Page 62 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)
TWENTY-FIVE
A few hours later,Ryder and I were driving away from the feral pack’s land. The pain in my wrist was already fading, and I couldn’t stop staring at the gorgeous little tattoo. It had the valleys and peaks of a heartbeat—or at least I called them valleys and peaks, I didn’t know what they were really called—and ended with a scribbled heart. The same one was on Ryder’s wrist, and I kept peeking over at it too.
I’d never considered myself the matching tattoo type, but damn, maybe I was.
When we reached the main road, Ryder turned left when I expected him to go right.
I frowned. “My house is that way.”
“I know.” His hand was on my thigh again. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Another one?”
He flashed me an amused look. “I’ve got to prove myself after our rocky start, right?”
I scowled at him. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
He squeezed my thigh. “I know, Kelley. And I know you don’t love surprises, but I think you’ll like this one. Just roll with it.”
I heaved a sigh, but agreed.
His soft, sexy chuckle at my reaction was annoyingly attractive.
We drove through the newer part of Moon Ridge, and I mused, “Is the surprise some kind of pack party?”
“Not really.” He didn’t hesitate to answer, though his answer was pretty much useless to me.
“Are we going to Sab’s place?” I checked.
“Kelley,” he warned, squeezing my thigh again.
“Hughes,” I mimicked.
He gave me a rumbly chuckle that I loved, even though I was both curious and annoyed in the moment.
“We’re almost there,” he promised.
Accepting that he wasn’t going to give me any real answers, I sat back and waited.
When he finally parked in front of what looked like the frame of a house, I stared at it.
We were in Sab’s neighborhood—the neighborhood that all of their pack was moving to.
And we were parked in front of a house that had only just started being built.
“No,” I said, my lips parting a bit.
“Before you ask, I didn’t buy you a house. I know you’d be pissed if I tried.” Ryder flashed me a grin, and it was so wide and genuine that I could barely associate the grinning man with the wild biker-slash-caveman he’d seemed like when we met in that gas station.
“Then what did you do?” My voice was uncertain.
“I bought us a lot. We’ll get to design the house together, and make it whatever the hell we want. The rest of the pack is close, but not too close—I didn’t want to share a backyard with any of them. Your place is great, but I had the money saved, and I wanted us to make a house our home together. So, here we are.”
I stared at him for a long moment, and then stared out at the house’s frame for a few more minutes.
“How are you feeling about this?” Ryder asked, his voice a bit cautious.
“Overwhelmed,” I admitted. “But in a good way. This was really, really thoughtful, Ry. I love the idea of us making something together—deciding how our home will be together.”
