Chapter Two
For the last few days, knowing I had a mate out there in the world, but not having met him yet, I'd been conflicted. I was like most beings, I eventually wanted to settle down and do the love and family thing, but I was an immortal being who'd just turned twenty-five on my last birthday and had spent more time than not being pushed toward a goal that was not my own. The idea of settling down hadn't appealed in the least before I'd caught Marshall's scent seeping out of the door to that room in Purdy.
Sure, I'd joked with Richmond and Payne about introducing me to a nice chosen, but I hadn't been serious. I wasn't ready to settle down. To be tied to a life in one spot. I had been dreaming of the day I'd be able to get out and do the things I wanted. Go to the places I chose.
But, Marshall. I hadn't been prepared for how much I'd want him also. And with every passing moment, I was already starting to see why other shifters were so crazy when it came to their mates.
He was absolutely unbelievable. Boy next store meets elven beauty. Adorable and sexy. It was hard to tell if his golden brown hair was styled in a mess or actually a mess. He had an odd charm that placed him somewhere between absolute dork and easy-going buddy, and I found myself smiling at his awkwardness.
His body was small and compact, but far from fragile and I'd been sporting a semi since the moment I'd looked down those stairs and seen him holding out that stupid garden gnome, strong hand and forearm gripping the concrete lawn ornament and bicep pressing against the skin of his arm as he held it out in front of him.
I'd never in my life been so turned on by someone's arms. Or considered nibbling them before. But they were long and pale, and though they were definitely masculine with smallish muscles, the skin looked soft and delicate.
I just wanted to take my whiskered chin and rub it against the pale, unmarred skin and redden it.
I'd tried to be careful about staring at him all day, knowing my awe and confusion was probably showing on my face.
The trip out of Oregon had been torturous as his delicious scent had settled in the car around me, making my fucking gorilla restless. Making me incredibly horny.
I'd had to crack the fucking window and nearly hold my head out like a dog just to keep from snatching him into my lap and making everyone in the fucking SUV uncomfortable.
Before I'd met him, I'd thought I might have the ability to walk away. I might be able to choose the nomadic life I wanted over a life of settling down with one man. I had even been prepared to fight my gorilla on it. But now, after meeting him, I wasn't sure I wanted to fight my gorilla. I wasn't sure I wanted to do anything for the rest of my life but worship the awkward human who kept trying to hand me stuff and had had a fucking panic attack and nearly given his precious little feet frostbite.
I growled slightly when I thought about his scraped knees and hands and his cold, beat up toes from where he'd tripped on that bright yellow concrete parking barrier, quieting down a bit when I remembered last minute that everyone else in the room was sleeping.
I'd barely caught him from falling over completely in the snow, scooping him up and hauling him back inside where Harley and Carter had taken one look at my face and grabbed their shoes and jackets and given me the privacy I'd needed to doctor his wounds.
It was a good thing I'd for some reason grabbed band aids and antibiotic ointment when I'd gone and grabbed better shampoo and stuff, not wanting my mate to have to use the motel's harsh soap on his soft, delicate skin.
I'd had to remove his jeans to get to his knees, but I'd been sure to keep the rest of his clothes in place and had only given in to temptation and glanced at his package in those ridiculously tight boxer briefs once before throwing a blanket over the parts of his lower half that I didn't need to doctor.
Harley and Carter had showed up not long after I'd gotten Marshall completely taken care of and climbed into to bed next to him, pulling him into my body. They'd simply nodded and climbed into bed as well.
At midnight, I pressed my lips to my sweet mate's head, not sure what I was going to do with myself, but knowing I wasn't doing anything without him by my side.
So much had changed for me in the last ten hours, I wasn't sure what was up…okay, running the risk of being obvious with my inner innuendos, I knew exactly what was up, but with my mate lying next to me in bed smelling so incredibly edible, it was no surprise I was up.
I still wanted to travel the world, but the urge was nothing in comparison to the need in my gut to stay close to Marshall Dillon. It was more than just protecting him. I wanted his company like I'd never wanted anyone's company in my life.
I'd been homeschooled when I was younger. Cut off from most of the world until I was old enough to make decisions on my own. After I'd graduated, I'd moved away, planning to go to college and get away from my slightly controlling parents and my mother's constant paranoia that someone was going to find out what I was.
For the first year, I was an exemplary college student. Great grades, only partying on weekends and definitely never doing anything that would jeopardize my college career and therefore put me back in the overbearing hands of my mother.
I'd never had a chance when I met David. Young, dumb, completely naive me had no idea what I was getting into when I said yes to a date with him.
