We ate cold take out from the middle of what would be our kitchen when the house was done. We’d already christened most of the house in our attempt to get enough of each other. I knew it’d never be enough, though. I’d never be able to touch Luna enough, to hold her in my arms enough, to watch her face light up with a smile enough. Even after exhausting ourselves, I couldn’t look at her without getting hard. I wanted to devour her and give myself to her completely all at the same time.

“Tell me about your childhood.” I watched as her face turned colder, but she didn’t move away from me. She stayed where she was, pressed against my chest.

“It’s not pretty.”

I stroked my hands down her arms and back up. “I can relate. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine?”

She looked up at me and pressed a kiss to my chin. “Are you sure we can’t just keep having wild sex?”

“I think your body needs a break. You’re starting to walk like you’ve been riding a horse all day.”

“Haven’t I?”

I laughed and held her closer. “Talk, woman. I want to know you.”

She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder. “My father was a snake. Literally. He was mean and conniving, but for some reason, my mom couldn’t get enough of him.”

“He was a snake shifter?”

She nodded. “Thank god I took after my mom. I’ve never been the strongest or the best in the shifter crowds, but at least I wasn’t cursed with slithering on my belly for the rest of my life.”

“I still would’ve been crazy about you.” I hesitated. “However, I’m also glad that you’re a cute little rabbit instead.”

“You don’t know that I’m cute. I could be hideous.”

“Impossible. You can show me later and I’ll let you know just how cute you are.” I kissed the top of her head. “But for now, keep talking.”

She huffed. “That’s it, really. He was mean and conniving. Everything you’d expect from a snake.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Yes. He found it very convenient that my bruises healed before anyone could see. He hated me. I wasn’t what he wanted. He was loud and the life of the party when he went out. He always had everyone eating out of the palm of his hand. Yet, there I was, shy and scared of everything. I was always tiny and a joke in a shifter community of big and scary reptiles. Even my rabbit is small and on more than one occasion, the adults caught other kids trying to eat me.”

I growled. “Where?”

“It doesn’t matter. As soon as I was old enough to leave, I did. My mom was willing to accept him, but I wasn’t. I ran away and never looked back. It didn’t stop me from repeating the pattern a few years later, though.” She sighed. “I met a wolf at a bar in New Orleans and he was just as good at pretending to be kind and charmingly smooth as my father. That lasted a couple of months, until he left me unconscious in the bathroom of some other bar in Austin.”

My heart pounded. A fiery rage billowed inside of me. I wanted to kill them. Her father and the asshole who’d thought it was okay to put his hands on her in anger.

“It’s okay, Pratt. I’m fine. It taught me that I had terrible taste in men and that it was much more peaceful, and safer, to be alone. I traveled around, looking for a place I liked enough to settle into. Then, I found Helen’s Corner.”

“Where there were hardly any men at all.”

“Exactly. And then you came along. Fate had her mind all made up for me. I tried to fight it, though, because I was scared. The second I saw you, I wanted you. I didn’t trust my taste in men, though. I was terrified of the big, bad, biker who wanted me.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t give you much reason to think I was anything different, did I.”

“You were fine. Those other guys with you, though, they were the spitting image of my father.”

I held her tighter and sighed into her hair. “I don’t know where it went wrong. They weren’t always like that. Or maybe they were. I don’t know anymore.”

“Why’d you join them?”

“I didn’t have great parents, either. My mom ran off when I was born and my dad followed her by the time I was five. He was a mean son of a bitch, too. My grandma took me in, but she died when I was ten. After that, I was passed from family member to family member until there wasn’t any more family and they put me in the system. After a couple of bad homes, I found myself hanging out with Axel at the clubhouse. The club took us in and raised us. They gave us family when no one else would.

“It wasn’t always about the drugs and sex. It just kind of became that when we got older. Axel and I are going to do right by this new club here. It’s going to be different. Family and friends, poker runs and other fundraisers and events organized to benefit the community. And, if anyone comes along who needs a home like we did back then, we’ll be able to give it to them.”

She turned to face me, straddling me as she did, and cupped my face in her hands. “You’re not at all what I thought.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You must’ve missed the part where I said drugs and sex.”

She shook her head and ran her fingers through my hair, lightly pulling it. “I heard. But, that’s not who you are now, is it? Do you want to go back to that life? Are you going to miss it?”

“Fuck no. I have you. That life could never touch how good it feels with you just sitting in my lap.”

“Then you’re perfect. For me. You’re kind. The real kind of kind. I feel like I already know you. To the core. You’re not pretending.” She tilted my head back and pressed her lips to my throat. “Fate wouldn’t be that cruel.”

“I’d do anything for you, Luna. I’d never hurt you and I’ll always protect you. No matter what.”

She ran her nose down my neck. “Always?”

“Always. I’m not letting you go.”

She held me tighter and blew out a soft breath. “This is crazy, you know? Having these kinds of feelings just a day or two into being with each other?”

I stood up and brought her to her feet. “We shift into animals. I turn into a giant, a huge bear, and you turn into a cute little rabbit. This, you and me, it’s not any crazier than that.”

She backed away from me. “I guess you’re right. I also guess it’s past time I saw this big bear you keep talking about.”

I shifted easily, growing to my bear’s full size in the blink of an eye. Stretching, I threw back my head and let out a proud roar that shook the solid foundation of the house.

Luna approached me slowly and ever so gently held out her hand to touch me. I stepped into her reach and practically purred when she caressed my coat.

“You’re beautiful.” She touched my snout and then my teeth. “So deadly.”

I huffed and rubbed my head against her chest. I would never be deadly to her. I was safer than a puppy when it came to her.

“If I shift, are you going to want to eat me?” She didn’t give me time to answer, though. She shifted and then she was a little larger than average bunny. She was snow white and fluffy. Her eyes were bright and intense as she stared up at me.

I huffed at her again and then she was off. A glance back at me over her shoulder let me know that she was teasing me. I took off after her and roared again, my bear yelling to the world about how happy we were.