The Reluctant Mate

Amanda

“And it’s really been six months since the night we met?” I asked Porter for the third time as we were driving, trying to wrap my mind around the way time flew.

“Yep. Ask the luna if you don’t believe me,” he said.

“I do believe you, I just can’t believe it.”

“Okay?”

“It just doesn’t feel that long to me.”

“Well, there was about a month of you ghosting me in there, and then about another of you deciding if you were going to give me a chance or not, and then about another of cautious dating...and then three months of pure bliss,” he said in an even matter-of-fact tone. I still felt a bit bad about the early days. The more I got to know about Porter and his wolf the more I understood how badly he had been hurting.

I felt like shit about it, even though he would just gloss it over.

I’d been talking to my counsellor about any number of topics, but it was inconvenient that I couldn’t be open about werewolves. Maybe there was someone that knew about that side of the world.

Still, I was managing to have a pretty normal relationship with Porter the last couple of months—except our sex life, which was abnormally satisfying—and I didn’t feel guarded with him anymore. I was starting to feel safe, which was foreign and good.

“What are you thinking about so hard?”

“Oh, lots of things.”

He didn’t push me for a better answer. I’d come to appreciate the way he’d just take my nonanswers and wait for me to get to the point I wanted to talk about it. Porter and I had a lot of push and pull, but Porter wasn’t like my ex. Sure, he was a stubborn pushy overbearing ass some of the time, but he would always give in to my needs. And he never lashed out when we had a difference of opinion, although he wouldn’t roll over when he thought something was important. And he was super weak to my tears, although I of course I did everything I could to avoid them.

“You didn’t tell me it was today,” I commented.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“I was surprised. I didn’t get the feeling you liked cats.”

Porter shrugged. “I don’t hate them.”

“Good. Because you’re not allowed to chase Uno,” I teased.

“We don’t chase cats. Already told you I’m not a dog.”

“Well, aren’t wolves and dogs basically the same thing?” I asked innocently because I knew it would bother him.

“Ugh.”

I laughed at his reaction. It was amusing. And more importantly, it proved he didn’t have a hair trigger when it came to dealing with me, even if I insulted his pride. He definitely had a lot of it—seemed like most werewolves did—but little things rolled right off of him.

Although he really did not like it when someone checked me out, but other than glowers he never acted on it. Even actively flirting with other men—which I’d mainly done to test his reaction in our earliest days of dating—only made him grind his teeth together in obvious aggravation and sometimes wrap himself around me and stare other men down until they retreated.

I would have thought it was impossible, but I felt like I could trust him. Most of the time. I didn’t think that little voice that reared up to question my judgement would ever entirely go away.

We pulled into the parking lot of the sushi place Porter had suggested.

“Before you suggested we go here, I thought wolves didn’t like fish,” I teased.

“Wolves will eat all kinds of things if they have the chance. They’re opportunistic. And even if they didn’t, you know I’m also human.” He pulled into a parking spot and commented. “Actually one of my earliest memories is of seeing a salmon run when my parents took us on a family trip.”

While Porter had told me about his tragic past, he didn’t talk about it very much, so I kept my lips shut hoping he’d say more.

“My brothers managed to catch a few, but I was too young to get my paws on any of them, so Dad helped me, although I didn’t realize until later.” I could picture a tiny beige wolf trying and failing as they swam upstream.

“My father used to take me fishing, too,” I commented. “Of course, that was with a rod like a normal human.” And all that had stopped after he and my mother had split up. I shook off the thoughts, I wanted to enjoy my time with Porter right now. Apparently it was an anniversary of sorts. I could talk about sad things later.

“Should we go in?”

“Yes,” I said. If we just went back to his place we’d end up having sex right away, and I hadn’t gotten all dressed up not to tease Porter a bit first. He went around the side and opened my door for me. I’d given up fighting about that after his “I know you’re perfectly capable of opening doors, but that doesn’t mean you should have to when I’m around” argument.

Plus it gave me a chance to have his hands on me while he helped me out of the truck, so there wasn’t much of a downside. I definitely wasn’t getting tired of those big, strong hands anytime soon.

“What’s the smile for?”

“You have nice hands.”

“Oh?” He smiled like he knew what I was thinking about as we walked inside.

Once we were seated at our table, we ordered off the menu and waited together. I ran my foot along his leg under the table teasingly and shifted so he’d have a better view of my cleavage. He didn’t fail to notice.

“Did I tell you look beautiful tonight?” he asked.

“No, I don’t believe you did.”

“My mistake. I was thinking it.”

I didn’t need constant compliments since I knew I looked good, but I still liked hearing them, specifically from him. More and more I was starting to think that maybe I was ready for actual permanence. But the thought still made me sweat. What if Porter had just managed to act this whole time? I’d been closely monitoring his behaviour for issues, and while there were some, Carrie had assured me that marking would actually mellow him out even more, not make things worse.

He was being really patient in his clingy way. Maybe I should bring it up with him. Or maybe move in with him first and see how he reacted to that before trying the mark thing. Carrie said I could still leave after the marking, but it would be painful.

Was I ready for that sort of commitment? Yeah, maybe not quite yet. But moving in might be okay...

“You’re lost in your thoughts again.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just thinking about everything. Still can’t believe it’s been half a year since we met.”

“You’re really hung up on that, aren’t you?”

“Sure you want to count from then and not, I don’t know, some point where we were actually getting along?”

“That night was one of the best nights of my life,” he said.

Well, I’d enjoyed it too, and if he wanted to count all the stress in between, I guess that’s something we could do.

We ate our food once it arrived, and I demonstrated how terrible I really was at using chopsticks. Porter wasn’t much better and we laughed at our failed attempts.

The food was good but the company was the part I really enjoyed. Afterwards Porter hinted that we should go back to his place, but I convinced him we should go out so we could dance instead.

He groaned as he drove me where I could tease him some more. “There’s going to be males all over you looking like that.”

“It’s Thursday so it won’t be that busy, and you’ll scare them away.”

“That’s true.”

I smiled, feeling quite satisfied with myself.