He liked the idea and so whispered, “How are you feeling?”
His voice was gruff and like gravel, but that was only because he hadn’t spoken in a while, and he was currently overloaded with emotion. She’d accepted him, had accepted his presence here in her bed.
That was a massive leap forward.
She didn’t jump at the sound of his gritty words and instead sighed. “Better.”
“Than?”
“Huh?”
“Better than when?”
“Oh.” She peered up at him, and in the twilight, he saw her wrinkle her nose. “Since two minutes before you buzzed on my intercom.”
He chuckled. “A job partially well done, at any rate.”
“I don’t want to ravish you, Mundo, so I’d say that’s a job fabulously done.” She shrugged. “I want you, don’t get me wrong, but not like before. I felt like I was going insane with how badly I needed sex. I’ve never…” She flushed, ducking her head to hide her expression from him. He let it go, just this once, but only because they were new to one another. In the future, he’d show her how honesty between them was the only way mates worked.
“You’ve never?” he prompted instead, his tone gentle.
“I’ve never been a very sexual creature,” she whispered, her palm splaying on his belly as though she was trying to feel as much of him as she could—a notion his Bear fully appreciated. “But now, it’s like that wasn’t me before. Or, this isn’t me now. I’m not sure which.”
“This is the real you, Christie. Once the mating call has been heeded, things will calm down,” he reasoned. “You’ll still need me as much as I’ll need you, but the desperation won’t be there so long as we’re not apart for long. But this is the you that was always meant to be. Since your first steps, you’ve been walking toward me, darlin’. You just didn’t know it.”
“Is this really happening?” she whispered, peering up at him again. “I mean, you really are a…”
“Yeah, I’m a Shifter, Christie. And you were born to be a Shifter’s mate. My mate.”
“I-I don’t know anything about Shifters,” she argued. “Nothing save for what I’ve read in books.”
He snorted at that. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll learn. Not that there’s much to learn. We’re deceptively simple creatures. Plus, my friend is newly mated, and I’m sure you’ll like his mate. Annette’s cool.” She stiffened and he sensed her jealousy. That had been stupid of him. A mate only half-bonded was likely to have emotional spikes. “She’s totally in love with Mars, which is nice to see because he is pretty awesome. Still, I was so jealous, and I had no right to be. Mars is fucking ancient in comparison to me. I’m like a baby. It’s unheard of for younglings like me to find their mates so soon.” He squeezed her, sensing he’d soothed her envy at his foolish words about another female. “I’m lucky.”
She preened a little at that, her smile a timeless twitch of the lips that had beguiled smarter men than Mundo since Adam and Eve.
He liked seeing that look on her face. It was an expression that told of her growing confidence in who she was to him, in what she was. The more they touched, the minute they bonded, that confidence would flourish.
He breathed her in, scenting that her sadness had diminished a touch. That more than pleased him. Maybe just his presence in her life would drain away the sorrow that had been eating her up.
It hurt him to think that she’d been suffering, alone, without him. They lived in the same fucking city and had for God only knew how long. She wasn’t from here. She spoke with a Yankee twang, but it had lessened to a degree that spoke of a fair bit of time spent here.
They’d been so close to one another yet simultaneously so far apart.
Her suffering had been unnecessary.
Though anger tried to flood him, Christie seemed to sense it because she began to stroke his stomach, letting her hand slide down his hip and along the top of his thigh as far as her arm could reach.
That she was petting him amused him, but it worked like a charm. His Bear responded to her touch first and foremost, making the piddling anger this half of him was experiencing disappear with the creature’s delight in being stroked.
Mundo knew it wouldn’t be long before his Bear started demanding she stroke him when he was in his fur.
That would be a great conversation to have with her. He almost snorted at the thought. Human females were not known to appreciate being in close quarters with wild animals. They sure as hell weren’t known to like petting them either.
He’d have to gentle her to that side of him because the Bear was as desperate for her gentle touch as the man was.
“Is it like the books?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts. “Do you have to claim me?”
He smiled, reaching up to stroke her hair. When she wriggled, pressing closer to him, he felt his Bear rumble its delight at his mate’s affectionate ways. “I don’t read those types of books, so I don’t know for certain.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she admitted around a chuckle. “They’re not exactly for men, anyway, and certainly not for Shifters who know the score.”
