Page 33 of Stalking His Mate

AMY

My breaths are loud in my ears, amplified by the bulky helmet. My hands are knotted in front of Dante’s stomach while the wind tears at my polyester blouse. The apron I forgot to take off keeps flapping up and hitting my chest. The higher up into the mountains we go, the cooler the wind becomes until it’s chilling me. When we were lower and the trees were more sparce, the sun beating down on us made up for the temperature drop, but now we’re in the thick of the forest and I’m starting to shake from the cold.

“We’re almost there,” Dante shouts over the wind, giving my hands he’s covering a squeeze.

Part of me never wants this ride to end while the other, louder, part of me can’t wait to get inside. Maybe wrap up in a blanket and drink a warm cup of coffee or tea. Instead, I press myself tighter to Dante’s back, letting the heat of his body seep into me as I lay my helmeted head against the top of his back.

A few more switchbacks later and he pulls his bike off the paved single lane road onto a dirt trail that leads into a clearing with?—

My breath catches at the sight of the log and river stone cabin set back on the far side of the clearing. Surrounded by tall grasses and wildflowers, it looks like something out of a magazine or quaint painting.

“Where are we?” I ask when he rolls to a stop and turns off the bike. The silence that engulfs us after the loud rumble of the motor adds to the etherealness of the picture-perfect scene laid out before me.

“This is my place.”

I lean to the side, trying to get a look at his face and expecting something like stifled laughter at the tease. But he keeps his eyes forward, looking over his property with…pride.

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him. And yet it’s not at all what I expected Dante’s home to look like.

“Did you think I’d live in a shack?” he turns around with a smirk and lifts the helmet off my head. His lips quirk up in a cocky smile. “Maybe a tent?”

“No, not that,” I admit. “But I definitely imagined more of a bachelor pad. This looks like it was made for a—” A family.

With my helmet cradled in his arms, he leans forward, over the handlebars, gazing back at the quaint cabin. “I built it with you in mind.”

“Me?” How is that possible? This isn’t necessarily an old build, but I only met Dante a month or so ago, and this is certainly older than that.

“Not you, specifically,” he clarifies. “But I built it for my mate that I hoped to find someday.”

Mate. My heart squeezes in my chest at the soft way he says it, making it easy to imagine the way he envisioned how his future partner would someday share this with him.

Dante explained what we were when we stopped at the look out. Thanks to my short-term amnesia, I’m not sure how I reacted the first time he explained I was his mate, but right now my heart is settling into this knowledge with surprising ease. Even still, as far as my memory is concerned, he’s still a stranger. Deciding that’s something I’ll unpack later, I bring my focus back to the present…

“It’s amazing,” I say softly, before swinging my leg over the bike and climbing off with far less grace than I was going for. “Can you show me around?”

Dante turns his head and just stares at me for the longest time. Long enough for me to start second guessing every moment we’ve spent together. When I take a step back, considering that maybe I should just start walking back down the mountain, his arm snaps out and wraps around my wrist. Then he’s off the bike, his eyes never leaving mine. They are golden and intense and… and is he purring?

He hangs the helmet on the end of the handlebar. “Later,” he rasps just before he sweeps me off my feet, carrying me bridal style as his long legs eat up the distance to his cabin. The door seems to open on its own and then we’re striding through the neat interior and up a short set of stairs. He’s so fast I hardly have a chance to get a look around before he’s dropping me into the center of his king size bed.

I bounce once on the rustic quilt and then he’s on me. His lean body stretching over me as he slides his hands up my arms before pinning my wrists on either side of my head.

I should probably be stopping this. Instead, my legs fall to the sides and his hips fit between them. Perfectly. His weight and his scent—leather, and hot summer—wrap me in the warmth I was just wishing for. My heart is beating fast, but not from fear. This—having him like this—is right. My mind may not remember him, but my body does, and it’s craving him in ways I haven’t felt in so long.

His long fingers tighten around my wrists, not painfully, as he nuzzles the side of my neck.

“It’s been so hard to stay away,” he groans before dropping a line of kisses up the column of my throat to just under my ear. Shivers wrack my body and my nipples bead to hard tips inside my bra.

I’ve missed you. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back because I didn’t know what I was missing, until now. But it was him. Dante. It was this. His clean scent and warmth surrounding me. It was having him close. Skin touching. Breathing the same air.

I want to tell him that I wish that he hadn’t stayed away, but maybe it was for the best. I remember what he said about them taking me, while he was making plans to go against their rules, rules that were spelled out plainly in the contract I agreed to.

No memory.

No contact.

All for a fortune and chance at a new life for Molly and me.

“Are you sure you won’t be in trouble?” I ask him. “For coming to me?”

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