He’s just been so different from the life in which I ‘d grown up. I didn't meet him at school, because he didn't go to school. He was older and though I never saw him work, he always had money and I was drawn in so hard by his bad boy, don't-give-a-shit attitude and the cavalier way he went about life.
For a guy who'd never experienced anything outside of the carefully controlled lines of the life my mother thought I should lead, the idea of running around without regulation and expectations had been as romantic a notion as running around to other countries.
I'd never had a chance in hell. I'm sure he took one look at the young, stupid kid who was going to school less than three hundred miles from the place he'd grown up in and that was literally the furthest he'd ever been from Crossville, Tennessee and knew exactly what a sucker looked like.
I wasn't naive enough to not realize what we were doing wasn't exactly legal. And my nose had definitely told me more than once that what was in the bag I was dropping off at the gym wasn't pre-workout like David had told me. But I was too wrapped up in the fact that I was making my own choices to worry about it. And hell, David had been doing this for years. What was the worst that could happen?
Turns out, you can make the mistake of dropping the bag off without making sure the person who takes it from you is the person you are supposed to be dropping it for and they can look inside after you leave and call the police and your face can be right there plain as day on the video feed dropping drugs off to the receptionist, and before you know it, you're getting a prison sentence.
The only things that saved me in any of it were the fact that it was obvious I was just an idiot. An idiot who finally realized I'd been used and therefore had no problem telling them all about David and his asshole associate that turned out to be his real boyfriend.
That's right. I hadn't actually had a boyfriend. And maybe I should have known that since he'd barely even touched me outside of a make-out session every once in a while. Probably just enough to keep me from leaving.
It had been five-and-a-half long years since David, so I really didn't feel like I was all that bitter because of it, but prison hadn't really been a place to form a relationship, and I'd been a bit busy since I'd gotten out.
So, technically, I hadn't ever been in a real relationship and I was still holding on to that V-card, and I was about as prepared for taking care of a mate as I was for Armageddon.
Actually, now that I'd been to Purdy, I actually knew where a fallout shelter was, so maybe I was more prepared for Armageddon.
The day I'd gotten out of prison, I'd told myself I was going to see the world. I wasn't going to tie myself to one place, and I was going to do exactly what I wanted.
Unfortunately, I'd had to be on probation for a while and then my parents had needed to sell their house in Tennessee to start over somewhere else because they both still looked in their mid-twenties and I'd gone back to help finalize everything for them because I was supposed to look like I was in my mid-twenties.
Finally though, I was free. I didn't have to be tied down and...yeah.
I'd formed an odd friendship with Axel and when he said he was going to Purdy, Nebraska, I'd asked to tag along. I had no idea where I was going to go after that, but it was further than I'd ever traveled and as depressed as Axel had been while dealing with his streak lately, I'd thought it would be mutually beneficial to us both.
When I'd first realized what the scent coming from that shut bedroom door meant, I'd started to regret that decision. I just couldn't understand how life could be so unfair. I was young by shifter standards. I'd already spent my entire life with a controlling mother and a prison sentence. How could my freedom be taken away before I'd even actually gotten it?
And then I'd met Marshall. And he was perfection. I always thought shifters called their mates perfect because they were their mates and saying they had a fault would be disrespectful or something. But I was starting to see what all the fuss was about, and I wasn't sure how to handle the cluster-fuck of emotions it caused.
Looking at my sleeping mate, I wasn't sure what my next step would be. I was desperate not to be tied down again, but the idea of just walking away from him made my gorilla pissed, and me feel more trapped than I had in that tiny cell.
Reaching out, I gently ran the back of my finger down his cheek, smiling softly at the silky smoothness that stopped abruptly where his whiskers had started to grow back on his jaw.
Making a soft sound, he nuzzled my hand, shifting closer on the bed. I didn't want him rubbing his sore knees against the mattress, so scooting closer, I pressed my body against his, curling my legs up under his knees so that they were elevated against my thighs and wrapped my arm around his waist, pulling him as close as our position would allow, smiling when he sighed in contentment and pushed his head up under my chin.
I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this precious human, but I was already leaning toward giving up every dream I'd ever had just to remain close to him. How much worse would it be by the time we got back to Purdy?
Sighing, I shrugged. Oh well. I guess there are worse things in life than finding my mate and living happily ever after with him.
***
I was rudely jerked awake when Marshall yelled, "Oh fuck!" and scrambled away from me on the bed, hitting the wall between us and the bathroom and falling down in the little, one-foot of space almost all motels kept between the side of the bed and the wall.
