Chapter 3
Chapter Three
THEO
Sweat was pouring down his back, but he couldn’t seem to stop kissing Rowan long enough to take off his warm outerwear. He’d rather roast than take his hands and mouth off him. His tiny mate had other plans though.
Grunting in annoyance, Rowan ripped his mouth away and scowled, tugging at the zipper of his coat. “Goddess, did you superglue this into place?”
He stood and gently deposited Rowan on the couch. Leaving him in a half sprawl, he ripped the zipper down in one hard pull and threw off the thick layer. He grabbed the back of his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head, dropping it on top of his jacket and then heading back for his mate.
“Wait, what about the rest?” Rowan said, eyeing his body and licking his bottom lip.
Theo’s dick jerked in the tight confines of his long johns under his pants, but he hesitated.
The longer they weren’t pressed against each other, the clearer his head was getting.
Not only did he have more scars under his T-shirt, but he also didn’t want Rowan thinking sex was the only reason he was there.
He’d already fucked up his courting gift.
The last thing he wanted was to rush things and make his mate think he wasn’t serious.
He was about as fucking serious as a person could get when it came to him.
Up to and including light stalking.
Well… maybe moderate stalking.
“We should… go slow,” he said, dragging his knit hat off and dropping it on his growing pile. He ran his fingers down the left side of his face without thinking, then grimaced when Rowan’s eyes lingered there. “I can wait.”
Slowly, Rowan sat up from where he’d been lounging on his elbows and crossed his arms over his chest, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Oh, okay.”
“Hey, no.” Theo stepped forward and dropped to a crouch next to the couch, forcing Rowan to meet his eyes. “What’s going through that gorgeous head of yours?”
His lips twisted, eyes wide and vulnerable. “I’m just, you know, embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” Theo squinted at him, trying to understand. “About what?”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “That you don’t want me like—”
Theo moved without conscious thought, one of his hands cupping Rowan’s chin and holding him tight. His mate sucked in a quick breath, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t try to get away. He just stared at Theo, pupils dilating.
“I want you,” Theo said clearly. “There’s nothing I want more than to make you mine.”
“Then why…” Rowan licked his lips, and when Theo pressed just a little harder on the edges of his jaw, his breath stuttered, lashes fluttering. “Why do you want to go slow, then?”
“I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea, but that backfired pretty damn fast.”
“What wrong idea?”
“That all I want is sex.” Theo leaned forward, closing the distance between their faces, and brushed their lips together. “Because I want everything, Rowan.”
“Because we’re mates.”
He didn’t say it like a question, but Theo answered anyway. “Yes, we are. I’ve been looking for you my whole life, but I can wait if you need more time. I’ve known for a few weeks about us, so you should take all the time you need.”
Rowan narrowed his eyes. “Have you… Have you been following me?”
He didn’t even consider lying. “Yes.”
“Goddess, that shouldn’t be…” He cut himself off. “I thought you looked vaguely familiar. I must have seen you around town.”
He grunted and pressed another kiss to Rowan’s temptingly pink lips. “Maybe.”
As he leaned back, Rowan sprang forward, wrapping his arms and legs around Theo’s torso. “I don’t need more time.”
“Are you sure?” Theo asked as he stood, hands on Rowan’s ass, and glanced around the small apartment. He spotted the doorway to what had to be his mate’s bedroom but waited, not moving until he got an answer.
Rowan’s tiny hands cupped his cheeks, and he stared into Theo’s eyes. He had to tighten all the muscles in his body not to flinch at the unexpected touch on his scarred face. No one ever touched him there. No one but him. Everyone looked, stared, pointed. But no one touched him gently.
“Will you change your mind after?” Rowan’s voice was soft, but he didn’t look worried.
“Of course not,” Theo said fiercely, fingers flexing on Rowan’s ass and making his mate squirm against him. “But there are things about me… things I’ve done as a hunter…”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want.” Rowan’s soothing fingertips on his marred skin were undoing him. “It won’t change the fact that we’re mates.”
“No, but it might change how you feel about that fact,” Theo admitted, lungs constricting at the idea Rowan wouldn’t want him anymore but would feel trapped by their mating.
“Nothing you could tell me—”
“Don’t say that,” Theo interrupted, voice more harsh than he’d intended. “You don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve… I’ve killed people, Rowan. Shifters.”
