“All these weeks we’ve been together, you’ve been thinking that I didn’t want you. Do you know what I’ve been thinking, little one?” he asked softly and she didn’t want to know, she really didn’t but she nodded anyway and he went on even softer. “I’ve been wondering how I’m going to carry on for centuries without you after you’re gone.”
Sonia felt her breath hitch painfully and, unable to hold herself up any longer, she dropped down, rested her forehead against his collarbone and slid her arm around his chest.
Then she murmured into his chest, “You can’t love me. I’m so self-absorbed. All this time, all I’ve been thinking about was me. How on earth could you love me?”
His hand slid into her hair and pressed her cheek to his chest as he said quietly, “Unfortunately, baby doll, we don’t have enough time for me to explain all the ways I love you. That, in itself, would take centuries.”
She laughed but it was without humor, pushing closer to his body, holding him tighter and tangling her legs with his. His fingers slid through her hair then again and again until, some time later, when his hard warmth and his soothing fingers quieted her rampaging thoughts, she took a fluttering breath.
“So now you know,” he said gently. “Our time is precious. So we won’t waste it talking of this again. Agreed?”
She lifted a hand and sifted her fingers lazily through the hair on his chest.
God, she loved his chest.
On that thought, her fingers curled and she dragged her nails through the hair there as she whispered, “Agreed.”
She went back to toying with his chest hair and decided at that moment he needed to know something very, very important.
“Cal?”
“Yes, baby doll.”
God, she loved it when he called her “baby doll”.
She took in a breath and asked, “You remember when you asked me if I loved you?”
His body grew still under hers and he answered, “Yes.”
Quietly, she said, “That time, I didn’t lie.” She felt his still body grow tight and she finished, “Not about any of it.” Both of his arms came around her but she pushed up, pressing her body to his and she whispered her story in his ear, “The first time I met you, my first dream, I felt you slide in bed behind me. You held me in your arms and I told you I was glad you were home. You kissed my neck and I lay in your arms thinking, ‘This is the man I love.’ It was short, just that before I woke up but I felt strangely happy.” She lifted her head and stared in his now tawny eyes and concluded, “In that first dream, I never even saw your face.”
Both his hands came to her head, sliding into her hair, pushing it back.
Then he stated throatily, “You love me.”
Sonia rested her lips against his but with her eyes open and, staring in his, she whispered, “With everything I am, wolf, and everything I’m meant to be.”
Callum’s fingers tightened in her hair and he rolled Sonia yet again.
He was kissing her by the time her back hit the bed.
It took a while before they fell back to sleep.
And when they did, they were connected.
In more ways than one.
Chapter Twenty-One
Understanding
Callum was sitting in his study, going through a report on some of his investments when he sensed Sonia’s approach.
She was wearing another pair of her thick socks so her footfalls were soft.
But that morning before he left her, he’d made love to her and she hadn’t showered. He could smell the essence of them getting stronger as she got closer.
And he fucking loved that smell.
It had been a month since she’d finally unburdened her mind.
It was also only days before their official Mating.
And Callum couldn’t fucking wait.
The hills were again filling with tents and the town was again bursting. Everyone wanted to be there, not because the king was formally binding his queen to him but because Callum was formally binding Sonia.
He’d been to many a Mating and he’d enjoyed them.
But he knew he’d like this one best for their last month together was better than the months before that.
Infinitely better.
It was beyond perfect.
It was a dream.
However, with Regan’s assistance and Leah’s long distance advice, he was planning a surprise to happen during their Mating. A surprise for his wife.
He was looking toward the door when Sonia rounded it and came into the room smiling.
The vision of her pretty, smiling, happy face settled pleasantly somewhere in his gut, he dropped his report, sat back in his chair and returned her smile.
She made short work of the distance, her cashmere robe parting and exposing her shapely legs as she walked. He noticed, yet again, that she’d put on weight in the last month. As he suspected it would, it had hit all the right places and he was pleased with the result. But he was more pleased that she’d given up her obsession with calories and was simply, as she should, enjoying her food.