CHRIS Read online

  Mischa grunted. “Men. You’re so stupid sometimes. Don’t you understand that more than college, more than travelling, what Ava wants is her mate?”

  “You think I don’t feel the same way?” he demanded. “You don’t think she isn’t the first thing on my mind ever morning and the last thing before I go to sleep?”

  “I know she is,” Mischa told him softly. “That’s why I can’t understand why you’re putting you and her through this craziness. Sometimes, doing the right thing isn’t as cut and dry as it should be. In this instance, letting her mature is doing nothing more than making her miserable. And when I say miserable, I mean it. I’ve seen her through some funks, but nothing like this.” She frowned, then lifted a hand to rub at her temple. “I’m concerned about her, Chris. Seriously concerned. I don’t know how much more she can take. Not from her father or her mother, and not with the mate bond in flux the way it is.” She blew out a shaky breath, and that tepid sound alone sent fear quaking into his boots.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice a low rasp.

  “I don’t know what I mean,” she replied. “I just don’t have a good feeling.” Mischa rubbed her chest. “She’s not doing well is all I can say.”

  Chris blinked at her, uncertain as to where she was going, and not particularly wanting to hear the words anyway.

  He got to his feet and retreated from the kitchen without another comment passing between them.

  Heading toward the staircase that led toward the half of the clubhouse that sheltered the upper echelons and their families, he strode toward Ava’s bedroom.

  Though, technically, he knew where it was, he’d never actually been there or gone inside.

  It had always been, in his mind, a ‘no entry’ zone. For good reason.

  Staying away from her was hard enough. Being in her room, her intimate space, was more than he felt sure his Bear could handle. But he was tired of hearing from third party sources just how his mate was doing. Until he saw her, in the flesh, and read for himself what was going on with her, he couldn’t pass judgment.

  And when it boiled down to it, his judgment was all that mattered when it came to her.

  Children were vital. They were lifeblood. And their parents were their guardians.

  But mates were twin souls.

  They were born forever seeking their other half. In the face of that kind of bond, that of child and parent was nothing to the Goddess-granted gift of a mate.

  Thankfully, he passed no one as he made it to the upper corridor where the kids from the mated Council members lived. Her room was at the end of the hall and he strode toward it, immediately knocking before he could talk himself out of doing what he was about to do.

  At first, there was no reply. He frowned, put his ear to the door and heard the tapping of keys on a keyboard as she worked on something. He looked over his shoulder, saw he was still alone, so he knocked again. This time, the keys ceased to clack for a handful of seconds, then they started up again.

  Blinking in astonishment at her ignoring the beckoning, his mouth worked until he realized she probably thought it was one of her parents at the door.

  He knocked once more and in a low voice, called out, “It’s me.”

  The clacking ceased once more, then he heard her chair scrape back.

  Soft footsteps padded against the floor. His Bear felt her proximity when she was close to the door, and wanted to revel in the sudden blossoming of her scent as it hit his senses.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her tone as unwelcoming as Mischa’s.

  He guessed he deserved it. “To talk.” Why else?

  She huffed out a breath, then opened the door. When she did, he felt like dropping to his knees at the sight of her.

  He’d not let himself be alone with her for nearly a decade now, and the way her scent continued to roll over him was more than his Bear could stand.

  He strode forward, pushing past her so he could enter her quarters. From the look on her face, she wasn’t happy about him barging in, but she closed the door behind her, shutting in that gorgeous essence that was one hundred percent her.

  He studied her a second, saw the waist-long, straight as a board hair that swung and swayed as she moved. She was tall, a half foot shorter than his six-five, and she was lithe and long with it. Her legs were bare in shorts he knew she’d changed into because she was in her room. He’d never seen her in anything so revealing, mostly because Mars would have killed her and any of the men who dared drool over her legs overlong.

  Jesus, her father wouldn’t have been the only one setting the Challenges.

  Her camisole was decent, but the low cut helped him see her ample breasts and he curled his fingers into fists as his palms tingled with the need to cup those firm mounds.

  Her lips were pursed when he ceased gawking at her. She was pissed at his study. Those ruby red lips were soaked with irritation, and her emerald green eyes sparked with it too. She had a slender face, strong jaw, but her cheekbones weren’t all that high. Her eyes were almond shape and her nose was like a button... She wasn’t beautiful, not conventionally so, but she was gorgeous. Strong featured, proud, Ava was more beautiful than he knew how to handle.

  She cleared her throat in a silent prompt which he ignored. Looking around her quarters, he was surprised at the innate romanticism in her choices because, as Mischa had said, she was a pragmatist at heart and this room said none of that at all.

  It was soft and dusky. All shades of colors but muted and dampened down with the fabric she’d draped overhead and the blankets she’d used to cover the bed.

  The TV and desk were the only doses of reality in an otherwise romantic room. She had three computer screens, all on, and all displaying so many different spreadsheets, his eyes wanted to cross from boredom.

  Overhead, there was a TV which was playing some kind of soap from the looks of it. She had it on low, though, with subtitles running at the bottom of the frame.

