Chapter 36

 

Gage glanced over to see Rayne walking toward them. His heart stuttered when he realized she was focused on him, not her mate. Glancing at Devin, he noted he realized it too.

“Gage?” Rayne’s voice was soft.

He frowned, then answered. “Yes?”

She smiled, which made him realize why Devin could never say no to her. “Do you have a few minutes? Kelsey needs to speak with you.”

His heart stopped. With a nod, he realized he was already heading to the house. “I’ll be back.”

As he stepped into the kitchen, he kept talking to himself. Just breathe, it’s okay, it’s nothing bad. Everything is fine. When she wasn’t in the kitchen, he had to stop and inhale to find where she had gone.

She was in the living room, looking out the window. “Honey? Is everything all right?”

She gave him a look. “That’s a loaded question, Mister Lockman.”

Gage nodded, rubbing his jaw. “I suppose it is right now.” He swallowed, loudly. “Rayne said you needed to speak to me?”

“Yes, but I don’t know where to begin.”

Gage tried to ignore his pounding heart. “Is something wrong?” He inhaled subtly to see if he could determine her mood. She stamped her foot, exasperated. Slowly, he stepped further into the room. “Okay, that was a dumb question …”

“Ya think? That’s only part of it.” She turned so he could see her face. “This was so much easier when I was talking with Rayne.”

“Do you…” he hesitated, “do you want me to go get her?” What he really wanted was to scream, just tell me what’s going on! But he dug deep and tried not to freak out.

Kelsey sighed, just looking at him. Each second felt like minutes before she started to speak again.

“I’m overwhelmed with all of this, Gage.”

He wanted to pull her into his arms, her voice held so much pain he only wanted to erase it. “I know, honey…”

She laughed quietly, shaking her head and he was even more lost, not sure what was wrong.

“I wanted to come home,” she hugged her arms around herself, her expression hurt, “for the last year, that’s all I wanted. To come home.” She looked at him again, her amber eyes forlorn. “I wanted to see if I was still attracted to you, to see…” she blushed, “to see if there was anything between us, now that I’m older.”

Gage swallowed, not sure if he was supposed to comment or just let her talk through it all. He decided the longer he kept his mouth shut, the better his chances would be.

“I’m not sure how to say this, without inflating your already large ego…” she shrugged, “but you were the object of all my fantasies for years.”

He opened his mouth and then shut it, and jammed his hands into his pockets. How long did she expect him to just stand here and not touch her when she was telling him all of this?

She made a little noise in the back of her throat, he was pretty sure it was one of surprise, but continued before he could figure it out.

“Now, I don’t know if what I feel is some residual thing from my adolescent fantasies, or what is from this mating stuff…” she waved a hand indicating herself. . “I just don’t.”

Gage struggled to get the idea of fantasies out of his brain and focus on her. To know she wanted him for all the years he’d been waiting wasn’t helping him keep his feet planted in place instead. “What are you saying, honey?” He shrugged, “I’m not getting it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well my lack of explanation instead of simple random thoughts probably isn’t helping.” She took a deep breath and he watched as she released it, slow and controlled. “I don’t want to be mated or with someone forever when I don’t even know if there’s anything real between us.”

His breath caught in his lungs and he stood there, struggling to breathe without letting on that he felt like she’d just stabbed a knife into his chest. “I see.” Crossing his arms, he gathered himself. “So, what do you want to do?” His cat was close to clawing through his skin, trying to force a more assertive position. This was his mate, and his cat didn’t intend to take this quietly. Gage only knew if he listened, he’d lose her for good, so he tried to show her understanding all while he died a little inside.

“I don’t…” She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “What if what we’re feeling is just the,” she gave him a look, “animal thing…”

Ignoring his better instincts, he went over to stop right in front of her. Reaching deeply, he aimed for patience. “There’s a lot more to us than just being mates. You didn’t even know what a mate was, or any of this that you’ve learned when you were younger and throwing yourself into my path at every opportunity.” When she flushed, he wanted to bite his tongue off for phrasing it that way. “If I’d been stronger, I wouldn’t have had to run the other way…”

She sighed. “I know you only did that to give me time.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “And maybe giving me some time too. I was only twenty-one when I realized you were my mate,” he shrugged, “a part of me didn’t want to be mated that early in life. I’d just started to…” he stopped when he realized he’d been about to reference other women.

“I know what you’re trying to say, Gage.”

Almost sighing in relief, the look he gave her was relieved. “Good thing.” He studied her face, wanting nothing more than to reach out and touch her soft skin, her silky hair… “I don’t know of a solution that will suit both of us, honey, I really don’t.” He felt like he was falling into her tawny eyes. So many emotions were flooding his system, all while he tried to keep his animal half under control.

“I can see how conflicted you are, even though you’re saying you understand.”

Rubbing his jaw, he looked away. “I’m trying. It’s hard.”

“Because of your cat?”

