Page 25 of Love in the Wild

“Yes, I suppose we did.”

“After date?” he said, pressing on with his questions.

“After? Well, if they like each other, they might kiss.”

“Like we kiss?” He brushed his fingers along her throat, the touch so light that she didn’t feel threatened.

“Yes.” She had to admit that was true too.

“After kiss?” His blue eyes never left hers as he continued his questions.

“It depends. Sometimes they spend the night together.”

“Eden spent night with Thorne.” He pointed this out with pride.

Heat flooded Eden’s face. “We did, but it’s not quite the same thing. You see, sometimes they need to havemoredates before they decide. And sometimes they decidenotto be mates.”

His lips pursed, and he slowly pulled his hand away from her throat. The loss of that connection rang deep inside her like the melancholy sound of a single bell. She hoped he didn’t take what she said the wrong way, but he had to understand that there were choices involved.

“Thorne ...” She honestly didn’t know what to say as she reached for his hand. “This is all new to you.I’mnew to you. Dating ...matingis something you take slowly. Some people rush, but it’s better to make sure that you care about someone, that you love someone first.”

All her life that’s what she’d wanted and had yet to find it with a man. If she could teach Thorne one thing, it was the importance of getting a relationship right. Heaven knows she hadn’t been able to get it right yet herself. Thorne watched her eyes, his gaze searching.

“Will Eden take Thorne as mate?”

“We should take our time, see what happens between us.” She shouldn’t have said that. She had to focus on getting out of this jungle and contacting the authorities about the massacre. Remembering that made her head pound and her stomach churn. It was so easy to forget the awful nightmare when she was with Thorne, but staying here with him and pretending it hadn’t happened—it wasn’t right. She owed it to Maggie, Harold, and the others to get back into the civilized world and help the authorities track down the men who did this and arrest them. But while she was around Thorne, she couldn’t seem to think past the gorgeous jungle god who wanted tomateher. If that wasn’t straight out of a late-night wet dream she didn’t know what was. Any woman on the planet would kill for this fantasy. But this wasn’t a fantasy. People were dead, and the jungle was dangerous.

“No other males for Eden?” Thorne clarified, his gaze hopeful and serious.

“No.” There were certainly no other men before she’d come to Africa. And after their gentle and life-altering kiss, she couldn’t picture herself with any other man.

“Good.” He lifted her hand to his and pressed his lips to her knuckles in a way that made her heart flutter. How did he know to do that? Were his memories of his early childhood strong enough to retain some things he’d seen his parents do? He was English nobility, and now more than ever she saw that he was infinitely more than that, with his classically handsome features and the quiet, noble presence of his heart that seemed to hearken to the ancient days of fair ladies and knights riding white chargers into battle.

Thorne Haywood, Lord of the Jungle, was a fairytale prince. Eden was worried she might—no, definitelywould—fall in love with him. What would happen to her when he finally left the jungle and embraced the destiny that should have been his years ago? There might not be a place for her in his life then. And if he didn’t leave the jungle? What place was there for her here?

Eden touched the necklace Thorne had given her, the ginkgo leaf necklace that had belonged to his mother, the one that held such a significance to him now that he was learning who he was—who he might be someday.

He was her wild man, but someday he would belong to the world. If that was the case, she should take advantage of the time when he belonged to her and her alone.

“Could I meet your family?” she asked him. “Keza and the others?”

“Yes, I will take you to them.” He helped her to her feet, and Eden followed Thorne into the jungle.

6

Thorne’s lips were still tingling as he touched them with his fingertips. If he closed his eyes, he could even relive that kiss.

Kiss.

A strange word for such a powerful experience. He had been certain that she would lash out at him the way many animal females did when going into heat. Yet she’d given him something else instead, something precious: the human custom of kissing. The more he replayed it in his mind, the more he swore he remembered his parents kissing. The memories were hazy, tinged with heartsick longing, but they were there all the same.

They do it so they can get to know each other. To decide if they want to be mates.

He was a little embarrassed at his body’s response to that kiss. Before he met Eden, he’d felt no shame about his body, but being around her, a woman from another world, a woman who knew the ways of their people where he did not, did make him embarrassed. Surely a male who couldn’t control his body wasn’t worthy of being a mate.

Thorne was terrified he would do or say the wrong thing and lose her. In his world, mating was about forming a relationship, a bond of trust and power.

And sometimes they decidenotto be mates.

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