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Chapter Fourteen
“Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
Espie bit down on her lower lip and tilted her head to the side, offering Luther her cheek when he leaned down. She wasn’t exactly sure if he was going in for the kill, but she wasn’t ready for a full on the lips kiss in public just yet.
Her eyes fluttered closed at the warmth of his lips against her skin, and she couldn’t stop the little sigh from slipping out when he lingered. Her inner grizzly stirred at the contact, rumbling to life and causing Espie to tremble slightly with the urge to shift. This girl was determined to out her in public if it meant getting her paws on Luther.
Behave, Espie warned.
“I’m just glad you finally made the call,” she admitted after a somewhat tense moment of staring. “One thing you should know about me is that I’m a little stubborn. I wasn’t about to make the first move.”
“Yeah, that’s what your friend Maria said when I ran into her,” he said with a nod. “She convinced me that I should call you up and ask you for a do-over date.”
Espie chuckled. “She would know. But really, the thought of spending another long week without fixing things between us was too much. If you hadn’t called me soon, I’m not sure if I could have held out.”
“I can’t blame you, though,” said Luther with a low chuckle. “If I’d been in your place on our last date, I wouldn’t have made the first move, either. For that, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” said Espie. “I was worried I might have been overreacting just a little.”
“If anyone was overreacting, it was me,” he insisted.
“This place seems pretty popular for only being open a month,” said Espie as they stepped into the new ice skating rink that had been built near the hospital. “To tell the truth, I’m usually more into outdoor activities, but I thought I might like to try something new, as long as I got to do it with you.” Espie blushed to have made such an admission.
Luther tugged her away from the entrance of the arena as a gaggle of teens sauntered by. “Espie, I think we both know what we mean to each other. You’ve felt it. I’ve felt it. We’re…we’re fated.”
She looked away in an effort to hide her searing blush, but Luther gently grasped her by the chin and turned her face back to his so their eyes could meet.
“We’re fated,” she repeated in a whisper. Saying it aloud made her heart flutter.
Luther’s eyes seemed to darken as he moved in closer, the heat swelling between them. “And I want you to know,” he murmured, cupping her cheek, “that I am incredibly protective of my loved ones. Almost to a fault.”
Loved ones? Espie suddenly found herself blinking back tears, her stomach in knots. Does he love me? “But you can’t possibly—”
“It isn’t to stifle you,” he continued, “or to control you. It’s like breathing for me, to be protective. You’re my fated mate. I’ve waited my whole life for you, and I don’t want to screw it up.”
The way he looked at her, features wracked with both want and sadness, Espie couldn’t stop herself: she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. While he didn’t react right away, she soon felt his muscular arms snake around her waist.
“Let’s start fresh,” she murmured in his ear, never wanting to let him go. “If we do something that bothers each other, we haveto say something. We have to communicate for this to work.”
“Agreed,” he rumbled, and this time the raw deepness of his voice resonated between her thighs. Espie closed her eyes tight, shocked at the feeling, and gently pried herself out of his arms.
“Good.” It took every ounce of self-restraint not to just throw herself back at him again, this time claiming his lips for all to see. But Espie held her ground. “Let’s go do some skating, then.”
Grinning, Luther took her hand when she offered it to him, and the two set off into the unfamiliar terrain, seemingly on the same page.
Espie promptly landed flat on her butt in the middle of the ice. As it turned out, she wasn’t as good at skating as she thought she would be.
“Damn, what’s that about?” she grumbled as Luther helped her up.
“Have you never tried this before, Espie?” he asked her, suppressing a chuckle because he clearly thought it would make her angry. Smart man.
“I’m so good at other sports, I naturally thought I could do this just as well,” she admitted, her face flaming with embarrassment.
“Not a big deal, I can help you learn,” Luther commented with a smile. “That is, if your independent spirit can handle the tutorial.”
About an hour later, Espie found that she could circle the rink in a straight line at least a couple feet at a time. She hated that Luther could so easily skate circles around her.
“How did you get so good at this?” she demanded. Luther held her by the elbow and expertly guided her along, so much so that she felt like a professional skater herself.
