Page 10 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

Definitely.

And I mean, if we were mates, why not just go for it? Have a little sex, get to know each other’s bodies, have some fun…

I wasn’t sure how to bring that up, though.

Should I ask him? Slide myself over so he was pressed against my opening? Start touching myself?

I was not smooth at this. Not that I was really smooth with anything else, either.

Ryder’s chest rumbled slightly, and he dropped me on my ass on the bed half a second later, striding out of the room.

My wolf didn’t erupt violently when he disappeared like one might expect a wolf chasing her mate to do, but I still threw myself out of bed and hurried after the gorgeous bastard, just in case.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, following him into the bathroom as he stepped into the bath/shower combo and yanked the curtain shut. I couldn’t see him through the damn thing, unfortunately.

“Cold shower,” the man growled back.

Oh.

“We could just, like, help each other out instead of—”

“No.” He cut me off without even letting me finish.

I blinked at the curtain.

Then blinked again.

What did he mean?

“No helping each other out, or no something else, or…”

“No sex,” he growled back.

I blinked a bunch more times. “Ever?”

“Ever.” His voice was gravel.

The words kind of hurt.

Okay, fine, they did hurt. Really fucking bad.

I had saved myself for a werewolf mate until I was eighteen, and then I’d saved myself for whatever human soulmate-like connection I’d found. Fate threw me a damned bone with an actual mate, and… he didn’t want me?

I wasn’t one for moping, though. My sadness pretty much always turned into frustration or anger—and you can be sure as hell that his words pissed me off.

“So you want to be platonic mates,” I said, my voice flat.

“Yes.” He was growling again, and I no longer gave a shit about that.

Sam, my brother-in-law-slash-father, had grown up with parents who were platonic mates. They were still alive, and were practically my grandparents. And they were happy enough, but I didn’t want a relationship like theirs—I wanted love. Real fucking love.

“Then you’d better hope my wolf rejects your inked-up ass, because I’m not going to settle for platonic,” I said, my voice pure anger.

Spinning, I stalked out of the bathroom. My wolf rose up a bit, but she didn’t seem intensely opinionated or dominant, and didn’t try to force me to shift as I walked back into my bedroom.

All female wolves were comfortable with different degrees of distance from the mate they were chasing while they were chasing him; maybe mine would be fine with a shit-ton of it. She was a sigma, so she would refuse to play by anyone’s rules but her own.

I sincerely hoped her rules were easy to deal with.

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