Rowan cocked his head a little to the side, studying him, but he didn’t look surprised or disgusted. “I didn’t think you just hunted deer.”
Theo frowned at him. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Rowan smiled and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Theo’s mouth. Right at the edge of where his scars began. “Hunters were in the packet I got.”
“What?” Theo rasped out, eyes growing heavy at the feathery kisses his mate was raining down on his face. Both cheeks. Forehead. Chin. While they discussed the horrors of Theo’s past life, Rowan was… soothing him. Cherishing him.
Wooing him.
“When I moved here,” Rowan clarified, except Theo still wasn’t sure what he was talking about. “I got a bunch of information about the pack and how things work, who to contact with different issues.”
“Okay?”
“And there was a whole section about the ex-hunters who’d joined the pack and the criteria they had to meet to be admitted.”
There was? He hadn’t gotten anything like that when he’d arrived. A friend of a friend had moved to the area, and Theo had looked into it after that, curious whether the rumors he’d heard about Rick Kincaid were true.
He’d applied to join the pack less than a month later.
He’d been living with other former hunters in the barracks Morde had built years ago and was encouraged to give the shifters of the pack plenty of space as they got used to him.
“I guess that’s… good.” He could see why Alpha Kincaid had put together the information—not a lot of shifters were comfortable being around hunters, assuming they were all cold-blooded killers who would slit their throats without provocation.
Rowan laughed at his careful response. “What I mean is, as soon as I knew you were a hunter, I knew what that meant. But I also knew it meant you had willingly given up that life to come here.”
“I hadn’t been okay with the way my clan did things for a while,” Theo admitted. “But that doesn’t change the things I did while I was with them.”
“Of course not, but those things are in the past. The goddess or fate or whatever you want to believe made us for one another, Theo. We are perfectly matched. I don’t need to know anything else about you to know that to be true.”
Theo groaned and buried his face in Rowan’s neck. “I promise I’ll be so good to you, mate.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Rowan said, and Theo could hear the smile in his voice. He carded his fingers through Theo’s hair, holding on to him quietly as he tried to accept what Rowan was trying so hard to tell him.
They were made for each other.
His past wouldn’t change that.
Rowan wouldn’t change his mind.
ROWAN
He probably should be more concerned about what “things” his mate had done in his past. But he just… wasn’t. Maybe that made him a bad person or a traitor to other parahumans, but the way his soul thrummed with excitement every time he was pressed against Theo’s body couldn’t be wrong.
They weren’t wrong.
Theo could tell him as much or as little as he wanted about his past, but Rowan knew that as long as Theo treated him well, that would be all that mattered to him.
Considering he’d left him a massive deer as a courting gift and attacked a pack Enforcer when he’d thought Gabriel had made him cry, Rowan was willing to trust his instincts.
His red panda had never steered him wrong.
Theo took a deep, shuddery breath and then pressed a kiss to his throat. It was such a vulnerable spot, but no part of him wanted to do anything but tip his chin up and offer him more.
So that’s what he did.
Theo made a low, approving sound in the back of his throat and kissed his way up the stretch of skin. “So trusting, mate.”
Rowan smiled at his living room ceiling. “Shouldn’t I be?”
“Only with me.”
A shiver worked down his spine, and he tightened his legs around Theo’s waist. “Only ever with you,” he agreed, meaning it with his whole heart.
Theo started walking without lifting his head, and he couldn’t help but be impressed with his spatial awareness. His mate carried him through his small apartment and the doorway to his bedroom without bumping into anything, his steps confident.
It was a small thing but still really sexy.
“You’re going to spoil me, carrying me around like this,” Rowan said, arching against Theo when he sucked on a particularly good spot below his ear. “Oh goddess.”
Theo grunted. “Say the word and your feet will never touch the ground again.”
Heat started to build in his limbs and belly, and he gripped the back of Theo’s neck. “Theo. Kiss me.”
“I am, mate.”
“Not there,” he said, then gasped when Theo hiked him up his body so his chest was level with his face. Without seeming to even try, Theo found one of his nipples through his shirt and gently bit the sensitive flesh.
“Here?”
“Oh goddess.” He was panting, his body held in front of Theo with little more than the strength of his massive arms, but he didn’t even stop to think before letting go and ripping his top off. It was barely over his head, and Theo was licking across his nipple, fingers digging into his ass.