Page 53 of Bride of Choice

Goph chose that moment to push back the apprehension swimming in those big old chunks of icy white-blue gazing down at me like I’d hung the damn moon and just went for it. I’d barely finished speaking and his lips descended. The soft, chuffing huff that puffed out over my face as our kiss ended had my lips curving softly.

A purr of a rumble erupted from my standoffish lover, mate, whatever sort of label one could put on it. Was I his mate, truly? I’d yet to receive a pelt from him and I knew for a fact that was a big part of this whole wed to the big fuzzies mating sitch. Did some skip the mate-pelt-ing process? Could I just go ahead and say we were mates? Was that allowed?

My hand lifted, cupping his furry cheek. I smoothed my fingers up higher, burying in soft tufts of head fur, gently urging him back down to me when he yet again hesitated to initiate a kiss. “Lots of snuggles,” I murmured against his lips.

The rumble he let loose at that as he captured my lips once more, to immediately deepen our liplock, had goose flesh breaking out all over.

Fuck. We were really gonna do this. He was really kissing me, going for it, out in the open.

Lost to the moment, to him, my right hand slid up his chest, loosely wrapping around his neck but not tight enough he couldn’t break away. The last thing I wanted was him feeling like he couldn’t pull away, and possibly injuring me or himself in the process.

My tongue darted out, cautiously seeking entry.

Gopher’s grip tightened on me, until he was nearly crushing me to him. A deep, needy noise left him as he tried to suck my tongue deeper into his mouth.

“Wait,” I blurted as I broke our kiss, wriggling in his lap to put a wee bit of space between us. “This isn’t the place to-”

The growl Gopher let loose, burying a hand in my hair to jerk me back to him, stole my breath and the rest of that damn sentence right from me.

I’d started to protest, to push a little, I’ll swear to this, but quickly gave in. The sounds he was making… holy smokes.

This was absolutely not the place for this, though!

The hand at my back, wrapped around me tight, slid lower. A yelp escaped me as he gripped my hip and my injuries protested. A sharp gasp and a wince followed as he surged forward, misreading my involuntary jerk away from him, and his fangs nipped my lip.

The second I tasted blood on my mouth, Gopher jerked back.

Sporting that pupils-blown-out, glazed over, lust hazed look, he shook his head and licked his lips. At that first taste of blood, he snapped out of it, eyes slipping from black to blue in a snap.

Dabbing at my lip, my fingers coming away red, I rushed to reassure him, “Just a little nick, bub, but let’s try and leave my lip on my face, huh?”

Meaning it as a joke, I smiled, trying to show him I was perfectly fine, if a little disappointed we had to end things so abruptly. Admittedly, I kinda liked the rough and tumble side of him. Maybe not lip nicks or whatever, but we could work on that.

I’m all yours, buddy, I wanted to tell him. I got the impression, as his face started to pale, gaze fixed on my lip, and his eyes slipped to an even paler shade of that wild blue, my shy lover was having an internal freak out.

“It’s okay,” I murmured softly, going so far as to reach out to pet him comfortingly.

My hand jerked back when he flinched, noting too late my hand was headed towards his face. Hand frozen in midair, I gaped at him. Did he think I was going to legit hit him?

“Go’… go,” he blurted, skin flushing a funny color at the gaping shock on my face, nabbing me up and standing to practically throw me into my seat.

“Wait. What?!” I barked, stumbling where I stood. All set to rush after him, I got two steps before my hip started screaming and my leg buckled. My side slammed into the table, my right knee the chair.

Dorothy’s mates had the worst timing ever, throwing the door open to come rushing in, all taking at once to each other, sending Gopher bouncing off of the walls of thick beast man chest as he desperately scrambled to get away from me.

“Ey!” a male I believed was called Heckes called after Gopher. He got a good look at me struggling to right myself on the floor and Gopher scrambling to escape, and grabbed my male by his scruff.

Griever was quick on his feet, dodging Gopher’s swinging legs and arms as he snarled and went wild, Heckes growling right back at him all the while, coming to my aid.

Lukar and a mess of other males— her sons and possibly brothers and cousins-in-law, I assumed, I had no clue, there were too many of them to keep track of Dorothy’s insanely large family— attempted to file in behind the initial group.

“Now, what in the world is going on out here?” Dorothy called out. “Leave ‘em be for a whole minute, try and let ‘em work it out for themselves, all hell breaks loose!”

“Let him go,” I said quietly, jerking my chin at Gopher as I met Heckes’ disapproving gaze.

Heckes made a noise that sounded like he wanted to argue but Griever and Lukar all growled something at their brother that had him letting go of his hold on Gopher.

My gaze never left Gopher’s retreating form as several of the males stuck outside and still waiting to be let in called out to him, presumably asking him in their language where he was off to in an all fired hurry.

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