Page 12 of Tempting Frey
I rubbed my face with my hands. “This part is embarrassing. I was really stupid when I was younger.”
Calvin gave me a sympathetic smile. “I won’t judge. I’ve done my share of stupid things.”
“Okay, but this might be a longer story.”
“I’m listening.”
“When I was eighteen, my dads threw me a huge party. Frey was there, of course, along with half of Beauville. I was so in love with him. I was convinced he must be my fated. Like, I just knew. Or I thought I knew. I’d grown up here among shifters, and a few days of shopping in the city with my parents had been the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I was amazingly naive.”
Even listening to myself, I got embarrassed all over again. But Calvin looked at me without any judgment, so I kept talking.
“I had a plan. The moment I was legal, I’d go to him. We would make love, I’d go into heat, he’d get me pregnant, and we’d be together for the rest of our lives. Except I was eighteen, and he was my dad’s best friend.”
Calvin’s cute little face morphed into the expression of someone watching a car slowly back into a post box. “Ouch.”
“A big ouch,” I confirmed. “It didn’t help that my ideas of seduction came from smutty books and romcoms. I drank a fewglasses of bubbly for courage, the party ended, and my parents thought I’d gone to bed. I changed into this over-the-top lingerie that I’d bought online and went to gift myself to Frey.”
My friend sucked in a breath. “You didn’t.”
“I’m afraid I did. Not a day older than eighteen, I knocked on the mayor’s door in the middle of the night, stripped down to my assless lace panties, and offered him my virginity.”
Calvin spluttered and covered his mouth with both hands. “Oh no. Oliver, I’m so sorry! That couldn’t have gone well.”
It seemed I could finally laugh about it. “He was horrified. You should have seen his face! Only a few hours earlier, he and my dad had talked about how great it was that I’d gotten into a good college, and then there I was, half naked, outright asking him to knock me up.”
“You were just a teenager in love. He understood, didn’t he?”
“He tried to let me down easy, but I kept babbling about fated mates until he told me to put my clothes back on and leave, or he’d call my dad to pick me up. I ran home and cried myself to sleep. We’ve never spoken about it since.”
Calvin’s expression turned serious. “But you like him.”
I sighed. “Yes. And I still think he might be my fated. But he’s been avoiding me for years, and I haven’t even gotten a whiff of his scent in ages.”
“So that was why he acted so weird on Friday.”
“I don’t know. I have no idea what he thinks of me.”
“It must have been awkward for him, sure. But you’re an adult now.” Calvin raised his eyebrows. “And with the way you look, he must have noticed you.”
“You think so?”
“Oliver,everybodynotices you.”
It wasn’t the compliment most people thought it was.
“Frey is the only man I want to see me.” I cringed. I sounded so desperate.
“If you’re really fated, he’s not going to resist for long,” Calvin said.
Could it be that easy?
My tea had gotten cold, but with honey, it tasted good. I took a long, comforting gulp.
Calvin seemed to be thinking, his eyebrows knitted together. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure. Everything we’re talking about is personal, isn’t it?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I guess. But this is about sex. Do I understand it correctly that you’ve, like, waited all this time?”
