Page 310 of Labor of Love

Instead of answering my question, he asked softly, “Are you going to find someone else to spend your rut with if I say no?”

I shook my head. My curls flopped over my eyes at the action. Onyx’s smile was breathtaking as he tucked the stray strands behind my ear.

“I’d already planned on spending this rut alone—before I met you. Got the calming meds already prescribed and everything. Even if we don’t spend this rut together, that won’t stop me frompursuing you. I want to be with you,” I said, letting myself be vulnerable.

Being betrayed by someone I’d been close to for so long made it hard to want to trust anybody ever again, but this was Onyx.

My fated mate.

We might have just met, but his soul called out to mine on the most primal level. We were two sides of the same coin. Trusting him was like trusting myself.

“Okay,” Onyx said, with no hesitation.

“Okay?” I asked, needing to confirm I hadn’t imagined the answer.

Onyx nodded. “I’m not sure I believe all this fated mate stuff. It sounds too fantastical to be real.” He tilted his head in an adorable way that made something inside me feel soft and warm.

“I can understand that,” I said with a chuckle.

“But there’s no denying there’s something between us,” he said, looking at our hands. They danced together, every touch a magical tingle that made the world feel right.

“This is a first for me,” he murmured.

“Me too,” I said just as softly. “It’ll be another first we share. One of many.”

Onyx’s lips tug upward, and before I could fully appreciate the way happiness looked dazzling on him, he leaned over and kissed me.

It never occurred to me I hadn’t once taken a real breath in my life. Not until this moment, sharing oxygen with Onyx, our tongues crashing, and me, finally getting to suck on those delectable lips.

Air never tasted this sweet.

3

ONYX

“You kissed the puppy?” Asher practically squealed later that afternoon at the bar. Asher had ambushed me to grill me for deets as soon as he arrived.

I told him about how Luca asked me to spend his rut with him, and Asher hadn’t stopped squealing since.

He sat on the barstool, head resting on his hands as he watched me wipe away the water stains on the glasses that’d been washed last night.

“How was it? Is he a good kisser? He looks like a good kisser.”

I frowned at my friend’s statement. Even though I was sure every single omega who’d shot lustful eyes at him this past week had imagined being intimate with Luca in one way or another, that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Maybe fated mateswerereal, and that was why this illogical jealousy kept popping up. I’d never been this possessive before, even with my past partners. But with Luca? I didn’t know how to describe it, but he was mine, and I didn’t want to share.

Asher took one look at my face and laughed. “Oh, man. You have it bad,” he said with a shake of his head.

My hand paused on the glass before setting it down and going around the bar to take a seat beside my best friend.

“He says we’re fated mates,” I admitted.

Asher’s eyes went as wide as mine probably did when Luca had told me the same thing. Seeing the shock on someone else’s face shifted something inside of me, and suddenly I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my stool.

Asher gave me a funny look. “Do people just turn weird once you find your fated mate?” He shot a cautious look my way. He sighed and rested his head on his hands again. “Fated mates, huh? Your ‘perfect someone who’ll always be with you,’” he said ruefully.

My laughter calmed into a soft smile as I pulled him into a half-hug. Being a chinchilla shifter, Asher was tiny. The top of his head barely reached my chin, so his head was basically nestled into my armpit in this position.

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