Page 29 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

I’d missed being a part of a pack, honestly.

But throughout the day, something had occurred to me an increasingly-stressful number of times.

And that was the way Ryder had kissed me.

He hadn’t hesitated, or been uncertain in the slightest.

There hadn’t been any wondering, or fumbling.

And for even the most confident guy, there should be a learning curve, right?

The more I thought about it, the more nauseously-certain I became that I wasn’t Ryder’s first kiss.

And I wouldn’t have minded that… if I hadn’t known that a werewolf’s beast wouldn’t let him kiss anyone who wasn’t his mate.

So if I wasn’t Ryder’s first kiss, then Lisa was.

And if he had kissed Lisa… well, then there was a lot more to their story than I knew.

And Ryder hadn’t told me about it.

ELEVEN

We didn’t foolaround before going to sleep that night. Ryder stroked my hair and arms a bit, but he didn’t try to kiss me. I was facing away from him though, so I figured he assumed I was either tired or not in the mood. Both were true, so his assumptions weren’t entirely incorrect, either.

The next morning, I woke up to find him staring at me, his fingers moving slowly over the top of my upper thigh. I’d stripped my bra and pants off to sleep, so all I had on was the teats t-shirt and the panties I’d had on the day before.

I felt dirty and gross, but somehow with his fingers trailing over my leg like that, I felt sexy too.

My mind went back to last night though—and then all sexy feelings vanished entirely.

Ryder wasn’t being completely honest with me.

And that was fine; we hadn’t known each other, or that we were mates, for long.

But if he wasn’t going to give me all the details about his physical relationship with Lisa, hisfirstmate, then we wouldn’t have a physical relationship either. I wasn’t a wolf, but I didn’t want to share him any way, and if there had been a physical relationship then there had to have been an emotional one too.

So, even if that was stupid, I was sticking to my guns on it. I might have been his second mate, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be his second choice.

I was a first place trophy, not a damned participation ribbon.

“Hey,” he murmured to me, as our eyes met.

“Hey,” I croaked.

“You’re gorgeous.” His fingers wrapped around the thigh he’d been dragging them over, and my eyes closed as he squeezed lightly.

My body was no longer agreeing with my decision to keep things from getting physical again until I knew Ryder better and understood whatever he’d done with Lisa. If they still had a relationship of some kind… well, I wasn’t going there.

Not a freakin’ chance.

I’d assumed his wolf would go wild faster if he saw her, not that they were making out in the evenings or whatever the hell they had been doing together to make him so good at kissing.

“I need a shower,” I said, instead of acknowledging his compliment.

“You want to head home?” He squeezed my thigh lightly again, and I bit back a groan. My eyes were still closed, but he could undoubtedly smell my arousal.

“Mmhm.” I nodded a bit jerkily. “I need to wash the dirt off my skin, and call the school, and—fuck, Ryder.” The last few words were hissed, as the backs of his fingers brushed over the front of my panties. “Your pack is just outside.”

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