Page 71 of Rejected Alpha Mate

Yeah, but I’m scared.

Yeah, but everything is changing.

Yeah, but I almost lost you.

I sit beside her and gently nudge her knee. “You can talk to me, you know,” I remind her.

She stares at the forest for a long moment before answering. “I don’t know how to feel right now. Everything is so…peaceful. That almost makes it worse.”

“Because peace never lasts,” I murmur.

She swallows. “Exactly.”

I reach out, brushing a thumb across the back of her hand, and she doesn’t pull away.

“I can’t promise we won’t face more challenges,” I say. “But I can promise I’ll face it with you.”

Her eyes shimmer faintly, and she looks away quickly, pretending to be interested in her food. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

“I’m sure of you,” I correct softly. “Of us.”

Donna’s breath catches, and for several heartbeats, neither of us moves, staring deeply into each other’s eyes. The air shifts, warm and fragile and charged with something too powerful, too extraordinary to be named.

We eat in silence, spending most of the morning enjoying the comfortable quiet. By midday, we’re walking around the luxury campsite hand in hand, exploring what Terramor has to offer, and playing a game of ladder golf. This seems to work to lift Donna’s spirits, and by the early evening, she’s grinning from ear to ear as she munches on some cotton candy.

When we return to our tent, the fairy lights draped over the structure are lit up. Donna holds out what’s left of her cotton candy on the stick, then brings her hand up to her lips to lick the traces of colored sugar between her thumb and forefinger.

I can’t help myself, and end up indulging in the sight of her tongue skimming her skin, awareness pulsing through me like it’s in my blood, my mouth watering as if it’s my tongue tasting her flesh.

“I’m going inside to change,” she says, meeting my eyes.

I blink, snapping out of my daze. “Change?”

She raises one brow. “You said to pack a bathing suit, didn’t you?”

My pulse stutters, and I gulp hard.

Goddess, she’s going to kill me!

I force a casual shrug. “Maybe.”

Donna smirks as she heads inside. “Then maybe I’ll wear it.”

The tent door at the back closes behind her, and I inhale sharply, running a hand down my face before running my fingers through my hair.

Why am I nervous about this? It’s just a hot tub, and Donna seems eager about it. But the moment she walks out in her bathing suit, a towel wrapped around her hips, one thigh peeking out from the slit, I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.

The heart palpitations are overbearing, and I have to pick my jaw up off the floor as she comes toward me, throwing a towel at me.

“So, is it the pool or the hot tub?” she asks casually, slipping her arm through mine.

Why is she so calm about this?

“H-hot tub,” I stammer, trying to compose myself as I lead her out there. “You didn’t get to experience it that night, and neither did I.”

“Good. Then it’s something we get to do for the first time, together,” she says, still smiling as we head to the hot tub.

Why am I so nervous?