After their food truck picnic date on Wednesday, he’d walked her to her car. The small Toyota Camry was parked in the campus lot, and Finley was happy to just be with her. He didn’t like the fact that the car looked to be a few years old, but Zara explained that she told her parents she wanted a used car that she wouldn’t get upset about when it got dinged in the school parking lot.

Finley had stood expectantly on the sidewalk and wasn’t sure if he should kiss her or let her kiss him again. His bear wanted to press her over the hood of the car and suck on her neck like it was 90s music video shoot. Not going to happen.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets to stifle any impulse to reach for her and watched her toss her purse into the front seat. Zara turned around and stood on her tiptoes to place a kiss against his mouth.

Finley’s hands came out of his pockets immediately and circled her waist, lifting and pressing her against him.

He kissed her goodbye and hello again. It was a kiss that told her that he was going to be around, and, most importantly, that he wasn’t nearly done spending time with her.

Zara pulled away first this time, her fingers reaching to her lips. “How do you do that?”

Finley couldn’t hold back the gruff sound in his voice. “Do what?”

“Kiss me like you know me?”

“Sorry?”

“You kiss me like you’ve done it a thousand times. Like you know what I like already.”

Finley reached for her hand and pulled it to his mouth, kissing her palm. “Maybe I knew you in another life.”

“Maybe, though I’m not sure I believe in that. My mother does,” she said like it was an automatic response. Judging from the blush that flooded her cheeks, it might have been.

“Then we need to continue testing and analyzing your findings, right?”

Zara smiled up at him and he kissed that smile before making sure she was safely in her car and driving away.

* * *

Finley met Zara the next day after her first class, and then again after her next class. His classes were staggered to hers so it was going to be tricky getting on a schedule. He managed to sneak her out under a large tree and kiss her silly before he walked her to her next class. Each kiss felt like a bolt drilling into his heart. It was amazing how he could only think of one person now. He didn’t care if he ate or slept, his thoughts were consumed by her.

His previous years of slacking seemed like a distant memory now. His motivation to complete his own education and support his mate’s was all consuming. He wanted what was best for her. His animal wanted to run away with her and spend their days in bed making little fuzzy cubs, but that wasn’t what was best for Zara.

His bear would have to wait. Their day would come and they had all the time in the world to get to it.

A few days later, on Friday night, Zara met Finley at the movie theater downtown. It was old and had a musty, moldy smell that mixed in with the popcorn someone was burning. As Finley sat next to her, he didn’t know if it was the darkness and being so close to his mate, who was happily holding his arm with her hand linked with his or maybe it was the odd amount of flesh Jane Fonda was showing off in the movie, but he was horny.

Not just the easy to ignore type of horny either. Full on, not paying attention to the movie, only thinking with his dick horny. His animal had been trying to convince him that they could enter a physical relationship without revealing their secret, but Finley didn’t agree. He had to be honest with his mate. She seemed happy to be dating him, but he didn’t know what she would say if he told her he’d like to continue dating her for the next hundred years or so.

It was a lot to ask of anyone, especially at their age. He knew that once they had bonded, and his bear had gotten its first taste of her blood, that she would live a long and healthy life just like him. So for him, the future was already planned out.

Telling her that he wanted to be with her forever actually sounded easier than telling her that he wanted to bite her. After she sprayed him with mace and ran away, he’d have to figure out how to live without his heart for the rest of his life.

No, he needed her to know all about him from the beginning. He didn’t want to have to explain everything to her after they’d been together. He didn’t want her to think he had tricked her in any way.

Then again, he’d tried to bring up soul mates to her a few times, or love at first sight. Zara had never completely disagreed with him, but she had also just explained it away as chemical attraction. She didn’t say it didn’t feel like love, just that it was endorphins tricking people’s minds so they could procreate and keep the species alive.

She really thought she was being technical about it, but it turned Finley on just the same.

Finley needed to keep his eyes off the screen since it was ridiculous and arousing at the same time. So he focused his gaze on their linked hands. Zara had her whole arm wrapped around his bicep and her right hand intertwined with his left. He was holding a bag of popcorn that she was reaching across to eat out of.

