Page 33 of Monster's Mistake

“A spare is good. I’m not saying I don’t want you to make me rock hard again, but I’d rather it wasn’t this way.”

To my surprise, she snorts. “Anja said you’d make a joke.”

“I’m honoured she knows me so well,” he teases. “Are you okay?”

“AmIokay? Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one who turned into stone?”

It hurts my heart that she’s so angry at herself over it and unable to let it go for long enough to realise that we’re okay. But that just means I need to reassure her in a way that makes it clear we are. “I’m fine, Nati,” I assure her. “I’m not hurt. All I did was sit there and watch the movie.”

“So you could tell what was happening around you?”

“Yes.”

“I guess that answers a question I had about it,” she muses.

“You had no idea what would happen?”

She shook her head, a hiss coming in response. “Oh, shut it,” she says to the snakes, then lets out a loud sigh. “Where do we go from here?”

“Wherever we want,” I respond. “At whatever pace we want.”

“But how can we do anything if there’s a risk of tuning you into stone?” she asks. “It’s a bit of a mood killer.”

“Is it? Do you think about the fact that I have cravings to eat people?”

She frowns as if considering it. “I don’t think so. It’s just part of who you are.”

“And being a gorgon is part of who you are. I’d be a bad fated mate if I thought that part of you was something to be scared of.” Even as I say the words, I realise how much I mean them. Bad jokes aside, I’ve never thought that Nati being a gorgon was any kind of turn-off.

“I guess. Have you always been this mature?”

I snort. “Definitely not. And I’m still an immature idiot who makes bad jokes.”

For the first time since she came back, she genuinely smiles. “Are you sure you don’t want to put an end to this?”

“Over a mistake? Are you kidding me? Clearly I just need to try harder to impress Frank.”

She lets out a small laugh. “I wish I had some pointers on that. He does like the beef they put in the sandwiches.”

“Then I’ll make sure to bring him some beef next time we have a picnic,” I respond. “Maybe it’ll work. But if it doesn’t, it’s fine.”

“You sound so confident about this.”

“I am.” I reach out to take her hand in mine, threading our fingers together and enjoying how good it feels to touch her. “And we’ve got time to work this out. We don’t have to rush anything.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that. Didn’t you get hard duringDivination?”

I groan. “Why would you remind me of that?”

“You’re the one who said we can go slow.”

“We can,” I respond. “I didn’t say it would be easy, just that we’d do it.”

She bites her bottom lip, drawing my attention there and making me hope that another kiss isn’t completely off the table tonight. “I don’t like the sound of that. But I also don’t like the idea of risking you turning into stone again.”

“Then we’ll come up with a way to do it safely.” Though I have no idea what that could be.

“Yeah, I need to do some research into that,” she says. “I can’t be the first gorgon to want to have sex.”

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