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She frowned. “We already established that you’d have to do it again once it faded or your cat would become a problem, remember?”
“I mean the first time I bit you. You weren’t angry. Why not?”
“You didn’t do it on purpose. You lost control.” She felt her mouth curve. “How can I not find that amusing, considering you’re all about control?” In her opinion, it was good for the uptight ass to lose it occasionally.
He studied her intently. “I’m not the only one here who likes having control over themselves at all times, though, am I? You never fully let go. No matter how much you’re trembling and moaning, no matter how desperate you are to come, no matter how long I’ve kept you on the edge of an orgasm, you cling to whatever thread of control you have left.”
“You hold back, too. Why wouldn’t we? This thing we have isn’t serious. And you’re planning to mate another female.” Skank, she thought, her stomach cramping. Gas again.
His brows flew together. “Mate?”
“Why else would you wait so long for her?” The promise he’d made to Dayna—in Bailey’s view, at least—was kind of extreme.
“It was never about mating. It was about not giving up on what we had merely because she’d need to be gone a year.”
Bailey’s brow wrinkled. “But it’s well-known in the pride that you’re set on finding your true mate, so you surely wouldn’t have made Dayna such a promise unless she meant enough to you that you’d put it aside. Or is it that you think she’s your predestined mate?”
“At one point, I did think it was possible. That was mostly why I agreed to wait rather than move on. It didn’t seem that big of a deal to wait anyway, since I wouldn’t have jumped straight into another female’s bed anyway—I would have held off a few months, maybe longer. In the grand scheme of things, what were an extra several months on top of that?”
Well, when he put it like that, it really didn’t seem extreme that he’d agreed to wait for Dayna. Bailey wasn’t sure she would have in his shoes.
“But when it didn’t prove difficult for me or my cat to be so far apart from her, I figured it was highly unlikely that she’s my mate. Still, I wasn’t certain. There seemed no harm in nonetheless waiting for her to come back.” He paused. “I didn’t think she’d stay away so long. But one year became two, and then two and a half.”
“And yet, you’re still committed to the promise you made to her.” Bailey returned her gaze to the ceiling. “Noble. Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Well, there’s nobly sticking to a vow because it means something to you. And there’s sticking to a vow purely to be noble. What’s the point if the vow itself isn’t as important as it once was?”
“You don’t think I’ve kept my word for the right reason?”
Bailey rolled to face him, snaring his gaze. “If Dayna mattered so much to you, if some part of you thought she could be your mate, you wouldn’t be lying here with me. You’d be wherever she is.”
Damn if Deke could deny that. He couldn’t deny any of what Bailey said. The mamba was bang on the mark.
Though Dayna sometimes suggested he join her in Australia, she hadn’t asked him to go with her when she’d first left. She’d claimed there’d be no point in him going, because she’d be focused on her sister. But if she had requested that he accompany her, he wouldn’t have left his life behind to be at her side.
By the same token, she wouldn’t have stayed if he’d asked it of her. They simply hadn’t been each other’s priority. But they’d both thought that might change if they gave it a chance, so that was what they’d chosen to do.
And he hadn’t wanted to risk that he’d otherwise be obliviously letting his true mate walk away from him. People didn’t always recognize them straight away—they could even be in contact with them for years before becoming aware of it.
However, there had come a point where he’d stopped keeping his promise for the right reason. It hadn’t been about wanting to further explore what they’d started anymore, or about him having suspicions that she could be his predestined mate—those suspicions had died. It had been about his sense of honor, and how he hadn’t wanted to effectively abandon her when she needed someone to be there for her.
“How come you don’t just fly out to see each other whenever touch-hunger strikes?”
He sighed. “I thought about it the first time. But I knew she’d bug me to stay in Australia with her. I wouldn’t have, so we’d have argued. Just like we often argue when she suggests I move there via video-calls. There seemed nothing positive in going to see her.”
