“We’re not partners, Christie. We’re mates. There’s a huge difference.” She flinched, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t push, sensing she’d explain in a second once she’d gotten her bearings.
And he wasn’t wrong. “I was married before, Mundo. Does that mean…” She gulped. “Does this, what we have, mean I didn’t love him? Ever?”
Though it pained him to know she’d been bound to another man, something that might explain why the Goddesses hadn’t brought them together until now, he murmured, “Where is he? Did you divorce?”
She shook her head. “He got sick. He died.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her, trying to sound earnest and sincere. It was hard going, though. He was sorry for her pain, sorry the man had to die, but if he hadn’t, only the Goddesses knew when Mundo and his mate would have found one another.
“Me too,” she whispered. “But I… Already, the feelings I have for you are so much more. They’re crazy intense. I thought I loved Jake. I really thought I did.”
He reached for the hand she’d splayed against his abdomen and curled it between his own fingers. “You loved him with as much love as you were capable of giving, Christie. Your love for him was real and true. What we have is different. It’s night and day. And there isn’t one that’s better or worse, they’re just different.”
“But…”
He broke her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t overthink this, sweetheart. There’s no point because it won’t get you anywhere. You’re a different woman than the one your husband knew. You’ve endured his getting sick, his dying from that illness, and then the grief of being widowed so young. This Christie is different than the one who married him. He won’t ever know the difference, so you need never feel any guilt about what you feel for me.
“The Goddesses matched us, Christie. They knew when you came to be. They knew where I was and what I was doing when you were born. They guided us on the paths we traversed, and they knew when those paths would cross. We’re ordained, Christie, fated. This, what we have, is rare. Even among my kind.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because it’s preached to us from the beginning.”
“But you said your parents had a strong enough bond that they’d die without one another but still cheated. That doesn’t make any sense.”
He sighed. “My parents were on the weaker end of the spectrum. Plus, my dad was a jackass. Mom cheated on him because he tried to control her, so she used sex as a punishment. He’d do the same. A mate bond doesn’t stop us from being who we are. It doesn’t change us. My dad was a jackass with or without the bond, and my mom was a bitch before she met him.” Mundo shrugged uneasily. “The Goddesses can only do so much. I will never try to control you, and I will never do anything that would push you into the arms of another man.”
She studied him a second, her eyes wide and bright in the darkness of the bedroom. She’d put on the light in the hall when she’d come to let him in, and through the open doorway, that illumination provided some relief from the heavy blanket of shadows in the bedroom. “You said you’d been looking for me since something happened. What was it?”
He felt himself flush again. “Do you really want to know?”
Her smile was small, still proof of how overwhelmed she felt by all this, but amused nonetheless. “Would I have asked if I didn’t want to know?”
“Since I started jacking off, I’ve been seeking you.”
“Oh!” She blushed, then chuckled, bringing her free hand to cup her hot cheeks. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”
He grimaced. “Expect the unexpected with me, Christie. That’s what my brothers say, anyway.”
She cocked a brow at that, apparently distracted by something he’d said. “You have brothers?”
“Well, they’re like brothers. They might as well be. I’m part of an MC, sugar. We’re like blood.”
She blinked. “Are they all Shifters too?”
“Yes. We’re all Bears. It’s a Bear clan, first and foremost, but in the eyes of the human world, we’re just an MC.”
“Bears… I knew it. I knew you were a bear. You had to be. You’re so…” She seemed to seek the appropriate word. “Big.”
He snorted. “You should see my bro, Kiko, if you think I’m big.”
“Will I see him?” she asked, her voice small.
Mundo cleared his throat. “I vow to you, Christie, that I will never do anything that will put me inside again. I will never be separated from you, but The Nomads are my people. I can’t not be a part of the Clan. We’re the least social on the Shifter spectrum, but we still need one another. We still have to belong to a Clan. Do you understand that? I don’t want you to think I’m laying down laws or anything like that. It’s just how it has to be for me. If you don’t want to be a part of the Clan then it will be weird for the others, but I won’t do anything that makes you unhappy, I swe—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “That vow was enough for me. I-I’ll not lie, Mundo, I don’t like the fact you’ve been in prison.” Christie blew out a breath. “I mean, I work in prisons. I’ve seen the guys in there. I never imagined I’d want to be with an ex-con. But this, this is so far beyond anything I could ever have expected.
