Chapter 56: Inseparable

Daphne

I could have slept there, even though the bed was far too narrow for the two of us. I felt like I had fallen into some kind of enchantment, as Nate held me tucked close against his side, his strong arm keeping me from rolling off the mattress, my breasts pressed close against his ribs, my thigh draped over his. My fingers absently traced the lines of his body that were within reach. The cords of his neck, the line of his collarbone, the curve of his deltoid.

He was so quiet and so still that I thought he had fallen asleep. The rise and fall of his chest was perfectly even. But when I lifted my head to gaze at his face, his eyes were open, focused up at the ceiling, and his lips were pressed thin.

Was he regretting it?

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but I felt like words would only ruin the magical moment, and I wanted to stretch it out as long as I could before I started to analyze everything, and overthink the encounter into oblivion. And if he regretted it, I didn’t want to know. Because I certainly didn’t.

It was the best experience of my life. Not that I had a huge resume of previous sexual encounters, but this one made all the other ones seem boring and insignificant by comparison. It was almost like it had been my first time, my first time to feel everything so deeply, so intimately, so passionately.

If Nate belittled that, I didn’t think I could take it. If he said it was a mistake, I thought I would shatter. So I was content, just to lay there, my head cradled on the firmness of his bicep, my hand spread across his chest, feeling the strong thud of his heartbeat under my palm, listening to the quiet sounds of his breath.

But it didn’t last long. Eventually, he eased his arm out from under me and rolled to sit up, with his broad shoulders and back turned to me. That's when I noticed two shiny round scars on the back of his shoulder.

Gunshot wounds?

“I’ve got to get to work,” he grumbled, the low timber of his voice rolling over me.

“Oh, right.” Reality finally intruded. We weren’t really in a magical bubble after all. Nate had a job he needed to report to, and I had books to read and papers to write, and a presentation to prepare for.

Without his warm body beside me, I felt suddenly very exposed, very aware of my own nakedness. Werewolves aren’t usually self-conscious creatures, but I wished I had a sheet to pull up over my breasts as the man went about collecting our clothes off the floor. He had already pulled on his underwear when he turned and held out my clothes like an offering.

The silence stretched between us as I pulled on my pajamas, and Nate dressed for his job. I wondered that he didn’t have to wear a uniform. Most of the security firms in the area dressed their employees like rent-a-cops, so that just the look of them would discourage wrong do-ers. But Nate just pulled on a pair of black jeans that were so worn they looked butter soft, and a dark green t-shirt that clung to his sculpted chest.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anything like a uniform when I had dug through his bag. Maybe he kept his uniform at the office, tucked in a locker or something. Or maybe, the company allowed him to work in street clothes. I was curious enough that I wanted to ask him exactly what company he worked for, but it seemed like a strange question to ask after we’d just had mind-blowing sex for the first time.

By the way, who did you say you worked for?

Goddess, it would sound like I was checking out his earning potential and his bank account, like I was vetting him for future potential!

Nah, I would save it for another time, a time when I wasn’t so emotionally charged, a time when the smell of sex didn’t still hang heavy in the air between us. I pulled my hair over my shoulder and reveled at the way I still throbbed between my legs. Sore, and yet, I would have gladly taken him again. I would have gladly stayed with him all night long, if I’d had the option.

I still wanted him, I felt like I could never get enough of him.

Nate said nothing, and yet, I knew he wasn’t totally unaffected. He stopped, ran his fingers through my hair, and then rested his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs strumming the sensitive flesh of my neck, just where it connected to my shoulder.

Just where a mate’s mark should rest.

But Nate didn’t didn’t, couldn’t, know anything about mates and mate marking.

If I was expecting something profound from the philosophy major, I was sadly disappointed. He simply leaned forward, pressed his lips against my forehead, and gave my shoulders an almost brotherly squeeze. “Sweet dreams, Daphne. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Oh. Um, have a good night at work,” I mumbled, but he had already released me and was half way to the door. He paused for just a moment, with one hand at the handle, and looked at me strangely. I had the uneasy sensation that he was trying to memorize every detail of my appearance in that moment, before he stepped out the door and shut it softly behind him.

And just like that, I was alone.

“Wow.”

I backed up to my chair and sat down, letting my momentum and the wheels carry me backward. I couldn’t get over the feeling that something amazing and profound had happened, but I wasn’t exactly sure what. I picked up my phone, and on instinct, dialed my best friend, my sister-in-law. It took a moment for her to pick up the video call, and I sighed with relief when her delicate face filled the screen. Her amazing black-cherry hair was piled up on top of her head, with little bits falling down around her face and her neck.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey,” I said back.

Bella’s brow knit up immediately. “What’s wrong?” She could always tell.

In the background I heard one of my brothers, Wyatt, “Is that Daffy? Is something wrong?”

Goddess, I hated it when they called me Daffy. If I had been there, I would have slapped him in the back of the head, in a very loving, sisterly way. “Nothing’s wrong. But I want girltalk, so tell my brother to get out.”

“That’s not fair,” I saw my other brother, Byron’s, face swimming in the background behind Bella’s shoulder, “We want girl talk too!”

“I love you to the moon, but get out,” I said impatiently. Bella made a face at him and a shooing motion with her hand, and I saw the blurred figures of my identical twin brothers moving out stage right. A moment later I heard the quiet click of the door shutting.

“Okay, we are alone now,” Bella said. The camera bobbed for a moment as she made herself comfortable on the small sofa in her room. The motion gave megiv me a dizzy feeling. Finally, she steadied in the frame. “Now tell me what’s really going on.”

I took a deep, fortifying breath. “I…I met someone.”

Bella’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Oooh? Tell me!”

I leaned my head back against the back of my chair. “Well, for starters, he’s human.”

“Your brothers will probably have something to say about that, but continue. Is he cute?”

“Cute isn’t exactly the right word,” I said, closing my eyes and picturing Nate’s ruggedly handsome face in my mind. “Hot though, definitely hot.”

“And? Is he nice? Is he a student? What’s his name? Where is he from?” She shot questions at me like a machine gun. She had changed so much from the shy and broken girl my brothers had brought home. And then she hit me with the million-dollar question. “Is he your mate?”

“His name is Nate, he’s a philosophy major, and well, he’s my roommate.”

“Uhoh,” Bella murmured, and I knew she was once again thinking that my brothers would have a s.hit fit when they found out I had been assigned a room in an all-male house. But that wasn’t the point, so I hurried on.

“He’s…I don’t know, kind of moody and broody and…” I remembered the way he had followed me into the woods. “Over-protective.”

“But you like him?”

I ran a hand over my face. “I don’t even know if I like him, but I feel pulled to him, and…I don’t know, I feel something, but I’m not sure if it's a mate bond. At least, not as everyone describes it.” I tried to recall the feeling, so I could put it into words, and even just the memory left me breathless. “Like warm caramel on cold, vanilla ice cream.”

Bella’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward into the camera, “Did you…?”

I let my breath hiss out between my teeth. “I did.” I opened my eyes and looked over at his bare mattress. “I did! And it was…amazing. Unbelievable.” I took another deep shuddering breath. “It’s never been like that before.”

She leaned even closer, unintentionally causing her image to distort in the camera, so that her forehead looked huge, and her chin looked really small. “Do you think he could be the one?”

The words slipped out of my mouth before I had time to think about them. “Goddess, I hope so.”