Page 150 of As The Shifter World Turns

I tipped his chin to guide him to meet my eyes. “And what does Ivor think?”

“That I wish you were and I hate how I let my insecurities ruin what could’ve been amazing with us and how I have no idea what I’m doing but I know I want to do it with you.” He said it in one breath, the words coming out a mile a minute.

“I want to with you as well. And my stag recognizes you as ours.” I needed him to hear that—to believe it. “I love you Ivor, but it's more than that—deeper than that. I don’t even think I can explain it, it surpasses words.”

“Mate,” he said. “That’s the word. Mate.”

“It is, but no rush to do anything more than acknowledge it.” The last thing I wanted to do was to press Ivor into doing anything while he was pregnant oreven after he had our baby for that matter. We were going to do all of this at his speed.

“But you want to?”

“More than anything,” I assured him. “I love you Ivor.”

He buried his head in my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around him, loving the feel of him pressed against me.

“And this morning, when I woke up, I felt it too… like I woke in the best dream ever, with you by my side.”

He hummed against my skin, the humming turning more into his animal’s rumbling and the next thing I knew, there was a sharp pain in my shoulder followed by my stag pushing me back and taking control, something he’d never done before, and he angled our head and sunk my teeth into Ivor’s shoulder.

“Mate,” Ivor cried out.

“Mate.” I closed my eyes. The euphoria didn’t completely cover the guilt I felt for mating him without permission. Although I supposed that him mating me was the permission in a way. It was so confusing, but all I wanted to focus on was the two of us being one, being mates. “I love you.”

“I didn’t mean to.” My body froze against his. “No, mate. I wanted to, I just—it was my wolf. He was a pushy beast.”

I chuckled. “So was my stag.”

“Do you know what I want to do now?”

“Does it involve taking off our clothes? Because if so, I'm in.” I inhaled deeply, his scent already beginning to mingle with my own, as was the way of my kind. Humans joked about being together long enough they dressed alike. Stags? We scented alike.

“Excellent.” He kissed where he marked me and rolled out of bed and started to get undressed. “Think we can drive through and get a bagel on the way?”

Now I was good and confused. I pushed myself to sit up.

“Remind me where we are going?”

“To let our animals run.” He was so gleeful about the notion, as if he hadn’t noticed his cock was at full attention, the tip glistening with pre-cum.

“A bagel sounds delightful.” If my mate wanted to carb load then run, we were going to carb load and run.

He started towards the bathroom and turned around to face me again. “Aren’t you coming?” He grabbed his erection. “It’s not like this is going to fix itself.” He winked—so confident—so sexy. Mating had done that. He felt our bond and understood how deep it was. Did that mean our lives were going to be sunshine and roses? Probably not, but it was a start.

“I’m coming.” I slid out of bed.

“Not yet you aren’t, but you will be soon.”

Daire

“Got a minute?” I didn’t even wait for Neil to come all the way in without pouncing on him. We were supposed to be ordering Indian and hanging out for the night, not him listening to me vent about relationship crap.

“Can I pee first?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I stepped out of his way and he walked by.

I dug through the drawer and found the menu from our favorite Indian place. They didn’t have a decent website, but they sure had amazing food. And maybe the lack of a website was a good thing. We always had the food here in under an hour and the same couldn’t be said for the place we used to go to.

I scanned the menu as if I hadn’t already decided what I wanted pretty much when we made the plans.

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