“I take it you’re a fan of those Shifter romances though, eh?”
She grinned. “Appropriate, I suppose.”
“Yes. We’ll call it research for this moment.”
A snort escaped her. “Research—that’s a diplomatic way of putting it.”
“That’s me, a born diplomat.”
“I doubt that. You’re a biker, aren’t you? I wouldn’t say they were renowned for being cautious with their words.”
“No, you’re right, but a man can change, can’t he?”
Her smile deepened, the humor she’d found in his words changing into a bone deep contentment that radiated from her. “He certainly can,” she murmured softly, apparently pleased by his declaration. “However, the books always have it where you have to say like a ritual or something. A bit like vows, I guess, in a wedding ceremony?”
Mundo shook his head. “Some people speak blessings, but it’s more like a thank you to the Goddesses rather than a prerequisite.” He let his hand drop down and then curled his fingers around her throat. She must have sensed the lack of aggression in the move because she didn’t flinch at being caressed in such a vulnerable manner. “I have to bite you here.” He grimaced. “It will be a nasty bite, but you won’t be aware of it. I have to do it when you pass out after climaxing. Then, by the time you’re awake, it will have healed.”
“You’re a bit cocky, aren’t you?” she asked, cocking a brow at him. “What makes you think I’ll pass out?”
“Well, you passed out in the hall and I wasn’t even inside you, so I reckon I’m good.” He laughed at her expression; she looked utterly peeved. He tapped her nose. “I’m teasing, but it’s likely to happen again and again. Your body’s hardwired to mine, sugar. Passing out is going to be a natural part of sex for you now. It’s part of the magic of the bond.”
“You make it sound like a good thing.”
“Well, it’s not exactly bad, is it—being pleasured until you can’t take anymore?” When she squirmed, he knew he’d explained himself well. “When we next connect, you’ll come and I’ll claim you properly—unless your body tells you otherwise.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You had to endure the mating call for a long time. Normally, we’d just need to fuck to claim each other that way, but our claiming might be a bit different.”
“You mean, what we did out in the hall—it’s not normal?”
“Define normal,” he teased. “There isn’t much normalcy in my world.”
“No, I guess not, but you know what I mean. I…” She licked her lips in embarrassment. “I needed you to come on me. Not in me. That’s not a part of a regular claiming?”
“Not as far as I’m aware, honey, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing wrong about how we claim one another. We’re just heeding your body’s call to mine.
That’s why I said to you we’d go at your pace, do what you needed us to do. It’s my fault I couldn’t answer the mating call immediately.” His tone deepened, lowered with his anger at himself, as well as his disappointment and despair at having failed her from the first. “It’s my fault you suffered. I’ll never forgive myself for not being the mate you needed.”
“It wasn’t like you could help it, James,” she whispered, petting him again, trying to soothe him out of his funk. “You would have come to me if you could, and the instant you could, you did. You’re here now, aren’t you?” Christie hesitated a second then continued, “But if that guilt of yours means you’ll never put yourself in a position where you’re behind bars again, locked away from me, I won’t complain.”
He curled his arms about her, pulling her tighter against him. She stiffened at first, as though uncertain what his reaction would be to her words. He guessed she thought he’d be angry or offended, but he wasn’t.
Anything but.
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life, Christie. I’ve been searching for you since…”
When he broke off, she pulled back to look up at him. “Since?” A laugh escaped her. “James, are you blushing?”
He grunted. “It’s Mundo. And I don’t blush.”
“What’s Mundo?”
“My nickname.” He rolled his eyes.
“What if I don’t want to call you Mundo? What if I don’t want to call you what everyone else calls you?”
Stunned by that remark, he frowned at her. “I don’t know,” he told her honestly, because truth be told, he did like that notion very much. However… “My dad was called James. I’m named after him.” When she didn’t appear to put two and two together, he gritted out, “I hated my father.”
“He’s dead?”
Mundo shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t sought him out since I was old enough to handle things myself, and he hasn’t looked me up either.”
He could tell she was appalled by that. The way she was gawking at him made him feel like a bug under a microscope.
“What about your mother?”
