“Yeeeeessss.” I didn’t need a dictionary or an interpreter to tell me he was wary.
“It’s like that, but a shifter recognizes his fated mate’s scent instantly.”
Bronson nodded and his arms fell to his side. Okay, we weren’t there yet, but slowly slowly.
“But I don’t want someone or an entity to choose who I fall in love with.”
Ummm, instead of going forward, we’d reversed. And while my panther couldn’t understand the problem, I had to listen and empathize with my mate.
“I agree. And you do. Just because I fell in love with you at first sight, that doesn’t decree that you must do the same. You have free will.”
Please choose me,I begged.
He sat beside me, though he wasn’t close enough. “Describe it for me if you can. How you experienced meeting me and discovering I was your mate.”
How was I to put into words something indefinable? “Ummm, it was sort of like gravity. Your scent hit me, and I would have slammed headfirst into the coffee shop table if I hadn’t restrained myself.”
“That bad, huh?” His lips were forming a smirk.
“You sound proud, as though ‘wow, I did that. I am so good.’”
He giggled. “Yeah, why not. It’s not often a human has such power over another person, in a good way.”
I didn’t want to delve into the many examples through history of the not-so-good kind of influence.
He wanted more details, such as did the bond fade over time. But it’d only been a week. For some shifters, it did weaken, but it was never severed.
“Every moment you’re not with me, my body aches to be at your side.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.” He pulled his legs up and sat cross-legged which was another defense move.
“We started out… I started… we… us… whatever… I messed up by lying, and this is me being truthful.”
He nibbled a nail, and we sat in silence. My heartbeats echoed in my head, and my panther demanded I adjust the sound.
“I didn’t ask for this, Lincoln.”
Ouch! Double ouch. I bent forward as his words punched me in the gut.
“My intention is not to hurt you, but to discover that the weird guy you have a crush on is your destiny is not something I can process in a few minutes.”
That wasn’t a no.
“What if we never see one another again after today?”
My beast was clawing at my insides, begging me to make Bronson change his mind.
“That’s your choice to make.”
How I got the words out, I didn’t know. I wanted to throw up, though shifters rarely did, except when we drank too much. Shifting and running wasn’t an option and neither was screaming into a pillow. So I sat still, not daring to move in case I slammed my lips onto his or got on my knees and pleaded that he be mine.
But I refused to use our bond to manipulate my mate.
You’re not telling him the truth.
The whole truth. I could live with myself for this omission. What I couldn’t live with was Bronson agreeing to be with me out of guilt.
He asked for more time to figure things out and I perked up, just a tad. That wasn’t a no.
