“Don’t push your luck.”
“Damn.” Whether the immediate rejection affected him didn’t show on his face. The same easygoing smile remained through his cup of coffee.
I polished off my grilled cheese and was hounding for another, but polite society demanded I wait until my guest took his first. “Please, help yourself to a few sandwiches.”
Felix glanced at the plate in front of us. Four ticks of the clock went by. “Do you not like grilled cheese? I can try to whip up something else.”
“No. No, this is fine.”
Judging by the twitch at the edge of his grin, logic would determine that was a lie.
Sitting up straighter in his seat, Felix took hold of the top sandwich. A string of sharp cheddar stretched its steaming goodness against the one below before breaking off. The man stared long and hard at the treat before taking a large bite out of the corner. “So, what did you want to discuss?”
Well, for starters, why are you being so weird about a sandwich?
“Judging by what I read off the back of that love potion, it looks like you’re going to be stuck like this for at least two weeks. We should make a few ground rules on how to handle the situation until you go back to normal.”
“This is my normal now, Beloved. I’ve imprinted on you.” He finished off his sandwich with grim determination and eased back in his seat.
“You don’t know that for sure, though. It could just be the love potion affecting you.”
“How many kids do you want?”
I choked on my coffee. Spilling the hot liquid over the front of my nightgown. The werewolf calmly walked to the closet next to my bookshelf, took out a neatly folded hand towel, and handed it to me. Never in the half-hour that I’d been aware of his presence did I show him where I kept the towels.How long has he been in here?“Come again?” I asked, coughing.
Relaxing back into the love chair, Felix waved a hand around the room. “Kids, your home is cosey, but small. If we’re going to have more than two, then I’ll need to build an extension. If we knock out the back wall in your sewing room, that would be a fine place for it.”
“Hold on!”
Blue eyes took on a wistful note as he continued. “A huge family has been a dream of mine, so I’m partial to ten, but I’m willing to negotiate.”
Choking turned into harsh wheezing. The risk of suffocation grew each second I couldn’t figure out how to get that damn coffee down my throat. Felix moved to sit on the armrest of my chair and rubbed circles along my back. “Easy darling, take small breaths.”
Ten kids.My mind was reeling. I barely saw my ma and my brother Gouda more than once a week if it could be avoided. We’d gotten our family cheese shop down to a strict pattern where I made the cheese and dropped it off, Gouda sold the cheese, and our mom was off somewhere in the abyss, leaving us the hell alone. None of us were much in the way of affection and liked to keep it that way. Spending time at Cin’s home growing up gave me a small insight into what a normal family might look like. But even before her sister, Cherry disappeared, there were only six of them! More importantly, I could leave when it got too rowdy for my liking. Having ten kids running around my quiet home sounded like a punishment for past life grievances.
“Slow down,” I snapped, getting up. “There’s no reason to even talk about that now. You’ll forget about this whole thing once the love potion wears off.”
“Or it won’t.” His tone dropped to something low and dangerous. I found myself backed into my bookshelf as he grew closer. Felix braced an arm above my head and gently traced my jawline with the back of his knuckles. Once again, my heart felt it pertinent to form an escape plan and renewed its efforts to beat out of my chest. “Is it really so hard to believe that you’re mine? I’ve been under the effect of my fair share of spells. Nothing has affected me with this much…intensity.” Soft lips grazed the skin just above my ear. I shivered as his hand eased its way down my body to settle on my waist.
Words…how speak?“Umm,” came my eloquent response.
“Is it the thought of a fated mate that scares you?” His deep voice caressed my ear in a way that reminded me of just how deeply single I’d been the past year. “Judging by the rather interesting books you have on this shelf, I assumed the idea might excite you.”
Oh gods, he found my romance books.
His mouth curved in a smile against my temple. “Let’s see, ‘Wicked Wolves and Wandering Women’, ‘A Shifters Desires.’”
Kill me now.
My tormentor paused for a moment, then removed his hand to snatch a book from the shelf. “‘Rejected By Her Alpha Mate: Rejected Princess Book 01?’”
My stomach bottomed out.Anything but that series!Rejected Princess was one of the craziest series I’d ever gotten into. The plot lines were filled with ridiculous angst, cheesy lines about true love and sex, and made a point to shove in every possible troupe it could. But damn if I didn’t eat up that fifteen book series like it was my job.
“Now why in the world would anyone reject their mate?”
I shot a hand out to grab it back, but the tall bastard easily raised it out of my reach. “Look, that series came out years ago. It was a different time in the romance game!”
Ignoring my retrieval attempts, Felix read the first few pages and tutted. “Even if Darren is in love with Jolene, you can’t fight an imprint. They should just bid each other farewell and be done with it.”
