Chapter 10 #2
He shakes his head. “Yes, and no. I miss my old life, but I think I outgrew it. With no family, I really had no reason to stay there, you know? I planned to blow out of town, hitchhiking across the country, but then…well, you know.”
“Do you want to do that now? Explore the world?”
Cade smiles at me, the brilliant flash of his teeth making my stomach do a flip. “With you, sure. I think it would be nice seeing the sights with my mate by my side.”
Okay, he’s so fucking perfect. I haven’t been to many places, having been born and raised in Hinvale, Maryland. I went to another city for school but haven’t really done much outside the state. I would like to go with Cade to experience different things.
Tucking my legs under me, I ask, “Where would you want to go first?”
He sighs, interlacing his hands behind his head. “Guam. They have really pretty beaches. All kinds of activities to do. It would be a nice place to take a break from everyday life.”
“Sounds relaxing. I’d love to go.”
Leaning forward, he gives me a soft kiss. “Then we will.” He kisses me once more before he rests back against the couch. “What about you? Born here?” I nod. “Your parents live nearby?”
“No, they moved to a warmer climate. Maryland doesn’t have harsh winters, but I think they were tired of the snow.”
“I miss snow,” he says almost dreamily. “Building snow men, making snow angels, snowball fights.” He tickles my belly, making me burst into laughter. “You’d be adorable in a parka.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” I mutter sarcastically, still smiling. “How was life growing up in the sixties? Or was it the fifties?”
“I was born in the fifties, had my formative years in the sixties, and was stepping into the seventies as an adult. It was…it was okay. Not much technology as there is today, but there was something freeing about that. You usually have your phone, and people expect to have constant contact with you. Back when I was growing up, if we left the house, we were gone. There was no reaching us until we got back home and found a message on the machine.”
That sounds nice. He’s so right about people expecting to have immediate contact just because I have a cell in my pocket. Makes me feel tethered to other people when I’m supposed to be free.
“You’re right,” I say, stretching out until my head rests on his knee. “I think I depend so much on my phone that I don’t know what it’s like not to be so available. Maybe for like one day every week, I’ll silence my phone and just chill.”
“Good plan.”
We slip into a comfortable silence, Cade’s fingers threading through my hair. He’s so gentle with me, so handsy, something I’m not used to. Walt never let me cuddle or be affectionate like this with him. He’d say that I was radiating too much body heat, making him sweat.
“Are you an only child too?” he asks.
“Yeah. My parents said having one child was enough. Apparently, I didn’t stop bouncing off the walls until I was in my early teens. I was more than enough. What about you?”
“Furniture shifters usually only have one or two offspring.”
“Why?”
I feel his shrug more than I see it. “I’m not sure. Just the way things are, I guess.”
“Do you want kids?” I lean up and look at him. “Can you have kids? I mean…I’m not a shifter and I’m a guy. I can’t get pregnant.”
“I want kids, but I can wait. All furniture shifters are fertile and have the right equipment to lay eggs.”
I sit up and look at him, interest coloring my mind. “Lay eggs? Like a chicken?”
He chuckles, but nods. “That’s one way to look at it. The mechanics work in the textbook way. When I’m pregnant—”
“Oh my god, all shifters can get pregnant?”
Cade shakes his head. “For other shifters, like wolves and bears, they have something called an omega. They’re usually the ones that get pregnant by what they call an alpha.
Both male and female omegas can get pregnant by a male or female alpha.
Furniture shifters don’t have that sort of hierarchy, so all of us can get pregnant.
We only keep the eggs within us for a month, then we lay them and take care of them until they hatch a month later. ”
“Wow,” is all I say as I lie back down.
That’s a nifty trick, being able to lay an egg instead of his body changing like a human woman’s. It’s almost not fair, since humans go through hell to bring people into the world. But shifters are different, I guess.
“Is that too much for you?” Cade asks, his voice low and subdued.
I look up at him and see that his eyes are clouded, as if he’s bracing himself for me to turn him away. I’d never do that. Every part of him is amazing. Hell, he shifted from a person to a recliner, back again. Him being able to lay eggs is just one more amazing thing he can do.
Reaching up, I run my thumb over his cheek. “No, not at all. I don’t understand it, but that doesn’t mean it scares me away. I’m not sure how my body works most of the time and I’ve had it all my life. Learning about your body is pretty fascinating, actually.”
He lets out a long breath and smiles. “Thanks for being so understanding.”
“Of course. This is all new to me, but I love learning about you. I want to know more. Everything there is to know, so we can have a future together.”
Rubbing over my cheek, Cade smiles down at me, those brilliant blue eyes flashing. “I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life getting to know you, Maverick.”