Nodding, he looked back down at her. “What do you want me to do, Kelsey?” She bit her lip, and he couldn’t look away. Does she know doing that drives me crazy?

“I’ve never even been with a man, Gage.”

He supposed shouting halleluiah would be wrong, so he just bobbed his head and hoped she’d talk so he didn’t have to.

“I want to…”

Frowning, he held up his hand. “If you’re going to say you want to be with another man, I’m afraid that’s where my cat will push past all the control I have…”

Her eyes widened. “No, that’s not what I was going to say.”

He let out a sigh of relief.

“I want to be with you…” her eyes held his, as if she was expecting rejection. He clamped his jaw tight and stood, inhaling slowly through his nose waiting for her finish. “But…”

But…yeah, saw that coming like a tidal wave. Christ, I’m going to need Coop to tranq me soon.

“But I don’t want to be marked. I don’t want us to be stuck with each other if it’s only the heat or some metaphysical fate that’s drawn us together.”

He blinked, once, twice, then looked up at the ceiling for another blink. Keep it together. Don’t. Fuck. This. Up. Lowering his eyes back to hers, “I know there’s more, honey, but if you want to wait…” he almost choked on the growl his cat was trying to voice. He started to lift his hand, to touch her cheek, then changed his mind and jammed it into his pocket. “Then, we wait.” Gage hoped the last few words sounded better to her than they had to his ears. Inside his cat was screaming WAIT?

When she smiled, a real smile, with relief flooding her face, he felt like crying himself.

“Okay, good.” She let her breath out quickly, like she’d been holding it through the whole conversation. “So, if it turns out to just be a physical thing between us, then we won’t have to worry about being saddled to each other for the rest of our lives. We can go our separate ways, right?”

With a frozen smile on his face, he kept his jaw clamped tight. Knowing there was no way he could speak without it coming out as a growl, he nodded. Not in this lifetime are we screwing and then going our separate ways, my dear Kelsey.

Grinning like he’d just handed her the best gift ever, she gave a little jump and hugged him tight around the waist. Hesitating to make sure he still had a strong hold on his cat, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her soft body into his.

Leaning back, she kept her hands on his waist. “I’m going to get dinner started. We have company, remember?” Stretching up, she lightly kissed his mouth and then was gone from his grasp, heading into the kitchen.

What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened? She was in the kitchen humming. Humming! While he stood here feeling like she’d just beat him upside the head with a wrench. He wasn’t going to survive this. In the last six years he thought he’d gone through some emotionally and physically demanding moments while waiting for her, but here she was and things just kept getting worse.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he frowned at the floor trying to sort out what exactly he’d just agreed to.

“Gage?”

Looking up, Kelsey was standing in the doorway.

“Maybe you could go out and ask if the guys want to join us? I’ll defrost some steaks in the microwave and we could have a barbeque,”

With his head still swimming, he nodded and gave her a quick smile. “Sounds good.” Moving fast, he walked past her, dropping a kiss so brief he almost missed on the top of her head before going outside to invite every male in their lives to dinner with his mate in the middle of her first friggin’ cycle. He was going to go get the tranq gun and bring it to dinner too.

Stomping he went over to Cooper and Devin.

Cooper glanced up. “Gary took Rayne over to the shop to show her…”

Gage growled. “We’re having a barbeque, go invite everyone.” He headed in the direction of the trail to the lake lookout.

“Guess that talk went well.” He heard Devin mutter to Cooper.

“Yep,” Cooper responded.

 

No one had to be tranq’d during dinner, although Gage had to issue more than one warning look when someone got too close, or looked too long, or smiled in her direction… Now he sat on the porch with Devin, nursing the same beer he’d grabbed for dinner. He couldn’t taste anything right now, so it didn’t much matter. At this moment, he wasn’t even sure what Devin was saying, he couldn’t focus on anything as his conversation with Kelsey just kept playing over like it was an audio loop.

“Gage?”

He jumped and saw Rayne giving him a strange look. Shit, did I miss something?

“I don’t think Kelsey’s feeling well.” She looked over at Devin, giving him a look Gage couldn’t figure out.

Getting to his feet quickly, he took a few steps toward the door, not sure if he was supposed to go check on her, whether or not they believed he should.

“Gage?”

He paused and looked over at Rayne as she stood on the top step.

“Is there somewhere secluded where I could go for a walk with my mate?” Her tone was no more than a whisper.

Gage stood there and watched Devin almost fall on his face trying to get to his feet and over to his mate, a really big grin on his face. Just seeing the almost king was ruled by his mate made Gage feel a slight bit better. “Take her and show her the lookout over the lake, Dev.”

Devin gave him a grin over his shoulder as he hugged her into his body started down the steps.

Watching them for a second, Gage opened the door and went into the kitchen. “Kels?” She wasn’t there. Making a bee-line for the stairs, he stopped when he saw the bathroom door was closed. He stopped outside the door, tapping gently. “Kelsey?”