“I’m going to get you some warmer clothes. It’s drafty in here.” He walked into the bedroom and noticed his unmade bed. After he made her something to eat, he would clean up in here. She could spend the night in his room. As he pulled a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants out of his drawers he heard her call after him. “It feels warm in here to me.”
“It’s not.” Although he was hot as hell, had been ever since she’d arrived.
Cullen returned to the living room and sat on the edge of couch by her feet, handing her the clothes. “When you’ve warmed up a little, put these on.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking the clothes.
He wanted to lean over and kiss the spot between her neck and her shoulder until she shivered not from the cold, but from the heat his mouth created in her body.
“It’s plenty warm in here. I’m just chilled. You have your shirt off for goodness sake. How cold could it be?”
He looked down at his bare chest. She was right. Did human girls find it rude for men to be shirtless in front of them in this day and age? It was so hard for him to remember sometimes.
“I’ll go dress myself, sorry.” He rose off the couch.
“I didn’t say you had to put on clothes.”
Was it his imagination or had her voice dropped an octave? It had taken on a husky tone, like she might sound when she first woke up in the morning. His groin throbbed hard. Our mate.
Yes, she was their mate. But that didn’t mean he would give into his primal urges and take her right there on the couch, without so much as a by-your-leave.
He had to change the subject before he behaved like a teenager and gave into the need to kiss her. “What was Ashlee thinking letting you run out there dressed like that?”
“I didn’t actually give Ashlee and Tristan a choice. I kind of just left.” Emotions played across Summer’s face and he wished he could read her mind.
“And Ashlee is not my keeper. I’m a year older than she was when she met Tristan, brought him home, mated him, rescued him from the spell, and started to lead the pack with him. She was my age when she had Braden.”
Cullen stared. He wasn’t even sure what to say to that. Did she think he thought her too young to make her own decisions?
“Do you like soup? I keep chicken noodle here.” He turned towards the kitchen.
“Why do you do that?”
He kept his back turned to her. After three hundred years, he could sometimes catch himself before he said the wrong thing. If he didn’t face her, she wouldn’t be able to see him struggle to find the right words.
“Why do I do what?” Had he kept his voice even? He wasn’t sure.
“You change the subject at your convenience. I just said something to you that warrants an answer and you totally ignored me.”
He whirled around. “I seem to have the same problem with you that I have with the rest of the world, which is an inability to say the right thing. Maybe I should rephrase that and say I have a unique attribute that allows me to find the one thing to say that is sure to piss off everyone around me. So, I opt to say nothing or to say innocuous things. Somehow, it still ends up being wrong. If I change the subject it is to spare your feelings, a gift I give no one else.”
Summer flung the blanket off and crossed to him. He opened his mouth to rebuke her stubbornness. She silenced him when she pushed her body against his and pressed her mouth gently to his lips.
For a moment, Cullen felt like time stopped. Her kiss was a feather’s touch. Nothing existed on the planet except Summer’s soft skin, sensual lips, and strong, steady heartbeat.
He wanted desperately to deepen the kiss, to plunge his tongue into her mouth over and over again. To show her with his mouth what he wanted to do to other places on her body. But, he couldn’t allow himself the pleasure. If he let himself that small amount, the flood gates that held his self-control at bay would slam open. Cullen would be lost to the intensity with Summer as collateral damage. He would have to mate her, and he knew Summer had no idea what that entailed. Maybe the physical act she could understand but she hadn’t spent enough time with the pack to see that mating was so much more than marriage. It was eternal. There was no way out. Not even death separated mates as one partner almost always followed the other immediately to death.
He couldn’t be responsible for inflicting himself on her for the rest of her life and beyond—not if he wasn’t exactly what she wanted. He wasn’t some young pup, just recently shifted with no baggage for his mate to digest. He had too many years—most of them filled with unspeakable acts he’d rather not remember he’d done—behind him.
When she pulled back from their kiss, he reluctantly let her.
Kiss her again.
Wow, his wolf had certainly rediscovered its ability to boss him around. But he wouldn’t relent this time. No, he knew he was right. She had to know him better, had to go into their mating with both eyes open. If he gave into his passion for her tonight, while she was vulnerable, she might let him off the hook, but he would never forgive himself.
Unlike his young pack mates, he knew better than to think that every mated pair lived in perfect harmony. Their souls belonged to each other, they might even share love. But it was still possible for one half of the pair to destroy the life of the other. He need not look any further than Mary Jo and Kendrick Kane, the parents of their Alpha.
Mary Jo had hidden the unmated females from the pack to save their lives from the evil schemes Kendrick had plotted out for them. In retaliation, Kendrick, a man Cullen would have sworn was his friend, killed his wife and didn’t follow her to the grave. If that was possible, Cullen couldn’t count on anything—including the surety of happily ever after with his destined bride.
If they didn’t mate, she would not have to follow him to the grave or share his burdens. He wasn’t sure how it worked; she might even take other lovers. But, it was better to not let himself follow that line of thought because then he might lose control of his temper and kill whoever he imagined her having sex with.
“Hello, still here.” Summer cleared her throat. “I don’t want you to hold back your thoughts from me. You must always tell me the truth and I will do the same for you.”
He nodded. At least that was one way to guarantee she got to know him. “Okay.”
Her hands fell to her sides and he missed their warmth on his bare arms. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want any soup.”
Soup? The talk of food seemed a lifetime ago.
She continued to talk. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want you to kill Claudius.”
She didn’t?
“I want to kill him myself. I want you to teach me how.”
Cullen closed his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do in the universe was teach Summer Morrison how to become a killer. She hadn’t been born to do that. Her hands were clean, unscarred—like her soul.
He shook his head. “Out of the question. I can almost guarantee Tristan will order me to kill Claudius tomorrow. But if he doesn’t, I will take care of him myself. You will have nothing to do with it.”
Her eyes flared and he swore he saw flames dance inside of their aquamarine depths. “You don’t get to decide that. If I want to kill Claudius, I will do it. You can either help me or not.”
She stormed away from him to the window. Her back was strained, her stance wide. He wanted to go over and wrap his arms around her waist, tuck her body against his and make love to her until the horrors of the day left her and she no longer desired death or vengeance.