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“Anything? Would you have fucked someone if that’s the price they wanted?” he demanded. “What did you give Curt to get his help, huh? Why did he tell me he was going to steal my mate from me?”
I wrestled myself out of Cole’s arms and stood, my hands balled at my sides as I breathed hard. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to accuse me of cheating on you? Now? After everything?”
“Why would Curt suddenly be carrying a torch for you when he was trying to ruin your life a little while ago? What would have changed?”
“Cole, he’s a fucking sociopath, why would I have any idea?” I asked impatiently. “Men like him just like to take things from other people because it makes them feel powerful. That’s why they never date passive women—they want someone they can force into submission. For all I know, he could have said it just to cause this argument between us.”
Silence fell between us for a few uncomfortable moments. I didn’t want to walk out on Cole, and I certainly had no wish to end things between us...but I’d never heard him say things like this before, and I wasn’t about to let myself fall into the same trap I had with Wyatt.
I was finally building myself up, and I wouldn’t let Cole take that away from me. Even if it would crush me to lose him.
Just as I was about to take his silence as an answer, he finally exhaled and rubbed his hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I don’t...I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like my thoughts are a fucking mess right now.”
I slackened, not even realizing how tautly I was holding myself until that moment. My muscles ached after abandoning their readied coil, my hands going shaky with nerves now that the threat was gone.
“I’m sorry, Marley,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry for scaring you like that. I’m sorry for being an ass. I’m sorry for being so broken and fucked up right now.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I said, coming back over to the bed and sitting next to him. “Well, not for being fucked up, anyway. You can apologize for going all alpha possessive bro on me and accusing me of cheating on you.”
He gave me a weak smile and nodded. “I am sorry for that. You’ve done nothing to deserve that kind of accusation from me, and I should be better than that.”
“It’s alright,” I said. “You know I love you, and you know I’m utterly devoted to you. You should be able to feel that for yourself.”
He nodded. “I can,” he said. “And sometimes, I don’t know if it's better or worse for me. On one hand, it feels amazing to know you love me. On the other hand, I feel like I don’t deserve it, and I worry that I’m taking advantage of how sweet you are.”
“I don’t feel taken advantage of,” I said, brushing a hand over his back. “And I think I would know what it feels like by now.”
He smiled softly. “Yeah, you probably do,” he said. “So...we’re finally taking the leap, then? Doing the transition?”
“I think now is the time,” I said. “With Curt’s impending war declaration and the approval process for Noah’s adoption, it just doesn’t make sense to wait any longer. Especially when we have so much tension with the new recruits. We need as much muscle as we can get behind our philosophies,” I said. “Sounds weird to say, but I think we need to kinda shame behavior like Ashton’s out of the pack. I’m not sure the gentle approach is working.”
“No, it most definitely isn’t working,” Cole agreed. “I feel stupid for letting it get this bad.”
“You’ve said a lot of mean things about yourself today,” I pointed out. “How about we take a few minutes to build you back up while you get some much-needed rest?”
Cole nodded. “Is Noah alright?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s with his little friend from Canada. Daisy, I think it was?”
Cole smiled. “She’s a sweet kid. Smart as a whip, too.”
“Yeah, she sounds like it,” I said. “At any rate, we need to get you patched up before we have you go comfort Noah. You know he can sense when you’re feeling upset or stressed—sometimes, even better than I can.”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Want to read our wedding vows again?” I offered. “They were so pretty. I know I could benefit from hearing the ones you wrote for me.”
“Read them? I still know them by heart, sweetheart,” he said with a grin.
“Oh, are you flexing on me? You know I have the memory of a squirrel,” I teased. “Not all of us have a steel trap for a mind.”
“Not flexing on you…but definitely flexing,” he teased back. Turning his body a bit, he smoothed his fingers up the side of my jaw until they grasped the nape of my neck, just as I liked. He curled his fingers into the hairs there and leaned down to kiss me, his mouth claiming mine with sweet possessiveness.
I felt the last bits of tension melt out of me as I exhaled through my nose. Kissing him somehow never got old. He smoothed his other hand down my side before scooping me up into his arms. After a bit of finagling, he got his knees on the bed and carried me back toward the pillows, where he laid me down and held his body over mine. His knee found a comfortable spot between my legs while his other leg settled out at an angle so that I could feel the planes of his body press against mine, but not so much as to make me feel crushed under him.
In a strange way, it felt like being young again. Like being a teenage girl in the throes of first love, sneaking in a make-out session with the bedroom door barely cracked open, as per house rules. It was a sensation I’d never really gotten to experience. Wyatt hadn’t been allowed in our house, and I hadn’t been allowed in his. We’d had to steal all our kisses in the dark corners of school hallways until I was old enough to defy my parents’ orders.
I was so happy that I got to actually experience love and care like this. So happy that it still felt new and exciting, that it still made my heart flutter.
