Chapter 12 #2
“Yes and no. I love to cook, so I initially wanted to be a regular chef, get a job in a kitchen, make my own menu. But in culinary arts school, I took a pastry course and discovered I have a delicate hand for it. My chocolates, especially, always earned compliments. I also loved the smell of the sweets,” he says with an adorable giggle.
“It’s bad, I know, but it’s what drew me to pastries in the first place.
Once I knew I had a knack for it, I changed tracks and went into the pastry program.
Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else. ”
“And your job is nice?”
“Mm-hmm. My boss is the best and the other chefs I work with are friendly.”
“I’d like to see it someday,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “When I have a less busy day, I’ll come grab you and you can shadow me.”
“I’d like that.”
“What do you want to do, when you get documentation?”
I shrug, though I’ve thought about it. For the past few days while Maverick has been at work, I’ve tried to learn everything I could about the video games he plays. They’re all complicated—some more than others—but I like the idea of making a game that millions of people like to play.
It wouldn’t be easy, as I just figured out how to work the interwebs, but I’m determined and when I put my mind to something, I keep working at it until I master it. Maybe with some schooling and practice, I could do that.
“I had this Atari, I told you that, right?” He nods.
“I loved Pong. There wasn’t much to it, just hitting a ball back and forth on a screen, but it sped up the longer the level went on.
I always had the highest score out of all my friends.
Even back then, I wondered how it worked and if I was smart enough to think of a game that cool.
Maybe I can do something with video games, since I’ve always loved them?
I’m not that proficient yet, but I’m getting there. ”
Maverick nods. “You are. You’re really good at my first-person shooter games. Almost better than me. You can look up how game developers get started so you have a frame of reference. Then we can go from there.”
I kiss the top of his head, then breathe in his scent. “You’re too good to me.”
“No, I think it’s what you deserve after half a century as a piece of fucking furniture.”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s true.” I spread my arms wide and spin in a circle. “You have no idea how good this feels right now. The wind on my face makes me feel like a brand-new man.”
Maverick’s brilliant smile at my antics makes my heart thud, his beauty unmatched by anything or anyone I’ve ever seen.
“How is it?” he asks, looking up at me shyly. “Being free. Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”
I take his hand and spin him in a circle, making him giggle. Then I pull him into me and kiss his smiling lips, feeling him sigh before he tangles his tongue with mine.
Breaking the kiss, I rest my forehead against his. “Better than.” I breathe him in, his sweet scent wafting off indescribable happiness. “I can smell your emotions. If you let me claim you, I’ll be able to feel them through our bond.”
He pulls back and looks up at me cluelessly. “Bond?”
It slips my mind often that Maverick is just a human.
He knows nothing of how a shifter’s bond works or what it entails.
It is an all-consuming relationship that makes a marriage between humans look like child’s play.
Being bonded to a shifter is for life, breaking it would cause so much pain that each mate would wish they were dead.
What if I explain all that to him and Maverick decides that’s not what he wants? We can continue a relationship without bonding, but it would get harder and harder for me not to claim my mate and I would eventually waste away.
I point to a bench and we sit down, Maverick turning his body slightly to me.
“Yeah, bond,” I say. “As a shifter with a fated mate, I claim my partner, and we’re a pair…for life.”
His eyes grow wide. “And that’s binding?” I nod. “And I can’t send you away if you piss me off?” I shake my head. “No divorce?” I shake my head again. “What if we don’t like each other after a while?”
“That doesn’t happen. Yeah, we won’t agree sometimes and we might argue, but we’ll always figure out a way to solve our issues.
Communication will be easy for us. Easier still because you hold nothing back.
” I bump him and he grins. “But no. No divorce. We could break our bond, someone strong like Blossom would be able to give us a spell, but it would almost kill us.”
Maverick blows out a long breath, his eyebrows dipped. “How do you claim me?”
“I have to be inside you, then I suck my mark above your pulse point.”
He looks at me, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. “Oh wow. You didn’t…the first time…”
I chuckle and adjust myself in my pants, thinking about how pliant Maverick was when I took him the second time in his bed.
Sure, I wanted to claim him right then, but I held myself back, only sucking at him enough so he could feel it down to his toes.
But his scent in my nose and his tight ass around my dick had me almost losing myself and claiming him right then.
The only thing that stopped me was remembering exactly why I was a fucking recliner—doing shit I wasn’t supposed to do.
I want Maverick to pick me. I want him to choose to have my claiming.
I could tell him what could possibly happen in the next decade or so if I don’t claim him, but I don’t want him to feel guilty or pressured. No, he can choose and we’ll go from there.
“No,” I answer, “I didn’t. But it would feel like that times ten, times a hundred even.”
Maverick shivers and darts his pretty tongue out to wet his lips. “I would like that, I think. But if there’s no option for divorce if things don’t work out…that’s a lot, right?”
I nod, my heart thudding behind my ribs at his hesitation, even though I understand. “It is. It’s not something you have to decide right now. Or for a while, even. We can simply build on what we have and when—if—you’re ready, you can tell me. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Maverick gives me a quick kiss, then lays his head on my shoulder. There we rest for a while, enjoying the weather and each other’s company.