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Elle rocked back on her heels. “Whoa, bro, what’s the rush? You okay?”
Tate flexed his fingers. “Yeah.” He heard the doorbell chime behind him. Ashlynn’s scent reached him just as Elle’s face hardened.
His sister’s gaze tracked Ashlynn as the woman hurried away. “Is the bitch bothering you?”
“You could say that,” he replied, ushering his sister to the side so she wouldn’t be jostled by pedestrians. “I don’t remember her having selective hearing, but she seems to have it now.”
“It’s not that she’s hearing only what she wants to hear,” said Luke. “She’s keeping up the pressure because she’s determined to hear what she wants to hear, which is that you’ll take her back.”
“That’ll never happen,” said Tate.
“We know that,” Elle assured him. “Most of the pride knows that. Some are hoping you’ll give her another shot, though heaven knows why. It would be the last thing she deserves.” Elle cocked her head. “You look tired, bro.”
He was tired. Tired of dealing with Ashlynn. Tired of his efforts to find Gideon York getting him nowhere. Tired of being unable to unearth any info about the auctions. More, he was tired of fighting the urge to go see a certain devil shifter. “I’ve got a lot going on right now.”
“You also look sexually frustrated—it’s written all over you. I’d point out that many of the single females in our pride would be more than happen to help you out with that, but I don’t think I’m wrong in sensing that the only female you want to sexually tangle with right now is Havana. You talked to her lately?”
His chest squeezed just hearing her name. He couldn’t go a single day without thinking of her. The seemingly relentless urge to brand her was still his constant companion. Sometimes, it rode him so hard he almost shook with it. And the idea that she was somewhere out there trying to move on from him … yeah, he just hated it, even though he knew this was the way it had to be.
The time they’d spent apart hadn’t eased his cat’s obsession with her. The feline was pissed at Tate. Although Havana was the one who ended the fling, his cat wasn’t upset with her at all. No, the feline didn’t find it an excuse as to why Tate wouldn’t go to her, because the cat knew him inside out; knew that Tate never let anyone else dictate his actions. The way his cat saw it, Tate was the one keeping him away from what he wanted most.
Maybe her now being strictly off-limits was what kept the feline so fascinated with her. Whatever the case, Tate was having no luck forcing his cat to move the fuck on. But since Tate himself wasn’t doing much better at that, he wasn’t in a position to judge.
“No, I haven’t,” he finally replied. “She wants what I can’t give her, so …”
“Would it really be so bad to give it to her?”
No, it wouldn’t. Tate wasn’t keen on relationships, but he liked Havana enough that he’d be interested in seeing if they could build something good. The problem was … “My cat would hurt her. Not physically, but emotionally.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. This could be the one time he truly is interested in a female on more than one level.”
Tate snorted. “I’ve had that thought several times with other women, Elle. It was never the case then. I can’t risk that it isn’t the case now, because I’ve already hurt Havana without meaning to. I won’t do something knowing I could hurt her again.”
“So you’ve cut contact with her?”
“Yes.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
It wasn’t working for him at all. He missed her voice, her smile, her scent, her laugh. And he couldn’t get the last memory he had of her out of his mind—the sad look on her face as she’d told him to take care of himself before heading into her apartment building. Fuck. He’d done that. He’d made her feel that way. He’d put that look there. The knowledge gutted him.
Luke put a hand on Tate’s shoulder. “So your plan is to grow old and die alone?”
Tate blinked. “What?”
“If this is going to be your knee-jerk response to women wanting more from you, how do you ever expect to eventually commit to one?” asked Luke. “If you’re waiting for your true mate, fine, but there’s no saying you’ll recognize her instantly. Oh look, there’s Damian.”
Tate tipped his chin at their youngest brother, who was walking along the opposite side of the street with a friend. Damian waved at them.
Elle perched a hand on her hip. “Look at him strolling around like he’s a normal person and not the son of Satan. He blends well—I’ll give him that.”
Tate sighed. “Do you think you’ll ever reach a mental place where you no longer feel compelled to brand our baby brother the Antichrist?”
