Heaven had turned to hell in seconds when he’d looked between him and Val and seen the broken condom.
He should have known it felt too good, too right, that the animal inside him was a little too happy. But how was he supposed to know how sex should feel with the woman he was in love with?
How had he missed the tightness of the condom and the fact that it had broken off and fallen between them at the very end? He put a hand over his face and paced around the room.
He didn’t want to tell her what had happened. It made him look like an idiot or someone who had taken advantage. But they were mated, and he’d promised not to do that until she was out of danger, ready to make a serious decision.
On the one hand, she was his for all eternity. On the other hand, she’d never given consent while understanding everything it meant.
“Shit,” he said through his hands. “Shit. Shit.”
“Hey, dude, what’s wrong?” Rock came over, slinging an arm around his shoulders, but Francis pulled away as if he’d been burned.
“Stop it,” he said. “This is your fault anyway.” He pointed an accusatory finger. “You got me drunk last night.”
“And you got lucky last night, right?” Rock asked. “So you should be thanking me.” He flashed a cocky smile as he leaned back against his desk, crossing one leg over the other at the ankles.
“No,” Francis spat. “I accidentally mated her.”
Rock’s dark eyebrows went up. He had the darkest hair of any of the Brolins. And he was the closest to Francis because they both lived in Bear Canyon. Not to mention they’d met during the Brawl the year Francis had won, because Rock was in charge of controlling the fighters.
“How did you mate her ‘accidentally?’” Rock asked, making quotes with his fingers in the air.
“The condom broke,” Francis said. “She wanted me to mate her earlier, but I didn’t want her making that decision in a rush to be free of Charles. I wanted her to do it knowing she was safe.”
“I don’t really see the problem,” Rock said. “She wanted to be mated; she’s mated.”
“She doesn’t even know what mated means,” Francis said, throwing up his hands and continuing to pace in another direction. “She’s a human, not a shifter.”
“Want me to have Ros talk to her, kind of clear the air about it?”
Francis sent him a sidelong glance. “Not a bad idea.” He shook his head. “No, that’s stupid. I should be the one to talk to her.”
“You don’t have to do everything on your own,” Rock said. “Hey, couldn’t you just go find this Charles dude, finish him off, let her choose you, mate her, and then tell her?”
“No,” Francis said. “If I hid things, if I lied to her, I’d be like him.” He shook his head angrily. “Everything about me is the opposite of him. I just wish I’d seen it sooner.”
“You’re softhearted,” Rock said. “It’s not a bad thing.”
“It is when you let a douchebag abuser end up with the woman you love because you think you’re doing the right thing,” Francis said.
“Or because you’re afraid,” Rock said.
“What do you mean afraid?” Francis asked.
“If you’d really been confident in yourself, you would have fought for her.”
“Against what she wanted?” Francis asked.
“If you thought she was your mate, yes,” Rock replied, folding his arms. “Then again, I’ve never met this Charles character. If I met him, it’s possible I might fall for his manipulation. He sounds like a total sociopath.”
“He might be,” Francis said. “Not that I really know what that means.”
“No conscience,” Rock said. “Lies without guilt.” He cocked his head. “Anyway, I have no idea. It’s irrelevant. He laid hands on your woman. Kill him and get it over with.”
“It’s not that simple,” Francis said. “She doesn’t want me to go after him.”
“And she wants a man who does whatever she tells him?” Rock asked skeptically. “Come on. Step up, Francis.”
Francis sighed, thinking he had a point after the way Val had enjoyed the aggressive kissing that morning. “Maybe I should. But not by going after him. Not like that.”
“So I guess that just leaves telling her that you two are accidentally mated. Unless you want to lie.”
Francis winced, pained by the thought of it. “I don’t want to lie, but I hate the thought of anything about us being accidental. I wanted everything to be intentional.”
Rock shrugged. “Maybe fate knew better.”
Francis sighed, leaning on the wall and looking out the window at Valerie, who was smiling at Ros as she helped tighten a girth on one of the mares. She did look happy. She didn’t appear hurt by being his mate.
Maybe she really would be fine with it if he told her.
Maybe knowing she was safe from Charles would be enough to make up for the fact that he’d done it without meaning to.
“Wish I could see that Charles’s stupid face when he finds out you mated her, though,” Rock said with a laugh. “Bet you he thought there was no way you’d go that rogue.”
“What do you mean?”
“Douchebags like that think they know everyone super well. The only reason he hasn’t come after her yet is probably because he’s not threatened by you at all,” Rock said. “Trust me.”
Francis did. More than almost anyone he’d met, Rock understood the dark sides of human nature. He’d grown up with a monster of a dad after all.
“If I’m right, he thinks you’re this nice guy who will stand by and let him take what he wants. He thinks you’re too loyal to touch his mate. He didn’t hesitate to take her from you, knowing how you felt about her.”
“He didn’t know,” Francis said. “I never told him. I should have.”
