Page 52 of The Beta's Blind Date

Chapter 18

REID

Buzz.Buzz.Buzz.

My phone vibrates against my chest, lying where I dropped it as I drifted off to sleep last night. I’d stayed up well into the early morning hours, sleep evading me, my wolf pacing and whining in my mind. I searched the werewolf research database on my phone for a while, hunting for anything I could find on one-sided mate bonds or small wolf forms.

When my search was once again fruitless—as I should have known it would be—I switched to those paranormal romance stories I found that first night after I met Taryn. I needed something to distract me from the ache caused by our distance. I’d had to weed through a lot of terrible books, but I eventually found a few authors who seemed to know what they were writing about.

Maybe those authors are supernaturals in disguise.

I lift my phone and tap the button to snooze my alarm, setting it back down, all without opening my eyes. But it buzzes again right away, tickling my bare chest.

I blink at it as I lift it a second time, scratching my skin where there’s a lingering itch from the vibrations of my phone.

My Girl: Can we do another training this weekend? Tomorrow?

My Girl: I need to work out some frustration.

My Girl: If you’re not busy, of course.

My Girl: You know what? Forget I mentioned it.

My wolf perks up, and the blurry morning vision from my minimal sleep vanishes without a trace as I read the messages from my mate. My thumbs move almost on their own, tapping out a response, my brow furrowing from her texts.

Me: I’m not busy. We can train.

Me: Is everything all right?

Me: Is Dominic giving you a hard time again?

My Girl: No.

My brow raises and I sit up, my black blanket pooling around my hips. I scrub my hand over my face, waiting for her to say more, but nothing else comes through.

Me: Taryn.

Me: Don’t make me drive up there.

Please make me drive up there. Please tell me you want to see me, to spend time with me, to get to know me the way I want to get to know you.

My Girl: It’s not Dominic. I haven’t talked to him since the day I invoked the challenge. But I went on a date last night, and it was awful. The guy was a complete ass, and I’m feeling more frustrated about this whole… finding my mate thing.

My hands clench, my teeth grind together, and I toss my phone on the mattress before I crush it beyond repair in my tightening grip. Then I hop out of bed and storm out of my room and into my bathroom, using my morning routine to calm me.

Not that it works.

She shouldn’t be going on dates with other males. She doesn’t need to. I’m her mate. She wouldn’t be going on dates with other males if she’d felt the bond the night of our date.

Then again, if she’d felt the bond the night of our date, I wouldn’t have agreed to train her, wouldn’t have agreed to keep seeing her so I could figure out why she didn’t feel it, and we’d be avoiding each other until the night of the full moon so we could complete our rejection.

And I would never have realized what an incredible person she is. I would have never gotten to know the woman beneath the gorgeous exterior. The funny, sassy, strong, and driven woman she has shown me she is.

I’m unsure about jumping feet first into this whole… being mates thing… but I can’t keep blaming my wolf or the bond for how I feel about her.

I want her. And I want her to want me. I want to prove I can be the male she needs and deserves. And I will figure the rest out as we move forward.

But I want her to feel the bond first. Which means I need to figure out why she doesn’t feel the bond.

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