Chapter 12 My Mate Is Here
My Mate Is Here
Pascal
I paid the cab driver and put my card into my wallet before stuffing it into my jeans’ back pocket. Only when the cab was gone, did I look at Ansel.
My oversized heart all but burst in my chest.
He looked out of place on the dirty sidewalk in dress pants and a formal shirt. His smile was tiny and weak, but his eyes shone brighter than the streetlamps. When he shuffled from foot to foot, hunching over, I ached to grab him and squeeze him to me.
“Hi.” The one shy syllable carried hope and longing.
Instead of replying, I spread my arms. He took one unsure step closer, so I opened my arms wider.
“Come here.”
Ansel walked over and sagged against my chest with a deep sigh.
Closing my eyes, I breathed him in. Cream and blueberries with a hint of vanilla.
It used to be my favorite ice-cream combination as a kid—one scoop of vanilla and one scoop of blueberry.
My mouth watered, and I swallowed. I wanted to kiss him and lick him head to toe.
Make him come. But he came to me to feel safe.
Unless he wanted the same, I wouldn’t… I smoothed my hands up and down his back, soaking up his warmth through the thin fabric of his shirt.
Ansel leaned into our embrace, fisting my T-shirt. The softest little moan wafted away with the breeze. Does he want me like I want him? But I wouldn’t be selfish—Ansel came to me because he had nowhere to go. He needed to feel safe.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
I was ready to let go whenever he wanted, but he didn’t try to disentangle himself. Keeping his fists clenched tight around the fabric of my T-shirt, he tilted his face up. A little crease appeared between his eyebrows when he studied me.
“This is weird,” he murmured.
“What?”
“How this feels.”
“How does it feel?” I whispered my question, not wanting to scare him away.
Instead of answering, he pressed his forehead against my breastbone, and his breath warmed my chest. I tightened my hold on him, and with my blood rushing in my ears, I kissed the top of his head. Only a press of dry lips into his hair—would that be too much?
“I missed you,” Ansel mumbled, his voice muffled.
“I missed you too.” He had no idea. I’d been climbing the fucking walls without him. “I’m glad you called me.”
“Sorry you had to pay for the cab.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
After another minute or two, he looked up at me. A tiny peek of his tongue, his cute, confused frown, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a split second… It was written in his face. Yearning and anticipation. Unless I’d gotten delusional from want.
I cupped his nape and kissed his forehead. This time, my lips touched his skin without any barrier.
Ansel’s eyelashes fluttered over his glazed eyes as he refocused on me.
“Pascal,” he breathed. My name held no question, no warning, and no hesitation. More than anything, it sounded like relief.
Watching his expression carefully, I leaned closer. Slowly. Millimeter by millimeter. He stretched on his tiptoes, his eyes roaming my face. His lips parted.
Together, we closed the gap.
The first brush of his mouth against mine felt electric. A shiver went through us both, and my knees wobbled.
I held his head in my hands; his hair tickled my fingers. His breath washed over my face. Our lips slotted together once, twice, a third time, tender and chaste. I had to tear myself away, or I’d devour him.
I could have freaked out I’d gone too far, but Ansel beamed at me. He threw his arms around my neck and held on as I lifted him from the ground.
His weight in my arms grounded me. I had no doubt anymore. I could see my future as if it were a movie, and Ansel was there in every scene, always in the limelight.
A car passed, engine roaring, an unwelcome intrusion into the happiest moment of my life.
I put Ansel on his feet, admiring the dark flush on his smiling cheeks.
“Come inside,” I told him when I could speak again.
I kept one arm around his back as I led him into my building. In the elevator, we hugged and breathed each other in. Now that he was here, I was calm. I had all the time in the world, but Ansel must be so confused.
Stroking his upper back, I nuzzled his forehead. His heart thumped wildly, double time to mine.
“It’s okay. You’re safe with me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You never were.”
“Well, in the beginning, I was. But now I’m not.”
“I can hear your heartbeat, sweetheart.”
He glanced up at me, about to say something, but the elevator dinged, the door sliding open. He snapped his mouth shut, looking down shyly. We stepped out, and I unlocked my apartment.
My home wasn’t anything to be ashamed of since I had a top-floor condo close to the city center, but Ansel was used to another level of luxury entirely.
I got nervous about showing him my place, but then I remembered the old cabin where he’d happily stayed for days, with a watering can for a shower and an outhouse.