  Frowning at the sight of them, he asked, “Why the subtitles?”

  She shrugged. “Habit.”

  “Weird habit,” he remarked with a small smile.

  “You have no idea,” she retorted, folding her arms over her chest and inadvertently plumping her breasts up so he could see the depth of her cleavage with ease. “What are you doing here, Chris? I’m busy.”

  Whatever he’d expected her to say, it hadn’t been that. He’d never expected a dismissal.

  Stung, he had to work hard to dampen down his irritation at her words. Had he expected her to greet him with open arms? Be grateful that he’d decided to visit her?

  All in all, he wasn’t sure what he’d imagined, if not more than her dismissiveness.

  “I wanted to check in on you.”

  “You’ve never wanted to before. What gives?”

  She had a point. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m worried about you. Worried about what I’ve been hearing.”

  “You should know that gossip is just that. Gossip.”

  “Not when it comes from Mischa, it isn’t. That’s not gossip, is it?” he demanded to know, and watching her wince, then firm her chin stubbornly, made him sigh all the harder. “Plus, I’ve heard shit. Seen it. You’re barely out of this room anymore.”

  “It’s the only way I can get peace and quiet in this fucking place,” she retorted, hands sliding down as she propped them on her hips in annoyance. “And I didn’t think you were interested in what I was doing. You’ve certainly never seemed interested before.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he snapped, taking a strident step forward, closer to her. His Bear shrieked a warning that he had to ignore because he needed to impress something upon her. “You think my not Claiming you is some kind of betrayal on my part. Like I’m choosing to forsake you. Like I get a kick out of it. What you don’t fucking know,” he growled, “is that every moment we’re together and yet apart is fucking agony for me. You think this is easy for me? You th
ink I don’t feel I’m being punished every time I watch you and have to walk away? You’re crazy, Ava, completely nuts if you think I get some kind of kick out of making us both suffer.”

  Her face was paler than it had been before his speech, but her expression was just as cold. “I think you should leave,” was all she said to his impassioned words.

  And that very lack of passion, in the face of his own, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Chapter 3

  She wanted to scream at herself. Yell and throw a tantrum.

  What the hell was she thinking of asking him to leave?

  But her She Bear wouldn’t let her do anything else.

  Pride was a cold bedfellow, but both the She Bear and herself had been hurt by the way he’d just rejected her and carried on like nothing had happened.

  She had no idea why he was really here, nor what he hoped to achieve but she was having none of it.

  Apparently, she had no say though because Chris grabbed her, and before she could do more than think about kicking him in the shins, he planted his mouth on hers.

  For a second, time froze.

  Corny, she knew, but it did. Everything was in a stasis as she processed the fact her mate’s mouth was pushing against hers with an insistence that had her heart fluttering in her chest with excitement.

  She trembled in his arms and gasped as he held her tighter, pulling her deeper into his embrace. He took advantage of her surprise, of that tiny gasp, to push his tongue between her lips. To tease and torment hers.

  She’d only been kissed by boys. Kids at school who been as much of a novice as herself. She had no real experience with guys; had had no desire to date even the good looking boys in her year who’d asked her out. Why would she be interested when she knew who her mate was? Had known since she was fifteen?

  It would be like knowing you had a queen-sized bed bar of chocolate waiting for you at home, then deciding to slum it on chocolate syrup.

  Pointless.

  So, when his tongue was rubbing against hers, she felt her inexperience and was embarrassed by it. But he wasn’t. His hands shot down to her ass and he pulled her against him as he rubbed his tongue against hers, moving in a motion that mimicked sex and made the pulse between her thighs start up a merry rhythm of its own.

  She groaned as he ate at her with his teeth and lips. It spurred her on. Made her forget her nerves, forget her lack of experience. All that mattered was showing him how she felt. Retaliating and displaying her own needs, her own desires for him.

  He pushed his cock, already so hard, against her belly and she rocked her hips, loving the pressure as she fought back with kisses of her own.

  Just as she started to fall into the motion, drown in the sensations their kiss caused, he jerked away from her with a speed that left her reeling.

  She blinked, blind for countless seconds as she tried to figure out what the fuck had just happened.

  He’d been there, then he wasn’t. His heat had gone. His passion had burned away.

  He’d left her.

  Again.

  And he didn’t have to leave the room for her to feel his abandonment.

  Mortified, she whispered, “Get out.” Those two words were all she had left in her vocabulary.

  “No.”

  She froze at his refusal. “What do you mean no? Get the fuck out of my bedroom.”

  He let out a long hiss that pushed her attention his way. She saw the hectic flush on his cheeks, the grit of his jaw as he clenched it, but more than that, she saw his Bear in his eyes. Saw the flickering within those smoky depths as man and beast fought for power.

  Maybe she should have been scared. His control was wavering, and for a Shifter of his years, control was a battle he should have won long ago. In fact, there was no maybe about it. She should have been scared.

  Instead, she was relieved.

  Relieved as hell at the visible proof she could affect him, he wasn’t oblivious to her as she’d always feared, as he’d always seemed to be.