He could catch the gleam of her teeth as she smiled during the movie. She was really enjoying it, and he and his bear were content knowing that.

Finley hadn’t told his family about her yet. He still wanted to get some more time in with her. Rain had sent a few text messages, so had Angel. They were both shocked that he was taking things so calmly.

He might have been calm on the outside, but on the inside his bear was tearing him apart. He was an animal and knew what he wanted. Finley respected that. But it didn’t change his plans at all. There were too many things in his life he’d screwed up. This wasn’t going to be one of them. He was going to do this the right way.

When the movie ended, he walked her out into the crisp night air, holding her hand.

“Oh, man!” she exclaimed. “That was awful and great!”

“You have a very strange idea of movie enjoyment.”

“It was cheese to the thousandth power. I loved it. Come on, didn’t you like it, even just a little?”

“I liked that you liked it. I will sit through any weird movie you want me to if you hold my hand.”

“Don’t say that. I have spectacularly bad taste in movies. I mean I love all the big block buster space movies. Because come on, they are amazing. But I also love the campy stuff. Have you ever seen the original Flash Gordon? Classic!”

“Can’t say that I have. But if you want to see it, I’ll make it happen.”

Zara paused as they were walking down the sidewalk to the parking garage. “You know you always say that.”

“Say what?”

“That you’ll do whatever I want. That anything I want to do you will do. What about what you want?”

“My needs are much simpler, and much more complicated, at the same time. What I want, I can’t have yet.”

Zara narrowed her eyes at him. “This is all about the pooty isn’t it?”

Finley practically choked. “Pooty? Really?”

“Fine. Pussy, vagina, banging, slapping uglies, I could continue...”

“No, please don’t. It’s not that I don’t want to because, baby, I think about it all the time. I just want to make sure we’re in a good place before that happens.”

“What if I said we are already in a good place and I think we should?”

Finley had to push his bear back because his greedy ass was roaring.

“Zara, we’ve gone out a few times. That’s it. Don’t you think we should go out a few more times? Settle in a bit?”

“Are you turning me down?”

“Hell no! You might not have noticed, but I’m usually sporting wood around you.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve noticed. Who couldn’t? But I’m a grown woman and I make my own choices. Sex is a healthy outlet that we are designed to do. Why shouldn’t we?”

Finley was struggling to remember why they shouldn’t. He had a thoughtful, planned out response, explaining vaguely about how things needed to be aligned in the universe, or something about committing to one’s future. It was all hazy after her declaration of ‘Let’s do it.’

“Because you don’t know me, not really!”

“Okay, tell me. I know your name, your family, and your life goals. You told me about your brother and best friend. I know you have cousins, lots of them. I know you see bad movies with me and feed me. You have no idea how much that endears you to a woman. Why don’t men understand that, on a biological level, women just want to be fed and comfortable? We are designed to make babies and to do that and produce healthy offspring, we need food and safety. Give a woman those things and you instantly look more appealing. I mean it’s the same thing with animals.”

“Babe, you aren’t an animal.”

“Of course, I am. So are you. It doesn’t matter how evolved we think we are, we have base needs that our mind will always drive us to fulfill. No matter how smart we may think we are. Our inner animals will always win out.”

Fuck. She had no idea how close she was to the truth. Should he just come out and tell her on the street that he was a shifter? That he had a large bear living inside him and he could become that bear with just a thought?

Would she run down the street screaming? Would she just laugh and not believe him?

There was so much risk involved in telling her even though at some point he knew that it had to be done.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, grabbing her hand and starting to walk.

“Are you avoiding something?”

“Yes, absolutely. Maybe just delaying. Let’s grab something to eat. Anything sound good?”

Finley was walking and talking because he was afraid his bear would make him say something he wasn’t sure he was ready to say at all.

“Don’t care, anything.”

“Just not tuna or celery,” he muttered to himself and heard her giggle. Shit, that giggle did things to him.