Despite his descent and upbringing, Ansel was no prince.
“Can I offer you something to drink?”
“Just water.”
He looked around silently as we walked through the open space to my kitchen corner. “I didn’t know college professors did so well.”
“They don’t. You’re not the only one who was born into a wealthy family.”
Pausing by the glass door to my terrace, he glanced at the nighttime cityscape. “Nice view.”
“It’s a dragon thing,” I said as I filled a glass with water.
“What?”
“We tend to live higher up if we can. A top-floor apartment, a house on a hill, places like that. It calms me to feel like I can spread my wings even when I can’t.”
“Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”
I handed him the glass, and he downed it before setting it on the countertop. Then he shuffled from foot to foot. His heart still raced.
“So, I told them.”
“Your parents?”
He nodded. “Father got livid. He wanted to ground me, cut me off. All the cliché threats I’d only seen in the movies. Papa was just disappointed. They didn’t throw me out, but when Father wanted to confiscate my phone, I left.”
Some people did that to their own kids. What heinous crime would my future child have to commit for me to threaten him like that? “I’m so sorry, Ansel.”
“Thing is, they’re powerless. My granddad left me the cabin, which became mine when I turned eighteen, but it has no real value for anyone but me.
What does have value is the trust fund and Granddad’s old townhouse.
I’ll get both when I turn twenty. To my father, it’s pocket change, but it’s more than some people earn in a lifetime.
Technically, even if they throw me out on the street, I only have to make it for three months, then I’m fine. I’ll be independent.”
“That’s good. But how do you feel about it?”
“Part of me is scared, but part of me is even excited, I guess. It felt good to tell them no. So good. I’ve never done that before.
But I don’t know.” He let out a broken laugh and threw his arms in the air.
“I don’t know anything. I just… It doesn’t even feel important right now. My head’s full of other things.”
With his scent filling my apartment, I could barely keep up with all the ideas popping up in my mind. Head full of other things. Like the taste of his skin lingering on my lips.
Frowning, he stared at me as if trying to figure me out.
“We just kissed,” he said.
“We did.”
“I liked it. I liked it a lot.”
I loved him already. “Me too.” I had to be honest, but how?
“You’re very young, Ansel.” I didn’t know how to continue.
I’d wait for him for years if he needed it.
But how could I declare my undying devotion to him when he had no idea what it meant and how it was even possible?
With everything I had, I yearned to kiss him again.
“Does it bother you?” he asked. “My age, I mean.”
“That I want you even though I could be your father? It does bother me. You’re younger than most of my students and going through a lot right now.
It’d be horribly selfish of me to put my desire first and not think about how it may affect you.
I’ve never done anything like this, never dated anyone so much younger than me.
I’m afraid to do something wrong. To hurt you. ”
He bit his lip, grinning adorably. “You want me.”
“That’s what you’re taking from what I said?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m an optimistic person.”
“Does it bother you that I’m…”
“Not human?”
“Um. That.”
Another shrug. “Not much. When you’re not the dragon, you’re just a normal guy, right? I mean, you teach math.”
A laugh bubbled up from my chest before it broke and became a heavy sigh. I had no idea what to do with myself having Ansel here, alone. Could I tuck him into my bed and sleep curled up at the foot of it like a dog? Because I wanted that. I’d do that until he let me touch him.
“That look on your face,” he said, frowning. “What are you thinking right now?”
Heaven, help me. He had me in the palm of his hand.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“That’s not what you’re thinking.” Damn him for being so clever.
“Ansel, this is more complicated.”
“Then explain.”
Where to even begin? I sat on the edge of the kitchen table, and my surroundings seemed to shrink in on me. What if he rejected me? What if I scared him away?
“I’m attracted to you. A lot. And the dragon is drawn to you. It’s a little overwhelming for me.”
Ansel leaned on the counter, facing me. His cheeks were tinted a deep pink, but his voice didn’t waver when he spoke.
“I’m drawn to you too. After we said goodbye in front of my parents’ house, I kept thinking about you nonstop.
About the dragon, that I stroked his face.
It was you. I touched you and couldn’t stop thinking about that.
Now, we kissed.” He inhaled, his chest rising.
“I like you. I’ve never felt like this about anyone. ”
Of course my little omega faced this head-on. Was it bad that his confession made me ecstatic? I wished I could be brave like him.