  His Bear wanted her. The kiss proved that the man did too.

  He shook his head once. His chin sliced through the air with a firmness that had her narrowing her eyes at the arrogant gesture.

  “No. We have to talk.”

  “We haven’t spoken in nearly ten years,” she choked out. “What do you suddenly have to say to me now?”

  He gritted his jaw. “You know why I’ve stayed away. It’s not...” Chris hissed out a breath. “It’s not right. This, none of it, is right.”

  “I’m a woman,” she cried out, her tone more passionate than she’d have liked, but when was there a better time to be impassioned than when she was revealing the truth to him?

  “You’re a cub,” he snarled.

  “Only in the eyes of the Clan. I could go out there today, pretend I was going shopping, and hook up with some human. He wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t care that I’ve only see two decades.”

  The air suddenly hummed with an electricity that made her cringe. He stalked toward her, a large step that had her falling back. “You wouldn’t.”

  It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. Still, he’d felt the need to say the words which meant there was doubt there.

  Hell, she’d never meant to do that. Never meant to instill doubt where there wasn’t any. She didn’t want anyone else. She wanted him, dammit.

  But his reaction was more than she’d ever seen from him. Should she maintain the masquerade to further induce his interest?

  Or was she baiting an already on the edge Bear?

  She bit her lip as the quandary weighed heavily on her. What was the best option?

  She wanted him. The kiss had only proved what she’d already known. She needed him in her life. Not this endless misery of catching a glimpse of him here and there. Instances that made her long for him all the more, that made her hide deeper and longer in her den until days passed with her not eating, food being the last thing she needed.

  But she didn’t want him to be jealous. She didn’t want him to hurt. He’d done nothing but hurt her but that didn’t mean she was petty enough to want him to suffer too.

  The silence strung out between them felt like a ticking bomb was waiting to explode in the corner.

  He was eying her like she was an angel and a demon incarnate. Like she was his sole source of redemption and yet, his singular vice too.

  She lowered her head, unable to countenance the notion that he had competition. Mate bonds didn’t function on jealousy. They were true and pure. She couldn’t taint that, not even if it might mean she could get her own way.

  With a grimace that was aimed at the floor, not him, she murmured, “I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t. No more than you’d go to another woman.” She peeked up at him at that, saw his anger had dispersed at her words. When he made no bones about the fact he hadn’t slept with someone else—a fact she knew because the bunnies often bitched about how they could never get him in the sack, she murmured, “I was just making a point.”

  “If you have to make a point, then don’t make it around other men,” he growled out. “My control is on the knife’s edge as it is.”

  “I didn’t mean to test it,” she retorted. “My reasoning was sound whether it was unwise or not. We both know, in the eyes of the world, I’m mature enough to know what I need, what I want.”

  He shook his head. “We have one foot in that world you’re talking about. The other is firmly in this one. Your father would slaughter me for laying my hands on you. And you know he would.”

  “If you were a prospect,” she immediately retorted. “Then yeah, he would. And rightly so. They’re just trying to fuck me, and they’re idiots for even making the attempt.” Her top lip curled with how pathetic she found their overtures. “You’re my mate. It’s different. And it would stop the brothers from trying to make it with me, so that would calm tensions in the clubhouse down substantially.”

  Something she’d said had him ten
sing up again. That weird vibration humming through the air that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge.

  “Mars usually Challenges the brothers who come onto you.”

  She grunted. “The ones he knows about.”

  A growl whipped along the sound waves. “Tell me who and I’ll kill them.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Do you have a pen and paper? Jesus, Chris. Whether you like it or not, or can admit it or not, I look like a fully mature female. An unclaimed one at that. They’re men. They have penises. They think with them. What else do you think is going to happen? They’re not blind. Unlike you,” she finished on a snarl.

  He glowered at her. “Give me names.”

  “No. I don’t need you to Challenge them. I can handle them on my own. I just want to take the need away. I want my mate. The Goddesses let us find each other so early on in our lives. Why are we wasting that blessing?”

  He closed his eyes at her plea, and she knew, felt, that her words were hitting home.

  Comforted by that, she took a step nearer to him, then another when he didn’t move back. Carefully, like he was the Bear and not the man, she pressed her hand to his chest. “We could be so good together.”

  “We’d be better if you were more mature,” he whispered, the words a low, pained groan.

  She sighed. “The Goddesses don’t agree. I need you, mate. I’ve always needed you.”

  He sucked in a shaky breath. “You think I don’t need you? That the nights aren’t torturous? I don’t want anyone else, Ava. I want you. Do you know how that makes me feel? Like a goddamn pervert, that’s how. You’re a cub, and I want you like I’ve never wanted any other woman in my life.”

  “And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be,” she told him, infinitely cheered by his confession, a confirmation of what she’d already known but what she didn’t mind hearing over and over again.

  “It’s not right,” he repeated his mantra.

  She tried not to lose patience, tried and succeeded. This was the nearest they’d been in a decade, and she didn’t want to do anything to spoil it. To make him back off.