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His words saddened me; he obviously didn’t know his worth. “What is it that you do?”
“I’m just a travel agent,” he answered, breaking eye contact with me for the first time. “I work from home booking vacations for other people.”
“You’re not just anything. You help others experience this big, beautiful world of yours. You bring adventure into others’ lives and bring them happiness. You have great purpose!”
Marcus looked at me again, and blinked his pretty blue eyes. “I never thought of it like that.”
A smile stretched my lips; I was thrilled to lift his spirits. “You must travel often,” I assumed; he’d surely know the best locations, but Marcus shook his head.
“Not really. I’m more of a homebody.”
“Why is that?”
His lips twitched like he was going to answer, but instead, he asked, “Do you travel a lot?”
“Not until recently,” I admitted. “I started exploring when I realized that I was missing something in my life.” I lowered my head until our noses almost touched, hearing his breath catch when I added, “And now I’ve found it.”
My eyes jerked to his lips as his tongue nervously slid across them. “That’s an awfully bold line.”
“It’s not a line,” I insisted. “It’s the truth.”
“You don’t even know me.”
I touched my forehead to the cool plastic mask that covered his face. “Tell me, Marcus; has your heart ever spoken to you so loudly that you couldn’t ignore the conversation? Have you ever experienced intuition that defied logic? When I saw you from across the room, I knew that you belonged with me.”
I trusted our mate bond and the pull we shared, so I said with certainty, “I know you’re feeling the same way.” I removed my hand from his waist and slid it onto his chest, feeling it rise and fall rapidly. “What is your heart telling you now?”
His pulse raced beneath my fingers and his shallow breaths puffed against my cheeks. “That your heart is wrong.” His words were clear, but the hope in his eyes belied them.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Getting my heart broken,” he answered with raw honesty in his voice.
“That will never happen.”
“You say that now, but you haven’t seen me.”
“I see you,” I argued before running a heated glance down his body. “And I only imagine the view getting better.”
Marcus swallowed hard. “I’m not talking about my body.”
I squinted my eyes in confusion until realization dawned on me; the mask. I lifted my hand from his chest and gently ran a finger down the disguise as his breathing quickened even more. “What are you hiding under there, my dear?”
“Something that will make you run. Everyone runs.”
“I can promise you that won’t happen.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can.” I couldn’t make that promise if we were two random people meeting in a random place. But Fate had arranged this meeting and secured our future together.
I wished that I could use my gift of persuasion - just once - to show Marcus that he had nothing to fear from me; that nothing he could show or tell me could change my desire or destiny to be with him. All I could do was put my faith in the bond between us.
Marcus had to be feeling that bond, even if he didn’t understand it. His human soul was drawn to mine; its mate, its other half. And beneath his fear and confusion, he would be compelled to give in to that pull and see what it promised.
His body stiffened but he didn’t back away as I slowly drifted my hand up his neck, raising chill bumps on his flesh. My fingers combed through his hair until they bumped into a knot of ribbon.
“Trust me,” I whispered as I plucked at the cords. The moment that the knot released, Marcus gripped the mask, steadying it in place. I covered his shaking hand with mine and gently guided it to his side, revealing his face.
