Page 70 of Chase Me

But the wine in her glass had frozen.

Shoot.

“Yeah, mine did that too a minute ago. Also, I think it's snowing in your kitchen, and your ficus is crawling up the side of your wall.” Wesley's voice was remarkably calm, and hepicked up his own glass swirling the red mass of crystals around and took a sip. “Yum. Wine slushies.”

“You are handling this a lot better than I did.”

Why wasn't he slowly backing away from her to escape her and the weirdness happening around her?

“There is a lot of bad shit in our world, this isn't one of them. This is kind of amazeballs.” He took another sip of his wine slushy and looked at her expectantly. “I could freak out, or I could just wait for you to tell me what's going on.”

The entire story from being caught eating leftover wedding cake, being kidnapped and flown across the ocean, learning magic from a witch named Mrs. Bohacek, mating with Jakob, fighting off demon dragons, the challenge to find the ring, getting dragon married, the possessed visions, her escape, the black-eyed man, getting mugged by Gypsy children and saved by a Marine, to him picking her up in Washington poured out of her mouth.

Wes listened to it all, asked clarifying questions, and repeated “literally?” at least half a dozen times.

When she finished, her heart felt a lot lighter. It still hurt, but it didn't feel quite as heavy. “You're not mad about what happened between me and Jakob, are you?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“Because… You and I… I mean, we had a date. We spent half of the last year flirting with each other.” With each word that came out of her mouth she turned more and more into a weird awkward teenager. She had plenty of clues that Wesley might not feel the same way about her as she had about him. She had chosen to ignore them, mostly because she'd wanted somebody to want her back.

She could feel the heat in her cheeks and tried to hide behind her glass of wine. Wesley touched her hand andlowered it, so she had to look at him. “I adore you. You’re hilarious when you want to be. You don't take bullshit from anyone except your mother, not even the bridezillas—you genuinely care about them. And I like you a lot. But…”

Great. Here came the I like you but speech. Why could it never be the I like your butt speech?

“If I had a choice between you and a sexy ass dragon warrior like what you found, I'd take him to bed too.”

Screech. Ciara's brain pulled on the emergency brake cord. No. Seriously? How had she misinterpreted every single goddamn interaction she'd had with Wesley over the past few years?

“Sweetie, I thought you knew. But, I can see from the holy shit look on your face, that you didn't have a clue. So just in case you're still unsure, I like dudes. Like a lot.”

Ciara stalled for another minute by shoving three pieces of chicken in her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, chewed some more, all while Wes chuckled at her.

“Nope. Not a single teeny tiny clue.” She didn't even feel as smart as a box of rocks. “I seem to have the relationship intelligence of a four-year-old wheel of cheese.”

“It's okay. Not everybody's gaydar works. My parents’ certainly didn't.” They sat together munching on the snacks while Wes let her process this revelation. He'd obviously had the same conversation a time or two. She wouldn't be surprised if she was not the first woman to have a crush on him. He refilled their wine glasses and gave her an expectant look. She blinked at him and then realized he wanted her to slushy-ize his drink again. She laughed and swirled her finger around until his wine was half frozen.

“Here's what I don't get. If this Jakob guy is hot and goodin bed and convinced he's in love with you, what the hell are you doing back here?”

“Don't you see, it could never work between us? He honestly didn't even understand why I was so mad after the mating ritual. There was no way we could form a lifelong loving relationship. It was more like some sort of Stockholm syndrome.”

“I'm not buying that. You can't tell me you didn't have any feelings for him. I can tell by the way you talk about him.”

So what if she did? She might be new to accepting feelings but having them for someone didn't mean they were in love or that they could have a meaningful relationship. “I'll get over him.”

She might've had too much wine, or her stomach was rebelling against the first real food she'd had in a while because when she said those words she wanted to throw up.

“Did we just establish that you’re relationship dumb?”

Ciara made a face at him. “I guess so.”

“Well, I'm not. I've had hundreds of relationships. Okay, maybe like five. But I make excellent boyfriend material and I know what I'm talking about. So listen close, honey. If you don't get that awesome ass back to Prague and beg for Jakob’s forgiveness, on your knees and naked, I will.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, but he was serious at least about the part where she needed to get back with Jakob.

“I don't know. We are from such different worlds. I can't pick up and move to Prague. What would I do there? I don't think I'd make a very good housewife.”

“That's all a bunch of bullshit. Different worlds, my ass. You just grew a jungle in your kitchen, rivaled Elsa in the do you want to build a snowman department, and invented the best new drink with your mind. All the rest is fluff.”

“Your face is fluff.” Fear that everything Wesley said was true had her defense mechanisms rising. She gulped the remainder of her wine down. Then she whispered, “what if he doesn't want me back?”

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