Page 26 of Romeo

She pressed her lips together. What the hell was she doing? She’d kissed him, not run away when she’d had a chance, fondled him, and now she was sitting on the couch in his house and telling him nearly all her secrets.

Being with him made her want things different from what she’d wanted for the last five years. She’d had her revenge, but she’d wanted more. For five years, she’s wanted to drive shifters away from humans by any means necessary. But here she was, cuddling up with a tiger who could snuff her life out so easily. And she wasn’t the least bit worried that her life was in danger.

“Ashley.”

She shivered. The way he said her name…

“That it happens with truemates.”

ChapterTwelve

Well, that was an interesting development.

She’d not only been unable to stop thinking about him—which hello, he could totally relate—but she’d actually researched what it meant. He wondered now what online source she’d accessed and how she’d phrased the question in the search bar, but that didn’t matter so much as the fact that she’d looked it up and then come looking for him.

“What does that word mean to you?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

Ah, there was that bitter scent of lying. She had a good poker face, but her scent didn’t hide her intentions, which brought him back to the main reason he’d wanted to find her. Aside from them being mates, of course.

He didn’t really think she was doing research for an online publication about shifters. He wanted her to tell him the truth, and she’d skirted that by sharing her research on why she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“I think you do,” he said. “But you’re scared because of your sister and how you feel about shifters.”

“How do you think I feel?”

“You think shifters kill indiscriminately, that they don’t value human life.” Which was true for some shifters, of course. There were assholes everywhere, including in the human population. “And you don’t trust me.”

“That’s just it.” She climbed from the couch and paced from one side of the family room to the other and back. She was agitated and clearly confused, and he wanted to help her, but she had to come to some things on her own.

“What’s it?” he prompted when she hadn’t stopped pacing or said anything else.

“That I do trust you!” She threw up her hands.

He hadn’t really expected her to say that. She clearly felt torn by her feelings, and it wasn’t like humans had truemates. Hell, they didn’t even have long-life, and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with that information. She might have a youthful face, but she would age far faster than him. It was a cruel twist of fate that his mate would die centuries before him, but he wasn’t going to worry about something he couldn’t change.

He rose to his feet and met her as she made another trek from one side of the room to the other. He wanted to push her about being a journalist, push her into telling him every damn thing she was clearly hiding from him, but instead he kissed her.

She let out a soft sound, a mix of a sigh and a moan, and he ate it up, sipping at her lips and tasting how exquisite she was. Heat. Woman.His.

Intense possessiveness roared within him, his tiger yearning for him to take her to bed, but he resisted.

He wasn’t about to bed a liar, and Ashley wasn’t telling the truth.

Pulling from the drugging kiss, he brushed his thumb along her swollen bottom lip, enjoying the heat in her eyes. “How about I get us something to drink? Then we can talk.”

“We’ve been talking,” she whispered.

“I want to know everything, Ashley. Everything.”

He stared at her as that last word hung in the air between them, half tempted to chuck her over his shoulder and run for the bedroom. Instead, he turned and walked to the kitchen to give himself some space and let his tiger cool down. Not that the beast would, of course. Ashley was under his skin, and he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone in his life. It was in his nature to mate his truemate. Going against that urge was difficult, but he’d resist.

She owed him the truth.

He’d tell her the truth about his past too.

Hell, maybethatwould break the ice. If she knew he’d been a not-great-male in the past but had changed his ways when he’d come to Ohio, then she’d know that he didn’t care about her past, he only cared about now and that she was safe along with his people. If she had suspect motives for being with the tigers, and he ignored his instincts, he was putting his people in danger, and that was not acceptable.

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