“She did what he did, although if he’s dead then she is too.”
“Huh?”
Her wide eyes were filled with fright. He damned himself for putting that emotion there. “Thing is, when you’re mated to a Shifter, your life is linked to theirs. If something happened to you once I claimed you, then I’d die too. And vice versa.”
“Wow, that’s something they did get right in the books.” She blinked at him. “That’s scary.”
“Is it?” he asked, his tone a little wistful. “Now that we’re together, in each other’s arms, would you really want to be in a world without me?” When she gawked at him, he flushed. “I mean, it’s not like our bodies can’t survive without the other. It’s the heart that can’t.”
She frowned. “What do you mean? We’d die of a broken heart?”
“Yeah.” He amended, “Well, mates in a strong bond do. It’s like we give up. We stop caring whether we live or die, because a world without our other half in it is a world we don’t want to be in. Period.”
“What do you mean? A strong bond? Are there different variations?”
He nodded. “It’s a little hard to explain, especially because we've a strong bond.”
“We do?” When he nodded again, she asked, “How do you know that?”
“For the mating call to have been as urgent as ours was, that says a lot.” When her mouth rounded into a perfect ‘O’, he smiled a little. “My parents had a strange bond. It wasn’t the strongest, but it was strong enough that they’d die without one another.”
“How do you know it wasn’t strong?”
He sighed. “They cheated on each other.” When her eyes widened, he grunted. “That’s a rarity, Christie. And we won’t be cheating on each other.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You make it sound like I might…”
He could tell she was pissed, but he brushed it off easily. “You’re beautiful. What man wouldn’t want you?”
She reared back at that. “What man wouldn’t want me?” she squeaked, repeating his words in astonishment. Her eyes flickered off, down her luscious body, and she started to say something but shook her head instead. “I’m faithful to my partners, Mundo,” she whispered, conceding to using his nickname. “Always have been, always will be.”
“We’re not partners, Christie. We’re mates. There’s a huge difference.” She flinched, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t push, sensing she’d explain in a second once she’d gotten her bearings.
And he wasn’t wrong. “I was married before, Mundo. Does that mean…” She gulped. “Does this, what we have, mean I didn’t love him? Ever?”
Though it pained him to know she’d been bound to another man, something that might explain why the Goddesses hadn’t brought them together until now, he murmured, “Where is he? Did you divorce?”
She shook her head. “He got sick. He died.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her, trying to sound earnest and sincere. It was hard going, though. He was sorry for her pain, sorry the man had to die, but if he hadn’t, only the Goddesses knew when Mundo and his mate would have found one another.
“Me too,” she whispered. “But I… Already, the feelings I have for you are so much more. They’re crazy intense. I thought I loved Jake. I really thought I did.”
He reached for the hand she’d splayed against his abdomen and curled it between his own fingers. “You loved him with as much love as you were capable of giving, Christie. Your love for him was real and true. What we have is different. It’s night and day. And there isn’t one that’s better or worse, they’re just different.”
“But…”
He broke her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t overthink this, sweetheart. There’s no point because it won’t get you anywhere. You’re a different woman than the one your husband knew. You’ve endured his getting sick, his dying from that illness, and then the grief of being widowed so young. This Christie is different than the one who married him. He won’t ever know the difference, so you need never feel any guilt about what you feel for me.
“The Goddesses matched us, Christie. They knew when you came to be. They knew where I was and what I was doing when you were born. They guided us on the paths we traversed, and they knew when those paths would cross. We’re ordained, Christie, fated. This, what we have, is rare. Even among my kind.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because it’s preached to us from the beginning.”
“But you said your parents had a strong enough bond that they’d die without one another but still cheated. That doesn’t make any sense.”
He sighed. “My parents were on the weaker end of the spectrum. Plus, my dad was a jackass. Mom cheated on him because he tried to control her, so she used sex as a punishment. He’d do the same. A mate bond doesn’t stop us from being who we are. It doesn’t change us. My dad was a jackass with or without the bond, and my mom was a bitch before she met him.” Mundo shrugged uneasily. “The Goddesses can only do so much. I will never try to control you, and I will never do anything that would push you into the arms of another man.”
MUNDO (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 2) Page 5
