Page 62 of Broken Heat
“Last night I texted Senta while you slept.”
“I thought you were asleep, too.”
“I did sleep. But I have a very good boss, you know. He encourages his employees to confide in him. Even the most difficult of things. I told him you were not to have another surrogate. I would be very angry if he assigned you one. I told him you were my mate.” He clasped his hands together and looked up, then down, then back at me. He blinked. “And so he said he’d leave us alone.”
“Uh, what?” I couldn’t have heard him correctly. I was his mate?
“You see, with mates, the rules change. You can’t go against their wishes. So we’re safe for now.” He shrugged.
“But—but you just said that so he’d leave us alone?”
Mykel stepped forward. “No. That’s not the only reason.”
I was shaking now. My mouth trembling. My eyes filling.
Then I was in his arms, trembling, trying to keep from sobbing.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, head bowed to my ear.
I put my arms around his shoulders and pulled myself up until I could wrap my legs around his waist. Through the apron, his hard cock pressed against my ass.
I hugged him as tightly as I could. His hands came under my cheeks and supported me, palms cupping gently.
He took me to the couch, set me down, and started petting the tears from my face.
He kissed my forehead. His palms framed my face.
“Sweet omega,” he said. “This is how it starts. The bonding. Do you feel it?”
I pushed out my lips in a pout. My chest shook. “I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“I know,” he said, smiling. “But now you do.”
I thought I’d been bonded to my dead husband. Now I knew the truth. We’d never had a bond. I’d been his convenient hole. And not much beyond that.
I’d had nothing to compare that to. Until now.
Mykel kissed both my cheeks, then my lips.
I opened completely to him, his fevered love melting through me from just that touch alone. A kiss. A sharing of more than sex, but communication in a language beyond words.
Mykel was my mate. We were forming a bond. I could hardly believe it.
When we broke away, he said, “My rut was a direct result of this. We had started to bond very quickly that first night when you wanted to explore my body, when you spent those hours with me still thinking I was your surrogate and you my patient. When I left you, something felt wrong inside me. The rut was my body’s way of saying you were the one. But I didn’t know that until you came to me against all the rules. I didn’t know until I saw you sitting in my living room telling me in no uncertain terms that you had to come to me.”
“It was as if I would die if I didn’t,” I replied.
“And even then, I wasn’t sure.”
“When were you sure?”
“It happened gradually. I thought I was only hoping for it. That my affection for you made me want you more than any others.”
I smiled up at him. “Was it when I started talking dirty to you? Or when I begged you to stick your tongue and your finger in me at the same time? Or when—”
He put his finger over my lips, quieting me. “All of it,” he said. “It was all of it. Not one moment was a single factor. They all wove together and I saw it forming like a beacon growing brighter between us.”
“Us.” I loved the sound of that word.
