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I’m not. “Ryker—“
“Gemma. I’ve always known who you were to me. Just like I’ve always known what you are.”
I gulp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You recognized me as your mate when we first met, didn’t you?”
Suspicion has me squinting over at him. “How did you know that?”
He holds out his hands, offering me his palms. “You’re like me in so many ways. We’re probably too alike, and it’s made me wonder if we’ll work. But I figure the good Luna wouldn’t match us up if we wouldn’t. And we fit. Luna knows we fit.”
Don’t blush, Gem. You have a half-naked Ryker Wolfson in your living room talking about ‘fitting’. Don’t you dare blush.
Clearing my throat, I look away from the heat in his gaze. Of course my eyes land on his bare chest—his bare chest and the five perfect scars I gave him.
The scars he stubbornly kept.
My hand slides up to my cheek. The marks were gone before I made it back to Muncie, but I can still sense them.
He glares at my cheek, almost as if he can sense the wounds that were there. And maybe he can because, with a strangled snarl, he tells me, “I’m an alpha wolf. A protector. Until I was sure you were safe, I couldn’t let myself have you. Not last year. Not two nights ago.”
“What about now?” I interrupt. “What’s so different about now?”
“I did a lot of thinking in that basement. If you couldn’t be safe from me, I have to accept that you might never be safe. At least not as safe as my overprotective wolf demands. But that’s okay. The world’s not a safe place, but I still know that there’s no better place for you than my side. You’re mine.”
“Excuse me?”
You think Ryker would’ve figured me out by now, especially since he’s convinced that I know him so well. That’s not a polite ‘excuse me’ where I’m asking him to repeat himself, and it’s not an incredulous ‘excuse me’ that’s giving him the chance to think about what he’s saying to me. No, it’s a warning that maybe he wants to stop right there before he goes any further.
He sets his jaw, the last glimmer of his humor fading as he turns his gaze into high beams. “You don’t want to hear this—”
Damn right. “Ryker. It was just sex.”
Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? I know. He knows, too.
Giving up any pretense that this isn’t an alpha fight—just different than any I’ve had before—Ryker strides the rest of the way into the apartment.
“What did you say?”
The hairs on my arm stand straight as a shiver courses down my spine. My wolf rises from her cozy slumber again, completely alert and paying sudden attention as his quiet question triggers my own alpha instincts.
Only, I’m not angry, like I was when I stormed inside earlier.
I’m burning up.
I can’t let him know that, though. He already chose placating Trish over telling me the truth once before and, despite everything that’s happened between us since he stalked back into my life, I can’t help but expect it’ll happen again.
“It was the pull of the moon,” I tell him. A couple days early, but the run and the chase with Ryker definitely hadn’t helped. “If it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you, it might’ve been someone else.”
Might’ve been, though I doubt it. The underground room with the chains proves that Ryker has his own way to temper the need that came during every full moon. Maybe it’s worse for male alphas since I’ve always been able to deal with my libido with some brainless TV and a gallon’s worth of Breyer’s.
Or maybe I want to believe it because, if I accept that he really did it for me, that Trish might’ve been as much a pawn in this as I was thanks to Shane… then I have to really begin to think that I don’t have a choice.
That we really are fated to be together...
Suddenly he’s right in front of me. Ryker grabs my hand, pulling me into his space. His territory. His warm skin is a furnace against mine, his breath tickling the tiny hairs framing my face. My head is tilted back, though I don’t even remember jerking it that way. It’s as if I can’t help but meet his dark gold eyes.
Before I can avoid him, his mouth is slanting over mine. I gasp, and Ryker takes full advantage of my open mouth with a kiss so deep, I swear he’s licking the back of my throat.
