The Reluctant Mate

Amanda

Before I even opened my eyes I knew I wasn’t at home. The mattress felt wrong, and the sound of deep breathing was a pretty good clue as to where I had ended up.

Since he was clearly still sleeping, I cracked open my eyes and looked over at him. He’d held out on me again. It had been my idea to go slow, so I didn’t know why he was so hung up on sticking to it now that I didn’t want him to anymore.

He looked so peaceful in slumber, not at all like the stubborn jackass he was the rest of the time. Stubborn and domineering and obnoxious and possessive. All the things I knew I didn’t like.

But he always backed off when I let him know he had gone too far. He did listen. And he wasn’t pulling any of Steven’s mind games...yet.

Maybe I had been a bit unfair with him. I’d set a lot of boundaries and rules and lines, and I wasn’t apologizing for any of that, but he hadn’t really asked for much on his end. Not to sleep with other men, not to be ghosted? He wasn’t being unreasonable.

He stirred in his sleep, and I quickly closed my eyes, not wanting him to catch me looking at him. The bed shifted as he moved.

“Good morning,” he said.

I pretended to sleep. I wasn’t ready to have that talk, and last night he’d seemed pretty determined we were going to have one once we woke up.

“I know you’re awake, Amanda.”

“Screw off,” I grumbled and buried my face in his pillow. It smelled like him. I just could not escape.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said, my voice muffled.

“Come on, Amanda.” He shifted closer and the heat radiated off of him.

“Amanda’s not home.”

His breath tickled my ear. “I know she’s not at home. She’s beside me in my bed right now.” The gravelly tone ran straight through me, settling as a craving deep in my center. I was sure he knew exactly what he was doing to me.

I turned my head and scowled at him. “Not like you’re going to do anything about that, anyway.”

“You think not?”

I shrugged. I was afraid that anything he would be willing to do would be preceded by a lot of uncomfortable talking like he had suggested. Didn’t seem worth it. “Maybe I am hungry after all.”

He moved away and I was disappointed at the increased distance. “Let’s feed you, then.”

After a few minutes I freshened up a bit, although it was pretty obvious I had slept in my clothes. I followed him to the kitchen and helped a bit, but mostly watched him. He looked just as good making pancakes this morning as he had cooking supper the night before. It was quite unfair that I should be so weak to him, especially when he caught me gawking and grinned at me. I tried to act unaffected but he really just had this thing that would keep me crawling back to him begging.

We ate pancakes and he wolfed down an entire package worth of sausages as well as twice as many pancakes as I did. He offered me some of the meat but I wasn’t feeling like it. I cut my pancake into neat squares and pushed them into a checkerboard grid on my plate, eating the rounded edges first to get rid of them.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re playing with your food.”

“Au contraire. I’m creating an artistic masterpiece.”

We sat in silence while he ate a ton more food. How did he eat this much and not have an ounce of fat on him? It was terribly unfair, but the results were so nice to look at I guess I couldn’t complain.

“Listen, Amanda, if I did anything...”

“You didn’t do anything,” I told him. “Maybe it’s me who’s been a bit too hard on you.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “Well, you’ve got that whole wolf thing, right? I mean, I don’t know what that’s like, but maybe some of the stuff I said...kind of...was hurtful to that side of you.”

“It’s not like you knew.”

I noticed he didn’t deny it. “I’m sorry, okay, Porter? Like at the beginning, I didn’t think you would care, because why would you? I thought you were just looking for a hook up. But since then...like some of the stuff I said when I was stuck here—”

He winced. “You really do not need to apologize about anything that happened then. No one expected you to be happy while being confined. I didn’t even expect to see you again after that.”

“You make a good point. What am I doing back here?” I said, half joking. Porter’s face dropped for just a second before it transformed into the apathetic mask I was coming to expect from him. I felt like shit over my words. “No, sorry, Porter, I didn’t really mean that. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

I looked down at the grid on my plate and debated which piece to eat would ruin it the least. I didn’t want to ruin things and that felt like the only thing I was good at. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Amanda, I didn’t expect things with you would be easy.”

“Well then expectations met. Sorry.”

He pushed back in his chair and watched me. “I don’t want your apologies, Amanda. I don’t care if things are easy. I just want you. However that happens. I want to talk about what you said last night.”

Looked like the stubborn guy wasn’t letting me get out of it. I crossed my arms defensively. “Forget what I said. It was ridiculous.”

“So no mates with benefits? Disappointing.”

“You didn’t seem to like it last night.”

“Well, I do like the idea of you not ghosting me.”

“I did that one time.”

“Twice.”

I scoffed. “I texted Carrie the second time so it doesn’t count.”

“After weeks of silence. It makes my wolf crazy when you cut off contact. I’d rather have you scream at me and throw things.”

“So you’re a masochist?”

“Well, I did get paired with you...”

I adjusted my arms more tightly.

“So?”

“What do I have to give you to get you to promise not to cut off contact again?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. I won’t do that. I promise to come scream and throw things at you the next time I’m upset.”

Porter grinned and it irritatingly made him look even more handsome. “Deal.”