Page 62

“Yes,” I rushed out. “Do that. You could start now.”

“What if I’m not good in… I hope you won’t be disappointed or⁠—”

“After everything you said before, have you forgotten the mate part already?”

His gaze met mine.

“Made for me. Before you were even born, you were made for me. I’m dying to be inside you and have you all over me. I can hardly wait.”

Sasha put his head on the edge of the cushion, staring down at me, and I was going to sit up, but he slid like he was boneless off the couch and down over me, and I realized that being on the floor was incredible as long as I had this man kissing along my jaw, one leg between mine, his weight on me both comforting and grounding. I didn’t ever have to move.

“In the middle of a gathering, there’s only noise.” He sighed deeply. “But now, after this small amount of time, all I have to do is gaze into your gorgeous gold eyes, and I know everything and can see what’s true.”

“What’s true?”

“That you belong to me.”

I grabbed him then, wrapping him in my arms, holding so tight. He was mine. My mate. I was so lucky that he wanted me, that he hadn’t given up.

“Am I crushing you?” he asked softly.

I chuckled because I had easily a hundred pounds on him.

“I can’t wait for you to give me your mark, and I am really looking forward to sex,” he said into the hollow of my throat. “But my life has jumped from one huge thing to another today, and I need to think and process, and oh God, definitely call my mother.”

I let go enough so he could lift up and look down at me. “What’s with the oh God?”

He scoffed. “She is not a fan of yours.”

“What? Why not? What’d you say to her?”

“Thankfully nothing about us, or what I thought would be us but wasn’t.”

“So she hates me?”

“At the moment, she’s not a fan. But you’ll change her mind.”

“I thought everyone considered me amazing?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding? Tell me you’re kidding. I can’t tell when you’re being funny yet.”

“What?” I was indignant.

He laughed then, into the side of my neck.

“How dare you!” I rumbled, sitting up and bringing him with me, then dumping him onto the couch and standing over him, arms crossed, glaring. “I’m a superhero! Didn’t you hear Wade?”

“Ohmygod, I’m dying.” He grabbed a pillow to muffle his laughter.

I snatched it out of his hands and hit him with it, which did nothing but make him laugh harder, and I suspected this was the emotional release from the last few hours.

“I realize,” I began haughtily, “that from the outside, I look like a dilettante, but as you know, that’s not the case at all. So your mother—who, since I don’t have one, I would very much like to be fond of me—needs to have her view of me changed. Immediately.”

“I’ll get right on that.” He was still chuckling. “But it’s not my mother alone, it’s the entire jarl.”

“That’s because I’m undercover,” I reminded him, raising my voice.

“Yes. Deep, deep undercover.”