"Marshall?!" I jumped up, leaning over the side of the bed to find a wide-eyed beauty, shoulders folded in like a taco and stuck halfway down where they were too girthy for the hole. He blinked up at me probably still trying to process the disastrous first few seconds of his morning.
"Are you alright?" I tried to offer him a hand, but his eyes nearly bugged completely out of his head, and he started wiggling, clearly trying to sit up but only succeeding in falling further down into the hole until he hit the ground and one of his shoulders wedged under the bed.
"Shit," he whispered, wiggling again until he was lying on his side between the bed and the wall again blinking as he realized he was still going to have to figure out how to get the hell out of there.
Reaching up, he gripped the edge of the bed, pulling himself up slightly while trying to get his arm under him, but after about thirty seconds of what looked like a tiring, painful way of doing absolutely nothing, I rolled my eyes.
"Just let me help you," I growled, once again reaching for his hand.
Gasping, he jerked his hand out of my reach, letting go of the edge of the bed and falling back to the floor with an audible thump as his head hit the wall that made me cringe. At least his face hadn't hit the frame of the bed.
Was it me? Was he afraid I was going to hurt him or did he just not want my touch for some reason? "Damn it, Marshall," I growled with probably a little too much frustration as I tried to control just how hurt I was at the prospect of him not wanting my hands on him. "I'm not going to rip your arm off or anything. I'm just going to get you out of the fucking hole."
Beautiful, hazel eyes blinked up at me,and I wondered for a moment if I'd pushed too hard and was about to have to deal with another panic attack, but he slowly reached his hand up, offering it to me.
I grasped it, marveling mentally at yet more soft skin, and eased him out of the crack, and back onto the bed.
When he was finally sitting up on the edge of the bed, he bit his lip, letting his gaze drop to his hands in his lap. "Thank you, Quinn. Sorry you had to help me out of there."
Snorting, I shook my head, drawing his attention from the hands he was twisting in his lap. "No problem. I'm sorry I scared you and made you fall in that giant crack to begin with."
He licked his lips, looking conflicted as a frown creased the center of his forehead. "It wasn't you, really," he said finally, taking a deep breath and sending me a tight smile and rolling his eyes. "I'm not afraid of you or anything. I was just surprised to find you next to me."
"Oh!" Duh! He didn't know I was his mate. I didn't even know if he felt the pull at all. He'd been far too messed up with all that had happened to him the day before to concentrate on his feelings for me. To him, my presence in bed next to him wasn't a given. "I'm sorry. I probably should have taken the floor."
"No!" he said quickly, throwing a hand up and standing. His shirt dropped down over his underwear, making it look almost like he wore nothing beneath and I felt my morning wood flex beneath the jeans I'd opted to keep on, so I wouldn't give in to temptation in the middle of the night.
He cringed, glancing toward the bed where Carter and Harley were both pretending to sleep even though I'd heard their breathing change about the same time my mate had slammed into the wall earlier.
"No." He said more quietly, backing toward the bathroom door. "I had been planning to sleep on the floor. I was even going to take the top blanket and leave the bottom one because it probably smells less like me since I didn't climb under the blankest earlier, just sat on the outside one and I know you don't like the way I smell. If I wouldn't have––" he paused, cringing again. "If I wouldn't have freaked out––"
When he met my gaze again, he looked completely mortified, and before I could even process the mess of words he'd just thrown at me, he'd slapped a hand over his mouth and dashed into the bathroom, slamming the door.
Blinking in disbelief, I turned to Harley and Carter as I heard the shower come on in the bathroom. Sighing, I leaned back against the headboard, closing my eyes.
"I know you guys are awake," I grumbled, feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet. "He thinks I don't like him."
"It probably had something to do with the way you practically tried to climb out the car window when he was sitting next to you or the way you nearly buried your face in your own shoe, so you wouldn't have to smell him last night," Harley said matter-of-factly, making me roll my head in his direction.
"Yeah," Carter said, leaning up on an elbow to look at me over his mate's massive chest. "Subtlety isn't really your strong suit."
"My gorilla was being an asshole, and I didn't want to freak him out any more than he already was by throwing him over my shoulder and running off into the woods with him," I defended, raising a hand and then dropping it back into my lap. "Keeping his scent as diluted as possible was the only way to control the bastard."
"He has to come out eventually, right?" Harley said, settling his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes. "He'll have to talk to you eventually, right? Even if that had to be fucking humiliating."
Carter shook his head, giving his mate a look that was clearly exasperated and endearing at the same time. "He'll get over it, Quinn. Marshall's entire life has changed drastically over the last half-year. Very little penetrates that thick skin of his. Give him a bit to get over the sting before you address it, but I bet you guys will figure it out."