“I had a nice, safe life once. I want that again. But you are who you are; or more specifically, you are what you are—”
“No, Christie,” Mundo interrupted, determinedly shaking his head. “You will never be in any danger. I swear it.”
“That’s my point, Mundo. Danger comes whether you want it to or not. I had a nice, safe life, and guess what? Cancer came and took that away from me. I loved Jake, you’re right. The Christie I was loved him as best as she could… as much as she could. But this, what we have, what we’re going to have… widowhood made me miserable. I missed him so much. I tried so hard to live without him but it was a half-life. And that was then. This is now. That being said, you can’t do anything to put yourself in danger, Mundo. Not knowingly. Do you understand me? Because the way I feel now is nothing to compared to how I’m going to feel when you’ve claimed me fully. I can feel that already. It’s freaking me out, but there’s no use in lying, is there? Not to myself. I’m going to want to die if anything happens to you—you’re also right about that—but, Mundo, I want to live.” She paused, and he heard the sobs gathering in her throat. This was the source of her sorrow and sadness, that misery that had been dormant for so long that it was a part of her unique scent. “I want to live so badly. Please, don’t take that away from me. Not when suddenly I have so much to live for.”
And with that, she shrugged out of his hold to climb off the bed and leave him staring at her with tears in his eyes and an ache in his heart. All for her.
Always for her.
Chapter Six
It was crazy. It made no sense, but still, he was a Shifter. She meant this in the kindest possible way, but he was a freak of nature. An impossibility. So why should the feelings he inspired in her be anything other than impossible?
As she staggered off the bed and headed to the bathroom, she registered the fact she needed a moment to breath—a moment to take in what had just happened, what she’d just said, what she’d confessed to him.
Giving power over oneself to anyone wasn’t the smartest option. And she’d just given it to an ex-con who had somehow discovered her address, by foul means she could only assume, and who was a complete and utter stranger with a patch and cut from one of the most notorious MCs in the tristate area.
Despite all that, she knew she’d put herself in the hands of the one man who would die to save her, to protect her.
A shudder wracked her frame as she turned on the light in the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror then ducked her head at the sight of the tears in her eyes. She’d stopped looking in mirrors, hating the sadness that seemed etched into her very features. She’d started to hate herself for being incapable of moving on.
Besi
de her toothbrush, Jake’s still stood. His razor was on its plastic bed alongside a set of unused blades. The shaving foam he used was still in the medicine cabinet, as were the last of his meds and his special soap he stored in there to stop her from using it when she’d run out of her own gel.
The bathroom was the only place she’d been able to keep Jake alive. It sounded nuts, didn’t it? She knew it did, but this was the one room where she could keep his things without raising eyebrows. It wasn’t like she got a lot of guests, but the ones who came to visit her were the ones who felt they could ask the probing questions, make sweeping hurtful statements.
If she’d left Jake’s slippers under the armchair where he sat, she knew her mother would have called her out on it when she visited. And if she carried on buying the weird turkey sausages only Jake had ever eaten, she knew her best friend, Mindy, would have asked how she was doing because she knew Christie hated the damned things and the only reason she’d bought them was out of nostalgia.
Outside of this room, her life was fair game to the visitors that came, but here, she could hold on.
With Mundo in her bed, the bed she’d once shared with Jake, in the sheets she’d once slept in with her husband, she knew this charade would have to stop. For the first time since Jake’s passing though, the notion didn’t make her feel like she was suffocating.
She could move on because Mundo was there.
Before Jake, she’d never imagined she was the sort of woman who would live from man to man. And she wasn’t. Not really. Since Jake’s passing, she’d had moments of happiness, had gone on vacation, had laughed with friends, and enjoyed pleasant meals and cookouts with family. She’d lived, but it had been, as she’d told Mundo, a half-life.
He couldn’t come in here, promise her the world, fill her home with Technicolor once more and then renege on that.
MCs were dangerous. The riders were hot—Sons of Anarchy, fictional or not, had proved that to her. And maybe, just maybe, she did like the idea of him being a bad boy, a man who did push the limits of morality, who tested the boundaries society had pigeonholed him in.
Maybe those very aspects of his personality were a breath of fresh air in Christie’s stuffy little life, but the idea of being without him now he was here was abhorrent.
She pushed a hand to her mouth to stem the sob that longed to escape.
He’d been here, what, three hours—and in her life for a little more if she included the surgery she’d performed on him. How could someone she’d known for a length of time she could measure in minutes suddenly feel like he’d overtaken her whole world?
