Page 58 of Fated to the Wolf Billionaire

“What’s wrong?”

She bit her bottom lip and looked away, clearly not wanting to tell me, but I had her boxed in, and I wasn’t letting her escape until she told me.

Relationships thrived on communication; I’d lived long enough to see plenty crumble from a lack of it. I wasn’t going to let that hurt us.

“You can tell me anything, you know,” I whispered, pressing a tender kiss to her hair.

She shuddered under the touch, then lightly pushed me back with a hand on my chest. Her eyes were damp with tears when she finally spoke.

“You can’t kiss me like that anymore, Reed. It’s not safe. I nearly killed us all yesterday because we got carried away. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you, or any of your pack mates, for that matter. They’re lovely people, and they don’t deserve to be in danger just because you had the bad luck to be fated to me.”

My blood turned to ice, my veins threatening to fracture with each blow from her lips.

“Stormy girl, no. Control takes time. I won’t ever touch you or kiss you if you really don’t want me to, but yesterday was an honest mistake, and you corrected it.”

Her scent turned bitter, like burnt sugar. “How long are we going to keep calling it a mistake when it keeps happening? That’s thesecondtime I endangered innocent lives. It’s my job to make sure there isn’t a third. We have to keep our distance until we figure out what I am and how to control the monster inside me.”

“Whoa—hang on a damn minute.” I nabbed her defiant chin between my thumb and forefinger. “You are not a monster. Monsters don’t care who they hurt. That is clearly not the case here.”

“You don’t understand what I feel inside. You just don’t.” Her words broke on a sob, and I swore she was tearing my heart out of my chest with every little sound of sorrow.

I’d chosen the wrong location for this painful a conversation. I scooped her up, ignoring her squeak of protest, and strode out the back door of the hotel, ignoring the light dusting of snow on the ground. She had a jacket, and the cold didn’t bother me unless it was below zero. Wolves ran hot.

We reached a beautiful garden full of native flowers and wild-looking plants, hardy to the first frost of winter. The mountains in the distance towered over a rickety-looking wooden bridge and the small, lily-pad-covered pond it spanned, and I didn’t stop until we reached the middle of it.

The garden was deserted, as we’d arrived in the off-season, and the hotel was basically ours. It was private, peaceful, and beautiful; the perfect place to have a hard conversation.

“You’re right, I don’t know or understand everything you’ve been feeling,” I started after I’d set her on her feet, bracketing her body with mine against the railing of the bridge. “But I’m willing to listen. To learn with you. Don’t shut me out.”

Another shuddering sob before she spoke. “I’m scared. Scared to hurt you. And you can’t say that won’t happen, because it already did. And it nearly happened again yesterday. You might have survived a fall on your own, but from thirty thousand feet plus, inside a burning jet? I don’t know if even wolves can withstand that kind of damage.”

I stroked her hair, thinking.

Her fears were real, valid. I didn’t want her to feel that they weren’t. All I wanted was for her to let me face them with her.

“So we practice. Practice control, practice reining things in when your power starts to get out of hand. It’s possible. And before you argue it’s not, think about Brielle and what she’s dealing with right now. Fuck, my own brother went feral foryears. Never shifted, completely lost to the wolf. He only came out of it a few months ago when he found his mate.”

She stilled, craning her neck so she could see my face. “You want topracticebeing intimate? And working on my control?”

“If that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do. I’ve never been afraid to put in the effort for something important to me. And you? You’re the most important person in my life.”

Fiona blushed, and I wished for at least the hundredth time that we had our mental bond so I could get a peek at whatever she was thinking.

“Won’t that be unsatisfying for you, though? Yesterday, you didn’t even get to”—her voice dropped to a whisper, even though we were alone—“come.”

I laughed, I couldn’t help it. She was ridiculously cute with the unexpected shy side.

“You think I only enjoy getting to feast on your pussy if I also come?”

“I wouldn’t have put such a fine point on it, but… yes? I’ve never had a boyfriend who was willing to do anything for me without reciprocation. Most didn’t even put much effort into foreplay at all.”

I growled, narrowing my eyes at the mention of another man in bed with her. “Luckily, you’ve left the boys behind and found a real man. Because real men know thatyourpleasure is their pleasure. No, I won’t find it unsatisfying to practice your control with you. No matter how long it takes for you to be comfortable. We’ll go as slow as you want.”

She swallowed, drumming her fingers anxiously on the bridge railing. “Did you know that there’s a bridge in Virginia where if you kiss your partner after crossing it, they say you’ll be together forever?”

Nice subject change, but she didn’t say no to the idea. I was calling that a win.

“I did not know that. What exactly about this moment made you think of it?”

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