Page 76 of Rugged

I swallowed. “Yeah. It was silly. I just…I got scared.”

He stroked my hair back from my face. “Yeah, me too. I was scared of losing you.”

I pressed my lips over his, stroking them softly. “Well, you didn’t.”

He rubbed his lips together as if savoring my taste. “There’s one more thing I haven’t told you yet.”

“What is it?”

“Last night when I bit you?”

“Yeah?”

“When a male wolf meets his fated mate, he marks herwith his scent, so the other wolves know she’s been taken. It’s stupid, but it’s our biology, so we can’t help it. I didn’t mean to mark you, but I got carried away with the full moon.”

I touched the small scab on my neck. “This? You marked me here?”

He nodded. “Yeah. A serum coats our teeth and embeds into your skin. So you carry my scent now.”

I carried his scent. “I guess it’s the wolf version of a wedding ring?”

He laughed. “I guess so.”

“I don’t get to mark you?”

Johnny’s smile was brighter than the moon. “Are you saying you’re okay with it? Being mine?”

I smiled, too. “That means you’re mine in return?”

“For life, baby. Wolves mate for life. You are my purpose now. Keeping you safe and satisfied is all I fucking care about.”

Well.

In that light, who really cared if he’d used me to get info about Chapman? That guy was dangerous, and I was thankful that Johnny tried to do everything possible to find him.

“Is the gray wolf out there Chapman?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t me who finished him. Knox and Travis fought it out with him before I got here. He was choking your sister based on the marks on her neck.”

“Oh my God!” I climbed off Johnny’s lap. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

“Yeah, for sure. Sorry, baby. I just needed to make us okay first.”

I threaded my fingers through Johnny’s, and we walked out to the living room and stopped short.

“Um. Yeah. She looks okay to me,” I mumbled, and Johnny pulled me into his arms.

Lyssa was in the kitchen, sandwiched between the naked shifters, making out with both of them.At the same time!One kissed her while the other stood behind her, one hand between her legs, the other on her breast through her moo-moo.

“Yep. Pretty okay.” Johnny and I smothered our laughter as we walked backward into the bedroom. As soon as we shut the door, we burst into peals of laughter. It felt good to laugh with him, all the tension and angst of the day releasing into the air. As we expelled the old, we refilled our lungs with fresh oxygen.

With a new understanding of who we were together and apart.

A restart to us.

“Are they her mates?”

“Absolutely. I love you, Lys-I mean, Emma–Oh!” Johnny grinned. “Now I know why you only wanted me to call youbabyin bed!”

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