Page 25 of Bearly Hanging On

“There aren't a lot of tiger shifters in Australia,” Tor explained. “But my mother would beat my arse if I was anything other than respectful of any woman, let alone my mate. Then my dad, my sisters, my aunties…”

But not Mack. His grumpy attitude made sense now. He was like a cat, all fluffed up and making himself seem bigger to scare me away.

The guy was doing too much.

They didn’t get it. Fate had done them a dirty, making them think I was their fated mate. I was not the girl you settled down with. I was the girl you settled for, until something better came along. The women in my family, we had underwear older than most of our relationships. Pa left Nanna with three young kids. Mum had a revolving door of boyfriends before she met Peter, and me…? The idea of something long term gave me fucking hives.

I wanted to go to Mack, tell him to chill out, because I wasn’t going to move in and play house. He could stay grumpy. My hand went to my bag, ready to grab my phone and ring a cab, when a waitress appeared.

“All finished?”

She didn’t look at me for a second, leaning over to take Tor and Kieran’s plates.

“Let me get that.”

Kieran stood up, collecting all of our plates and scraping what was left of our food onto the one plate as Tor stacked the rest, but they weren’t my focus, she was. The waitress watched them move, more specifically all those thick forearm muscles,and I couldn’t even blame her. The guys were freaking fit. Even if they were human, they would’ve been able to bench press me over their heads.

But they weren’t.

She watched them like someone was scooping out a bowl of her favourite ice cream, because I’m pretty sure she wanted to lick the veins that stood out proudly along their arms. Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch, and I smiled. I knew what the guys felt like, the press of their naked bodies, the feel of their lips, their cunning fingers.

With some animal-like focus, they both noted that they had my attention, turning my way and ignoring the waitress as she thanked them and removed all the plates.

This would never to work. They might not have much experience, but I did. I remembered being younger, more hopeful, sure that my life would be different, right up until the point it wasn’t. I’d had my heart broken so many times it’d become tough and leathery, made up more of scar tissue than anything else.

And with that came a kind of freedom.

If you have no expectations, you are never disappointed. If you just play things by ear, sticking around while things were fun, you could always bail when that stopped. Why wait around for Mr Right to make an appearance, when you could have fun with Mr. Right Now?

Several Mr. Right Nows.

“So what’re we doing?”

As if summoned by my thoughts, Mack appeared. His hands gripped the back of his chair, his knuckles turning white.

“I figured we could continue this conversation somewhere a little more private,” I said, watching the guys’ pupils expand. “What do you think?”

Tor and Kieran were pushing their chairs in within seconds.

“Are you ready to go?”

Kieran offered me his hand, and for a split second, I felt a little guilty. He thought this was the start of something beautiful, because he didn’t know that this just wasn’t possible. If Mack’s dad was his mother’s fated mate and he still managed to mistreat her, what hope did I have? Trouble is, as I stared at that hand, I remembered exactly what it did to me last night.

“Sure.” I slid my hand in his. “Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter 11

Mack

The gods fucking hated me.

It wasn’t just that I was the son of a male who managed to hurt the one woman the fates decided he would love. I had to get behind the wheel, look into the rear view mirror, and get a front row seat to this. Harper giggling as she clambered into the back, obviously drunk, then the other two idiots solved the argument of who was going to sit in the back with her by both taking a spot either side of her.

And didn’t that bring up memories.

That damn dream… I’d woken up, hard and aching, sucking in breaths as I felt the aftershocks of pleasure wracking my whole body, cum cooling on my stomach. This morning, I’d dismissed it as some kind of wet dream or something, even if it felt too damn real.

Because it was.

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