Keri lowered her voice. Slowed her tirade. “I realize as a wolf I can’t truly understand where you’re coming from. What’s built into me doesn’t compute when I hear you talking about what you need. I hear you say you want to wait for the forever part of the deal, wait until the sunset is just right or something. It makes no sense.”
If her friend couldn’t understand, what was Mark feeling?
Keri caught hold of Tessa’s arms and held her tight. “Maybe that sounds as if I’m putting down your choices, and I don’t mean to. You’re a good friend, Tessa, and a good, good person. What you’re doing isn’t good, though. You’re being mean to that wonderful man, because while wanting you to be his mate right here and right now might not be the cat way, he’s not a cat. And you can only push the wolf so hard before he’s going to go mad.”
Chapter Nine
Tessa had been strangely quiet since she and Keri returned to the pack house. She curled under his arm again, but this time all the fidgeting seemed to have drained from her.
Mark stroked her arm gently, worried. “Are you okay? What did Keri say to you?”
“Nothing but the truth.” She blinked hard, and his heart skipped a beat.
“Are you crying?” He touched her cheek. “Don’t be sad. There’s nothing we can’t face together, okay?”
That only seemed to make her sniff harder. “Can we go home?”
The words snuck out slowly.
“Of course.” He brought her to her feet. They made their goodbyes to their friends. Mark gave Keri a dirty look for whatever it was she’d done to upset Tessa.
The short ride home passed in silence. The exterior lights were on at the house, the upper floor sparkling with the new fixtures she’d chosen and he’d rushed to install. He pointed them out to her. “You picked the perfect ones. I love how they look.”
Tessa smiled, but it never reached her eyes. She tugged him to a stop before they hit the door. “Wait. I need to…look around.”
This night got more and more confusing. “Of course.”
She caught his fingers in hers and refused to let him go. The feel of her skin under his hand—he’d never got the concept of pleasure/pain before, but being with her without being with her was teaching him fast.
There didn’t seem to be anywhere specific she wanted to go. They shot past the full wood shed, through the freshly painted paddlewheel blades that she’d mentioned would look great in dark green, around the outside where he’d begun to widen the front walkway.
Tessa brought him inside and paced through the rooms that were ready and waiting for the drywall that was on order—he’d run out of things to build. While waiting for supplies, he’d switched to making furniture.
She trailed her fingers over the smooth sanded surface of a bedpost, still not talking. Not explaining what was wrong.
His wolf was ready to burst out when she finally smiled. A real smile. “Come upstairs, I have something to show you.”
The beast inside calmed enough he could take the stairs at her side without panicking. But when she stopped in the kitchen of all places, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Tessa, what the heck is wrong? What did Keri say?”
Tessa poked at the coffeemaker on the island countertop. “Keri told me to open my eyes and stop being a fool.”
One more tug, and she had him in the large open space where the giant table for the group dinners would sit. When she would have brought him to the floor, he hesitated.
“Tessa, this isn’t a good idea.” If he got down with her, she might not get up for the rest of the night. “I’ll just go—”
“Stay,” she ordered. “I need to tell you something important.”
He knelt, keeping a bit of distance between them. Tessa eyed the space, and sighed unhappily.
His heart ached, but he didn’t break. Not yet. Not until she lifted her gaze to meet his, and her eyes were full of unshed tears.
Mark moved without thinking, scooping her up and cradling her in his lap, holding her head to his shoulder and rocking her. The connection between their bodies heated like a branding iron, but somewhere he’d find the power to give her what she needed without claiming her.
Tessa’s fingers brushed his cheek. “You’ve been saying it all along, haven’t you?”
Mark paused, partly because her touch was driving electric pulses through his entire system, and partly because he wasn’t sure what she meant.
She wiggled upright and held his face in both her hands. “You’ve been saying it all along and I wasn’t listening. That’s what Keri smacked me over the head with—that I’m a cat and you’re a wolf. It wasn’t a stupid comment that my brother made not very long ago.”
“Tony?” Had she been chatting with family? “That reminds me. I wanted to suggest you invite everyone over for a visit. Whenever works for them. We’ll have room—”
Her mouth covering his stopped his rush of words and, holy moly, he really was going to die now. Because after a few days without tasting her, there was no way he’d be able to convince his wolf to stop. The buzz of chemicals turned him inside out, longing far too soft of a word for what he felt.
Her lips caressed delicately though, and his fingers trembled on her hips as he fought for control.
A slick of tongues together, and the shaking increased to include his arms.
When she buried her hands in his hair and leaned back, pulling him on top of her, he was torn between stripping them naked and worrying about her on the hard wood floor.
Her entire body softened as they kissed, his groin so tight to hers he was afraid he might spontaneously erupt. Mark rolled, putting her on top, protecting her from the cold and the unpadded surface.
His gums ached with the urge to mark her, to take her, to possess her. But while she was kissing him, at least he wasn’t doing anything crazy like.
Tessa planted her palms to his chest and pushed herself upright, straddling him and pinning him in place. Well, as much as a lightweight like her could keep him trapped.
She calmed her breathing, that beautiful smile he’d fallen in love with returning to brighten her face. “Do you even know you’re doing it?”
“That I’m lying on the floor trying not to ravish you? Oh, I know, sweetheart, I know.”
She shook her head. “I mention I’m worried about the cold winter—you fill the shed with a two-year supply of wood. I try to break your coffeemaker; you get me a different one. You’ve worked and worked and listened to every single thing I’ve said, and I’m so ashamed of myself…”
He curled himself upright, sexual tension temporarily forgotten in an attempt to reassure her. “Hey, stop that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Tessa tilted her head to the side. “Maybe not if you were a cat, but you’re a wolf. And even if you were a cat, I’m guilty of one terrible thing. I haven’t been listening. Not like you have. Can you forgive me?”
Mark was lost, but… “Sure. I forgive you. But are you going to tell me what specifically I’m forgiving you for?”
She stroked his chest lightly. “I had my own agenda when I came out here, and that’s not wrong. It’s good for me to have goals, and even though we’re mates, I’m not going to give up thinking things through and making plans.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” Mark insisted.
She nodded. “I know, yet that’s why I’m sorry. I had an idea of what ‘being in love’ looked like, and when you didn’t do those things, I figured we had to wait. I wasn’t listening to what you were really saying.”
His brain had focused in on one part of her confession. “You figured we had to wait. Does that mean…we don’t have to any longer?”