletries.

“I guess not,” she said. “But the apartment was…” She trailed off.

“Was what?”

She toyed with the collar of his t-shirt. “Mine,” she said softly.

He began to smile. “You’re territorial,” he said. “Like a wolf.”