Page 8

8

AREN

I had in mind that my mate would be more eager to share my bed, not desperately scan the room like she’s looking for a way out of it.

“It’s a big bed,” I reassure her. “You won’t even know I’m in it.”

Lie.

The second those lights are out, I’m going to be doing everything humanly possible to seduce her into forgetting all about the apology she wants from me.

Mates are bound by fate. We can’t read each other’s minds, but from her narrow-eyed stare, it’s clear she just read mine.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

Another lie. Probably not gentlemanly of me, but Kat is mine. She’s here in Burning Wood, and I have limited time to convince her to stay.

“I’m not sleeping in that bed,” she says. “So you can forget about it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” I growl.

“You fucked women in it.”

I smirk. “So you’re jealous?”

Jealous is good. Jealous is a sign she wants me as much as I want her.

“I feel the same way you would feel about sleeping in the same bed that I’d fucked my ex-boyfriends,” she says.

A growl emerges from my lips before I can silence it.

The thought of any man touching her, let alone sharing her bed…

I walk her into the nearest wall, press both palms to the wall on either side of her head, and lean in close, inhaling her scent as I cage her in.

Honeysuckle and fresh fall leaves—heady, sweet, and intoxicating.

No woman has ever smelled so good to me. I want to put my mark on her neck, biting her there so everyone will know she’s mine.

And I need to lap between her thighs, know exactly how she tastes.

I want her in every way a man could claim a woman.

“ Mine .”

Her breath changes.

She feels the bond between us. She can’t help but feel the strands tying us together.

I lean a little closer, expecting a punch in the gut, but her eyes—those incredible blue eyes flecked with hazel—study me as I press my mouth very lightly to the spot on her throat that I want to bite down.

“I have had dreams.” I hold her gaze as I drag more of her potent scent into my lungs. “Biting. Fucking. Tasting. Let me.”

Her breathing changes again, turns shallow.

A whisper of touch brushes my lower belly. I feel myself harden in response, wanting to grip her wrist and tug her hand lower.

“No,” she says very quietly.

But that isn’t what the heat in her gaze is saying. And the subtle, rich scent of her arousal is giving away so much more than that.

She might not want to want me, but it’s clear she does. “I know when a woman is thinking of fucking.”

She doesn’t respond. But her eyes… her beautiful eyes are on me, and I keep thinking of all the things I want to do to her and have her watch me with that focused intensity.

Like nudging her thighs apart before I lowered my head.

Yes . My wolf wouldn’t mind the taste of her on my tongue.

Her on her knees and those lush lips wrapped around my cock. Watching me as she sucked. Then swallowed. Never taking those eyes off me.

My cock throbs as I fight to keep my hands on the wall, off of her, and not do the thing I increasingly want to do—rip those clothes off my beautiful mate’s body and make her scream my name.

My eyes flick to her lips. “Tell me no.”

She says nothing, but I know she wants this as much as I do.

I lean in closer, angling my head for the perfect angle.

Just one kiss and I can change her mind about me. She will forget all about this begging that she says she wants from me.

Her hands come up between us and she looks me right in the eye. “ No .”

I grumble, annoyed because it’s not looking like any step with her is going to be easy.

I’m the Alpha. I’m used to winning every fight and always getting my way.

That’s the way it’s been for years. And now…

Now I take in my mate’s stubborn expression and I don’t know what to do to get her to trust me. Because that’s what this is. She doesn’t trust me. And I need her to.

“You’re going to fight me every step of the way, aren’t you?” I grumble.

My wolf, and maybe a little of the man as well, likes her fighting spirit. That I can’t manipulate her the way I do anyone else. That she’s going to make me work for it.

I’ve always liked a challenge, and Kat Meadow is proving to be my biggest challenge of all.

She lifts her chin. “I am.”

Grumbling, I pull my hands off the wall and take a step back. “Fine. Tagge won't leave until he's convinced things are right between us. We might as well enjoy it.”

I know I will.

Something that feels an awful lot like fear squeezes my heart when she picks up her bag from the floor and turns to walk out.

“Where are you going?”

