Page 59 of Fated to the Alpha

He wanted to make this work. He wanted to make this last, and he hoped that she felt the same.

But they couldn’t forget the people who waited for them in Tolstone. He had a pack and so did she. They could make it work, but they had to go about it carefully.

“The weekend isn’t over, and there’s always next weekend too.”

“A finite number of weekends.”

The sadness in her voice nearly broke him.

Shane wrapped his arm around her and fanned his fingers across her back. “There’s also the weekdays. I don’t have much. You saw my apartment, but you’re welcome to stay over, or I can stay with you some nights.”

Kimberly angled away and searched his eyes. “You’d want that?”

“Of course. After this weekend, I don’t know if I could survive a night without you again.”

That level of honesty surprised them both.

Kimberly fluttered her lashes in flustered shock, matching the erratic uptick of her heartbeat. “To tell the truth, me neither.”

If that were the truth, why didn’t you accept the mating bond?

Shane squeezed his eyes shut against the intrusive thought. This time, that was all him. His dad had nothing to do with it.

“You okay?”

Shane cleared his through. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m … I’m just glad you feel the same way, especially after what happened last night.”

With her naked, he could see the exact place where her blush started on her chest and ended in her cheeks.

“Yeah … I’m sorry I freaked out.”

“No reason to be sorry. You’re not ready. It’s understandable. It was unexpected for both of us.”

It was her turn to crimp her eyes shut. “It’s not just that. It’s … Shane, I don’t know how to do this. For most of my life, I believed it could never work. Who we are, it just … It wouldn’t make sense because I have no dominance and you were always born to be an alpha. There are so many facts that make this complicated and—”

Panic rose in her voice, and he shushed away the lying demons in her head. He stroked his thumb along her smooth cheek. “We don’t have to figure it out right now. Let’s just take one day at a time. And for the record, you know your dominance never meant a damn thing to me.”

“It always did to our parents.”

“My dad is dead and you’re a big girl. You don’t have to believe everything your daddy said about you.”

She didn’t look like she believed him. “What about your pack? What would they think of us?”

“I know this is going to sound so Isaac, but they can deal with it. It’s my choice who I’d want by my side. The Prime Alpha has a human as a mate, and no one seems to mind. This isn’t the Stone Age. Alphas can have whoever they want as a mate.”

Kimberly tilted her head so it was half buried in the pillow. “Please stop talking about mates.”

Shane continued to caress the cheek she permitted him to touch. “My point is that your dominance is not a factor in who we choose to be or not be. If I want you and you want me, that’s all that matters.”

She peeked up at him. “I think you said something like that when we were teenagers.”

“Some things will never change, Kim.”

Kimberly smiled and let him caress her face and neck with the tenderness she deserved. For the moment, she seemed to drop whatever worries and fears harassed her and changed the subject. “So, what are we doing today? It’s Sunday. What places are open?”

Shane shifted closer, sharing body heat under the covers, but mindful not to touch in case that would scare her out of this fragile moment. “Well, the big thing is I have to scout the woods. I didn’t exactly have time to do it last night before every molecule in my body was beating me up for being so far away from you.”

She gave him a toothy grin. “Was that why you rushed back?”