I didn’t see Ben straightaway, but a moment later he stood and waved. I couldn’t help the smile that touched my lips. Damn he looked good.
He’d dressed in blue jeans that molded around his strong legs and highlighted the sharp definition of muscles. The sleeves of his red shirt had been casually rolled to his elbows, and emphasized not only the width of his shoulders but the rich blackness of his skin.
He smiled when our gazes met, his white teeth flashing brightly in the gloom. My hormones did several excited skips. I might have been off the casual bandwagon for several months now, but this man had me reconsidering my options.
Or maybe I was simply ready to get back into the hunt again. I might not be over the hurt of watching Kellen walk away, but the break had at least given my bruised heart time to mend a little.
Maybe I was ready to play again, even if I had no intention of taking it further than that for a while.
Of course, knowing fate’s sick sense of humor, she’d probably consider that now would be the perfect time to fling my soul mate into the equation.
If he hadn’t already walked away, a little voice whispered.
I shoved that thought back into the box where it belonged, and let a smile of appreciation play about my lips.
“You’re looking nice this morning,” I said, dropping my purse onto the seat before rising onto tiptoes to kiss the side of his cheek. His skin felt good under my lips—warm and slightly roughened with whisker growth—and the taste of him was musky. It was tempting, so tempting, to keep on kissing and tasting, but that wasn’t what I’d come here for. No matter what my hormones were suddenly thinking.
“And you’re looking a little ragged around the edges.” With his warm hands on either shoulder, he stood back a little and studied me critically. “Had a rough morning, huh?”
“Yeah, and the bitch got away.” I pulled back from his light grip and slid down onto the bench. The skin still tingled from the heat of his touch, and part of me wished that I could feel that warmth elsewhere.
I crossed my arms on the table and tried to remain businesslike. “So, is Jilli working today?”
He nodded. “She’ll come out and talk to us during her morning tea break.” He paused and glanced at his watch. “Which is in another ten minutes.”
“Then we’d better order some coffee.” I picked up the menu and scanned through it, though I’d made up my mind before I even walked through the door. “And I hope your pockets stretch to cake. Chasing crazy bad people always makes me hungry.”
“Anything the lady wants, the lady can have.”
I looked up from the menu, saw the cheeky twinkle in his blue eyes, and smiled. “I thought you didn’t do sex on the first date?”
“I don’t. But if I take you out to dinner tonight, that would be a second date. Therefore, all bets are off.”
I raised an eyebrow as the smile teasing my lips grew stronger. “And who said anything about wanting to have dinner with you? We haven’t even experienced coffee together yet. It might all end disastrously.”
He laughed. It was a warm, rich sound that overran the babble of noise and had those nearest to us briefly looking our way. “Wolf, you want me as much as I want you.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ll take you.”
He studied me for a moment, his smile fading just a little. Then he leaned across the table, took the menu out of my grasp, and wrapped his large hands around mine. “Someone has really hurt you, haven’t they?”
Tears stung my eyes. I looked away, blinking furiously. After all this time, it shouldn’t still hurt this much, should it? “We hurt each other. In the end, he chose the best option for him. I can’t say I blame him.”
“He couldn’t have been a soul mate, then.”
I met his gaze again. His dark features were full of a compassion that was surprising considering he was basically a complete stranger. But maybe he’d been in a similar situation.
I shrugged. “Our relationship had only just begun, but love was definitely part of the equation. It could have developed into more.”
He was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “It might have been love—it might have even been a deep love—but it couldn’t have been soul mate deep. Trust me on that.”
“You say that with such certainty. Why?”
Something akin to grief—but deeper, darker—briefly twisted his features. He didn’t immediately say anything, and for several minutes, the noise of the café flowed around us as he struggled with inner demons.
“Because I found my soul mate ten years ago.” His voice was soft, matter-of-fact, cutting oddly through the shock that ran through me. He could have been talking about a football match rather than the one event every wolf lived for.
But if he had a soul mate, then he wouldn’t be sitting here propositioning me.
Would he?
After all, having found his soul mate had never stopped Rhoan.
My gaze went to his. There in his eyes was a torment and suffering so deep it beat to death anything I’d ever felt in my entire life.
He smiled—a twisted smile that made something deep inside me ache—then added, “I lost her four years ago.”
Again, shock ran through me. The soul-mate bond was unshakable and unbreakable. In many ways, it was similar to the bond of a twin. I knew when Rhoan was sick, or in trouble, or hurt. I mightn’t be able to read his mind, but I knew him, understood him, and probably better than I knew or understood myself. The soul bond was like that—only deeper. Much deeper.
To lose a soul mate was to lose part of yourself.
“Had you sworn your love to the moon?”
Because if they had, it was even more amazing that he was sitting here sane and whole. I’d always heard—always believed—that in a moon-sworn bond, the death of one partner meant the death of the other. That one could not survive as a whole without the other. If they did…madness was the end result.
Ben looked remarkably sane for a wolf who had lost his heart and his soul.
“We never performed the moon ceremony, simply because of the job. We both wanted to get out of the business, but to do that, we needed money. And to get money, we had to work.”
“And neither of you could do anything else?”
He grimaced. “Nothing else paid as well.”
I shifted my hands and squeezed his fingers lightly. As comforting gestures went, it was pretty poor, but then, what else was there? This man had lost his soul mate. There were no words, no actions, that could ever provide enough comfort after such a horrendous event.
“How did she die?”
His lips twisted. “A car accident. A stupid, fucking car accident. And no one’s fault but the weather’s.”
“I’m sorry—” The words were out before I could retract them. They were stupid words, really, because they had no meaning when we were strangers and I hadn’t even known his mate. So I added, “I’m sorry we got onto this subject. I’m sorry I made you remember—”
As if he would ever forget.
“Hey, I brought the topic up, not you.” He shrugged, and it was almost as if he were shrugging away the cloak of his woes, putting it away for another day. I wondered how long it had actually taken to gain such control over the ache. “And to answer your original question, no wolf can walk away from a soul mate. It’d be like ripping out your heart and flinging it away—you can’t survive if you do it.”
“And yet you survived her death.”
His laugh was bittersweet. “Yeah, I did. But only thanks to my ever-loving, goddamn nagging sister.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How did your sister save you?”
“She refused to let me die.” He shrugged. “Our pack is a small one, and the two of us were always close. I think that bond is the only reason I’m alive today.”