She peers over her shoulder. “I’m not sleeping in that bed. I can sleep in the bunkhouse with everyone else.”

“ Kat …” I reach for her and swallow my frustration when she side-steps me, evading my touch. “You’re not everyone else. You’re my mate . You sleep with me.”

“No, thanks.” Her tone is curt.

Doesn’t want me to touch her, kiss her, or even share the same room as me.

She doesn’t want anything from me, and I don’t know what to do to change that.

I’m following her out into the hallway when Tagge appears at the top of the stairs.

He has no reason to be up here unless he was snooping. His room is behind the bunkhouse, a special cabin big enough for five or six people.

We rarely have guests. Usually, we have new prospects, shifters from other packs looking to move and settle here. That happens maybe once or twice a year. Other times, the cabin stays empty.

His gaze bounces from me to Kat, and he arches his eyebrow. “Problem?”

I know exactly what would happen if the answer to that question is yes.

He’d be right back to shoving his sister at me.

“Nope.” I grip Kat’s hand and draw her back into the room. “No problem.”

I close the door and lift my finger to my lips as I nod toward the closed door, mouthing, “ he is listening .”

Thankfully, she doesn’t try to fight me. She just nods.

We listen to the slow tread of steps down the stairs.

“You can’t sleep somewhere else,” I whisper. “He will find out, and I will wake up with his sister in my bed. I’ll kill her. Then Tagge will try to kill me. He will fail, and his pack will want revenge. There will be a civil war.”

She arches an eyebrow and her tone is dry when she says, “You have that all worked out, huh?”

“Take the bed, Kat.”

When she doesn’t respond, I nod, relieved that I’ve finally won a battle with her.

I head for the bathroom to get ready for bed, hoping she’s packed some sexy lingerie in her bag. It’s wishful thinking on my part, but I can’t help it.

I’m not long in the bathroom. But when I walk out, I scowl at the pretty brown wolf on the floor in the corner.

“You’re not sleeping on the floor,” I growl.

She looks at me, sniffs, and lowers her head again, closing her eyes.

I stand there and I don’t know what to do.

Then I look at the bed.

I washed the sheets even before I broke things off with Marisa. As soon as Kat entered my life, I had no interest in anyone but her. The sheets no longer smell of my former lover. What else can I do? How can I sleep on the bed and leave my mate to sleep on the floor?

I look around the room.

There’s no spare bedding up here. That’s downstairs in the laundry room, and if I go down there, I’ll probably bump into Tagge, who will wonder why I need extra bedding.

But this is Kat. I can’t leave her to sleep on hardwood floors.

I walk over to my closet, pull it open, and grab the sweaters I wear in the winter when even a wolf gets cold.

I cross over to where Kat is curled up on the floor and drop the clothes beside her. “Here. Sleep on that if you won’t take the bed.”

She doesn’t lift her head, though her breathing isn’t steady enough for her to be sleeping yet.

She’s awake. Just ignoring me.

I get into bed, leaving my shorts on even though I usually sleep in the nude. Kat doesn’t need even more of a reason to keep her distance.

I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, as I tell myself to sleep. That arguing with Kat about this will only drive her away.

You need to learn to pick your battles with her. And you need to earn her trust. She will never stay if she doesn’t trust you.

When I blink my eyes open, the room is almost pitch black. I must have fallen asleep. Turning my head, I focus on the small wolf.

She hasn’t slept on my pile of clothes. She’s still on the hardwood floors, and, for the longest time, I don’t know what to do.

My wolf growls at me to do something for our mate, but she wants nothing I give her.

If I pick her up and put her on the pile of clothes, she’ll bite me for it.

She wants an apology from me that I can’t give, and is rejecting every single thing I do to show her I won’t mess up again.

And she said she’s going back to the city. To start a new job. When I broke into her apartment, I had time to nose around her closets and drawers. She had new linens, pots and pans, sheets—everything necessary to start a new life.

And she intends to go back to it.

Without me.

The bonds between us are growing, as they should with fated mates, but she acts like they don’t exist. Because she can’t feel them?

Will I be the first shifter who has his mate walk away from him?

What if I lose her?