Wyatt chuckled. “Your choice.”
“I dare you to cuddle with me.”
“Don’t know if I can handle that,” he said, as he rolled to his side and carefully tucked me up against him.
My throat swelled.
I hadn’t shared a bed with anyone in so long. I’d never liked it when I was younger. It had been too intimate.
With Wyatt, it just felt… safe.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
He still smelled like home.
But neither of us had really had enough time to work through everything that changed. Wyatt hadn’t wanted a new mate before. I knew I should probably give him an out, just in case he needed it. The last thing I wanted was to make him feel trapped.
“If you decide you want out after you have time to process everything, I’ll understand,” I said quietly. “The mate thing happened fast, and I can be a lot. I’m not going to apologize for it, but I do understand that it can get overwhelming for some people. We can try to make our wolves satisfied with just being friends or something if you don’t think you can survive rejection.”
“I’m still wrapping my mind around everything, but I’m really damn sure I don’t want us to be just friends, Hoover.” Wyatt’s arm tightened around my middle, pulling me against his back a little harder. His erection was impossible not to notice, wedged against my ass the way it was.
“You don’t know if you’ll get burnt out by all of it yet.”
“All of what? You?”
“Yes.”
The man laughed. A rumbly, full-belly laugh.
My face warmed.
“You’re a breath of fresh air, Jade. You tell it like it is and don’t try to dull yourself for other people. I’m sure we’ll butt heads every now and then, but I’d have to be fucking insane to get tired of it.”
I melted at that. Just a little.
“You don’t even know if you want to have a mate,” I said, though there was no bite behind the words.
“I don’t know how I feel about having one,” he said. “But if it’s anything like the second half of today has been, I’m a really lucky bastard.”
“Okay.” I closed my eyes.
The conversation was short, but it eased my fears significantly.
“When do you think this starts feeling real?” he asked me, his voice quiet and his arm still locked around my waist.
“I don’t think it’s just going to suddenly feel real. I think your mind is slowly going to adapt as your life does. Eventually, you’ll have a hard time remembering what it was like before things changed. Which could potentially be good, or bad.”
“We’ll figure out a way to make it good,” Wyatt said.
“I hope so.”
“We will.” He sounded more certain than I felt, but I wasn’t opposed to that. If anything, I was grateful for it.
His lips brushed my cheek. The kiss was foreign, but I liked it tremendously. “We might need to stay in your toaster until you get that lab job, so you can keep teaching.”
“Yeah. Or until the chase is over, if I don’t get it.”
“You’re going to.”