“It wouldn’t have made a lick of difference,” Rock said. “He knew. It’s plain in your eyes every time you see her face.”
“It is?” Francis asked. He looked back out the window at her. “Then why couldn’t she see that?”
Rock pushed off the desk with a sigh, watching Francis warily. “For the same reason you never saw the way she looks at you. People are afraid when they’re in love.” He shook his head. “Hesitation when we know the right thing to do just creates openings for bad people to step in.”
“Yeah, I get that now,” Francis said, his head still spinning over what a bastard Charles was. Over how long he’d let the guy stay close, mainly because he’d pitied him. People liked Francis, generally wanted to be around him.
No one really liked Charles.
Maybe there was a reason for that.
But he was pretty sure he should just tell her the truth. Keeping things hidden had never been good for them, and she’d wanted him to mate her, so what was the problem?
“I’ll tell her tonight,” Francis said. “But I’ll need your help.”
“With what?” Rock asked, rubbing his hands together. “Romantic shenanigans?”
“Romantic shenanigans,” Francis said with a laugh. “Or just a nice, romantic dinner where I can tell her the truth.”
“The truth, plain and simple. A novel concept in Bear Canyon, where secrets grow like pine trees,” Rock joked.
Francis snorted. “Right. But what if she turns me down?”
“She can’t now. You’re mated.”
“Right, but she could still leave.”
“That’s always the risk,” Rock said. “Mating doesn’t mean we can’t lose someone. It just means we’ve done everything we can to keep them.”
That was a good point.
“I’m still going on our ride,” he said. “But if you could let her hang out with Ros after and come with me on errands, that would be great.”
“Sure,” Rock said. “I’ll tell Ros just to stay at the camp. They’ll be safe, right?”
“I have a PI watching Charles, so yeah,” Francis said. “Ryland is set to tell me if anything is happening.”
“Good,�
�� Rock said. “I trust anyone Ryland has hired.”
“Me, too,” Francis said.
“All right, let’s put operation ‘get Francis out of the doghouse’ in motion,” Rock said, opening the door and heading out into the sunlight.
Francis followed, wishing he could feel even a little bit less nervous about the situation.
Valerie was finally his, so why did everything feel so wrong?
12
As Valerie and Francis started up the trail on horseback, she tried to think of what to talk about.
Every time she looked at him, she remembered what they’d done that morning, and her body fought back a shudder of lust, a temptation to just melt into him and drag him to the ground for more.
But she knew they shouldn’t do that again. Not until they figured out things between them.
Being with him had been more powerful than she’d ever imagined, and her heart was all stirred up by the emotions he’d caused in her. It felt like waking up.
She decided to ask him about his life here, because she already knew most things about his life before that from being friends with him in college.
“Why did you enter the Brawl?” she asked, urging her horse on.
He sat back in the saddle, looking relaxed and at home. “I wanted to win.”
“No,” she said. “I mean why did you leave a well-paying job to train to be a fighting machine? You’re so muscled now it’s not even funny. And I can’t picture you beating someone up.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Rock and his brothers would love to hear you say that, since they’ve seen me beat up a lot of people.” He winked at her. “I may be a nice guy, Val, but even nice guys have reasons to fight sometimes.”
“But why did you fight? Was it the money?”
Francis cocked his head and let his reins rest on the saddle horn. “No, although that helped, telling myself that was the motivation.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“I was wild inside. With grief, with rage. With loss. It pounded in my head no matter how hard I trained. I guess I didn’t really understand my change in career until the Brolins offered me the chance to stay here. I didn’t realize how much I was trying to escape until that moment.”
“What moment?”
“When I moved in here and realized I was home.”
She felt a tinge of sadness at that. Hadn’t he even missed her?
He seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts.
“To be honest, when you went with Charles, it was a loss I never thought I could handle. I had to win and I had to win big, and I had to win against others. And even if it was hollow, it was the only way to chase peace. My mate was with another.”
“If you knew I was your mate, why did you leave?”
“Shifters aren’t monsters,” he said. “And it’s not like we know our mate to be absolute, whether she chooses us or not. And I was a different man then. I didn’t fight enough. I guess I took all that fight I’d been holding back and put it into beating up others who were looking to get beat up. Not that it fixed things, but it did teach me that I can fight back. That I’m not this passive person who has to take everything I’ve been handed in life.”
“I’m sorry I was fooled by him,” she said.
“You came back to me,” he said. “I don’t even care if it was just for protection. You came back. I was the one who should have come to you.”
“No,” she said. “I chose him, so it should have been me who came back.”
He was quiet at that. “If I’d ever known he was like that, that he was manipulating us, I wouldn’t have left you. Charles had never given me any indication he was a bad person or that I shouldn’t have trusted him. But looking back, I don’t know how I missed it.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we see it now, and we aren’t going to forget it.” She pulled her horse up to his and put a hand over his, on his reins. “We won’t let him get us again.”
His blue eyes held doubts, almost as if he were uncertain about something between them, and she felt her heart give a cold little shudder.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked. “Like you’re afraid of me.”