She gulped, scaring herself with her own thoughts. Shaking it off, she reached into the tub and turned on the faucet. Water cascaded out, filling the basin, and she stood there watching the mini-waterfall for a handful of seconds. Pouring bubble bath in, she watched the foam grow with the rising water level and was about to climb in when a knock sounded at the door.
Christie looked back then carefully dipped a foot in the bath. It was a bit hot, but she let herself sink into the water regardless. Once she was covered, she called out, “I’m taking a bath, Mundo. I have unmentionables on my unmentionables.”
As the door opened, she heard him snort. “Considering both unmentionables are mine, I don’t see why I can’t come in.”
She glowered at him. “Are mates not allowed privacy or something?”
He simply cocked a brow, and bold as brass, dick swinging, moved toward the tub and climbed in. She gawked at him and quickly dragged her legs up and back toward her chest to make room for him.
“Maybe I didn’t want you to join me, huh?” she snapped as he settled in her too-small bathtub. Hell, it was a tight fit for her, lengthwise. She wasn’t exactly short, but with him in the tub, it was like packing two sardines into a tin because he had to be over six-five.
“You didn’t lock the door,” he said, as though that explained everything.
She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t had to lock the door for a very long time.”
“Well, you don’t have to get used to the reverse. We should never lock the door on one another.”
His surety had her hiding a smile. She was a bit peeved at his blatant intrusion, but at the same time, he’d followed when she’d run away, and what woman didn’t want that?
Heaving a sigh, she pushed her knees against his and stared at the bony joints as she admitted, “Jake never did anything like this.”
“I’m not Jake,” came the gentle retort. “You’ll have to learn me, like I’ll have to learn you.”
Her gaze darted to his. “I don’t want to watch you pee.”
He grinned at that then with an ‘aw shucks’ grin wiped a hand across his jaw. “That’s a real shame, sugar, because I get my kicks when I know my woman’s watching me piss.”
She blew him a raspberry.
“You’re lucky you’re all the way over there and I need a crowbar to get me out of this damn tub.”
“Yeah? Why am I lucky?” she jibed.
“Because that tongue would be mine and we’d be game on.”
Huffing, she folded her arms across her chest and said, “Turn the water off. It’s going to overflow soon.” The water level had risen sharply with his extra weight. When he obeyed, reaching back blindly to switch off the faucet, she murmured, “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”
He guffawed. “This ugly mug isn’t pretty.”
“Isn’t it?” She quirked a brow at him. “Really?”
“Men aren’t pretty,” he denied, sheepishly ducking his chin, but she knew she’d flustered him, and the notion not only amused her but touched her too.
“Well, you’re the exception to the rule, ain’t you?” She clapped a hand to her mouth then mumbled, “Shit. It’s taken me ages to get the Chicago out of my drawl.”
“Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault. I’m Texan, born and bred.”
She wriggled her shoulders. “It just means I’m comfortable with you. Already.” The last word was almost a wail. “This is too much.”
“What is?” he asked, sounding perplexed more than discomfited.
“All this. I revert to that accent when I’m with people I’ve known for years, Mundo.”
“Oh,” he mumbled, then a grin appeared on his chops. Hell, he practically preened. “Good.”
“No, it’s not good,” she denied. “It’s fucking confusing. How can I be comfortable with you when you’re a stranger?”
“I’m a stranger you’ve been looking for for years, Christie. That’s how.” He scrunched his nose. “I wish Mars were here. He’d explain it better than me. He’s a helluva lot older, so he more than knows the score.”
“Who’s Mars?”
“He’s The Nomads’ Prez.”
She felt herself stiffen, realizing she was fighting a duality in her nature. She’d always followed the rules, always been a good girl. She’d never caused a lick of trouble for her parents, had never run away or sneaked out. That part of her was wincing at his conversational tone when it came to a friend who was the President of an MC. He had to be a criminal too, didn’t he? Either that or some kind of outlaw. When weren’t they, for God’s sake?
And yet, the creature who devoured Sons of Anarchy, who went through MC romances like they were going out of fashion and had a thing for Mob romances, Enforcers, and the like was drooling at all this talk.
“Why did you go to jail?”
The conversational gambit was out of the blue and his smile drifted away, replaced with a guilty look. “Fighting.”
Kenny (Shifter Football League Book 2) Page 62