Page 43 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

“We keep talking about… about Christmas, and our families, like this is just going tohappen. But this is the first time you’ve actually touched me. And it was… why? So I wouldn’t fall over and embarrass you?”

His eyes darkened. “No, that’s not… and this isn’t the first time I’ve touched you.”

An image rose unbidden in her mind: his hands on her body as she rode him. From the sudden heat in his gaze, the sudden tautness of the connection between them, he was thinking the same thing.

She shook her head sharply. *That doesn’t count. The first time you’ve touched me without me touching you first. You know it’s true. I kiss you, I touch you, I goddamn throw myself at you… If I didn’t, would you do anything to me?*

All the control she’d leashed around her heart fell loose. She couldn’t stop her emotions pouring down the matebond. All her twisted-up fears and hopes. She couldn’t stop them, and she couldn’t look at him anymore, either. Her gaze skittered sideways, to the glittering lights hanging from the ice-rink Christmas tree. They gleamed and ran together as tears filled her eyes.

*You said you regretted walking away. But this hurts just as much. You won’t even speak telepathically to me unless there’s no other option. It’s like you can’t bear me to be in your mind. And I—my cat—likes the chase. But not if that’s all there is. I can’t always be the one closing the gap between us.*She swallowed, trying and failing to wrench her emotions back under control. *I know neither of us chose this. But if there’s something you’d rather I do—something you’d find sexier, or more palatable, or—*

“No. Don’t say that.”

The shock in his voice shook her. She took a shaking breath, then another, then forced herself to meet his eyes again.

Slowly, he raised one hand to her cheek. *I’m sorry,*he said, the touch of his mind gentler than snowflakes. *I didn’t realize I was hurting you. I will do better.*He brushed a tear from her cheek.

*Why?*she asked.

*Because I do want you. I would choose you, choose this, a thousand times over.*His eyes narrowed as he searched her face, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. *I don’t want you always to be the one pursuing me, either.*

*Then why do you never reach out? Why is it always me pestering you?*

*I don’t want to hurt you. I want so much from you, and it is unfair of me to want so much when I’ve already taken everything from you. I shouldn’t ask more of you until I have more to offer.*

Something twisted inside her. “You haven’t taken anything from me,” she said.

“No?” His eyebrow rose, sardonic. “Your job? Your apartment? The life you’d built for yourself, waiting for me to turn up?”

“That’s not… It’s not important.” She stumbled over the words.

He sighed. “Of course.”

What does that mean?Her heart was in her throat again.

Before she could ask, Mordecai cupped her face in his hand. “I will do better,” he promised. “Starting now.”

He kissed her, and everything else in the world fell away. She sank into his embrace, all her fears and the sick, helpless feeling inside dropping from her shoulders like a heavy cloak. She was free and light and wanted.

Everything was going to be okay.

*And with regards to you not always being the one who does the chasing…*He let the statement drift in her mind, tantalizingly unfinished.

She opened her eyes, kiss-dazed, and the heat in his gaze made her toes curl. “Oh?” she said, helpfully.

“Hmm,” he said. Equally helpful. Maybe they were a good match, after all.

She took a tentative step backwards, easing along the ice. He followed her. She glided farther away. He stalked after her, tall and dark, a black-winged bird against the cheerful brightness of the lights and the white-shining ice.

What is he?What was her mate’s inner animal? Something wonderful. Something powerful and strong andhers.

But it doesn’t matter even if he is a frog. So long as he’s mine.

She slipped away over the ice, and he followed, always a step behind. She spun in a slow arc; he swung after her, a pendulum on a chain soldered directly over her heart. Her pulse quickened.

On the next arc, he caught her arm.

They spun together for a heartbeat, then sprang apart. She sped up—he closed the gap between them, pulled her into a whirl of an embrace, and let her go again so fast she almost thought she’d imagined the pressure of his lips against hers.

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