“I am afraid of you,” Francis said. “I always have been.”
“How can a big thing like you be afraid of me?”
“Because no one can hurt me like you can,” he said simply, pulling ahead on his horse, walking into the sunlight. His huge form was held rigidly upright.
She caught up. “Why?”
He pinned her with a blue gaze that was especially bright in the sunlight. “I would think that is obvious.”
“Because you love me?”
He nodded. “And because if I can’t keep you this time, I’m going to go crazy. I can’t lose you twice.”
“You’re not going to,” she said. “That’s why you’re going slowly. You aren’t like Charles, some whirlwind courtship.”
His lips tightened. “Right.”
“Seriously, what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird ever since we mated—I mean had sex, since we didn’t mate, but…”
He looked away. Had her slip of the tongue bothered him? They’d used protection, as he wanted.
A thought occurred to her, but she pushed it away. If that had happened, he would have told her, right?
Francis started moving again, up the trail, and she felt trepidation as her horse followed suit.
“I need you to hang out with Ros for a while after this. That okay with you?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m preparing something for tonight. Something important.”
A shiver went up her spine. “What?”
“I can’t tell you yet,” he said. “It’s a surprise.”
“Okay,” she said. “I can stay with Ros for a while. I like her a lot.” Having Rock and Ros around would make Bear Canyon that much more fun if she stayed.
“She and Rock are good people,” Francis replied, but it still felt like his thoughts were somewhere else.
“Francis, do you expect to stay the rest of your life in Bear Canyon?”
“Yeah,” he said absentmindedly. “I don’t ever plan on leaving.”
Did that mean he never would have come for her at all? Never spared her another thought?
It was surprisingly painful to wonder.
Maybe it was good he’d learned to fight back, because she didn’t want to be the only one fighting for their future.
“So how are things between you and Francis?” Ros asked, grinning playfully as she and Val went on her rounds to feed the horses.
“I’m not sure,” Val said. “But you’re a shifter, right?”
“Yup,” Ros said. “Why?”
“What is mating exactly?” Valerie asked, following Ros.
Ros stopped in front of a stall with her empty bucket and tilted her head thoughtfully. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Not really,” Valerie said. “Charles made it sound a lot like marriage but for shifters. I’m not sure I really understand. And Francis, he says he loves me, but he’s holding back from it.”
She’d already been really open with Ros and didn’t feel she had to hesitate in telling her anything.
“Mating… let’s see,” Ros said. “Let me think how to best describe it. It’s weird because I grew up in this world and I’m still not sure I fully understand it, but it’s the idea that there is one person meant for you, and when you feel it’s a certain person, you go after them and never let go.”
Valerie frowned. Could Francis really have been her mate then, since he didn’t go after her, since she went after another person?
“Sometimes shifters are dumb, though, especially men. I don’t think we’re foolproof when it comes to figuring out who our mates are. Our animals know, but if we aren’t in touch with them or the other person isn’t or things get complicated, a lot can fuck things up.” She filled the bucket and empt
ied it into another horse’s trough. “Having a mate isn’t a guarantee of happiness by any means. Shifters still have to work at it.”
“If I am his mate, and he already lost me once, why wouldn’t he want to mate me now?”
“Why would you want him to when he isn’t ready?” Ros asked frankly, her gray-blue eyes sparkling. “It sounds to me like he’s trying to do the right thing and figuring out exactly what that is right now.”
“You think I’m pressuring him?”
“I’m not sure,” Ros said. “Rock would know better than me. Due to Rock’s jealousy, I haven’t spent much time alone with Francis. But I’ve seen him around town and when me and Rock hang out with him. He seems to me to be an extremely conscientious person, one who cares deeply about doing the right thing.”
“Yeah,” Valerie said, feeling foolish about the fairy tale she’d been living in, where they could right all the wrongs of the past in a single moment. As if somehow mating Francis would take away all the rest of the pain.
“I mean, if you two are meant to be together, then it can wait,” Ros said, giving her a kind smile. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to discourage you, just trying to help you see where Francis is coming from. I know he cares for you, but he’s a stubborn guy. If he gets it in his head that something is right, he’s going to keep going with it until the end.”
“Then why is he looking so hesitant, ever since we made love?” Val asked.
“Did you use protection?” Ros asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hm. And how has he been acting?”
Valerie thought about it, looking around the barn, which was peaceful, just dust and horses and hay. “I guess I would describe it as guilty.”
“That makes sense,” Ros said. “He might feel like he took advantage. He might feel guilty for what you two did.”
“But I wanted it,” Val said. “I needed it, to feel free.”
“Which is why he might have gone along with it, even though in his mindset, he might believe that you don’t have sex with someone without mating them.” Ros nodded. “Yeah, that’s my guess, that he’s super traditional and feels like he fucked up moving things too fast with you.”
Secrets of the Bear (Trapped in Bear Canyon Book 4) Page 8