Chapter 11 Asher
ASHER
I stood outside Weston's door for five minutes, rehearsing what I was going to say.
I'm sorry I left. You marked me, and I didn't know how to handle it.
No, that would lead to questions I couldn't answer yet. The topic of marking couldn’t come up, until he knew who I was and how I felt about him.
Okay, I had to try again.
I needed space to think. What happened between us was intense.
That was better, but it still wasn’t quite right.
I'm a polar bear shifter and you're my fated mate, and I've been lying to you since the moment we met.
Nope, definitely not that one.
My bear didn't understand why we were hesitating.
Our mate is on the other side of the door. We should be talking to him and making things right.
I wondered what was the best way to explain why I’d vanished without mentioning the mark. And would I have run off if he hadn’t bitten me? I couldn’t say for certain but probably not.
But I had to stop thinking about myself and focus on my mate. What if he didn't want to see me? Me leaving this morning might have ruined whatever chance we'd had.
I forced myself to knock before I could lose my nerve and leave.
At first there was silence, and I wondered if he was at the restaurant or if he'd fallen asleep. Neither of us got much sleep last night. I was about to knock once more when footsteps approached the door.
The door opened, and Weston appeared wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. His hair was combed, but he hadn’t shaved. His eyes widened when he saw me.
“Asher.”
“Hi.” I should have said more than one word because he responded with, “Hey.”
“This is a little awkward.” That was a fib because it was a lot awkward. “Can we talk?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the unmade bed, and for a moment, I thought that he had some other guy in the room. I started to back away because this was worse than him not wanting to mate a shifter. What we had meant nothing and he’d already moved on.
“Sure. The room’s a mess. I’ve been out all day.”
My bear told me I needed to trust Weston and not jump to conclusions.
Unlike last night, Weston had papers scattered across the desk, and his laptop was open. Of course he’d been working and focusing on his research and not pining away for me. I’d been the one freaking out after chatting to Anita and Zach.
He closed the door, and we stood in the middle of the room with neither of us saying anything. My bear warned me if I didn't talk to our mate, he’d take his fur and there’d be no need for any explanation.
No, because Weston would have to be resuscitated.
“I’m sorry for leaving this morning.” I looked directly at him, hoping that signaled I was sincere. “I should have waited until you woke up.”
“It’s okay.” His voice betrayed no emotion. “You don't owe me an explanation because we barely know each other.”
Ouch! That was what he thought of me, though I could hardly expect him to admit he’d fallen in love at first sight. I wanted him to, though. I needed him to say I’d caught his eye across the restaurant and knew I was the one.
Remember what Zach said about Weston marking you.
My bear was great at giving advice, but I was the one who had to deliver the lines.
“I didn’t want to leave.” I needed to do something with my hands, and I couldn’t grab Weston, so I crossed my arms, which wasn’t a smart move. That was a sign I was putting a barrier between him and me.
“I had to get away and think about what happened between us.” That was an odd way of putting it because we’d fucked. But it was the emotional experience that I’d focused on, not that putting a cock in his hole wasn’t pleasurable.
He pulled out a chair and told me to sit while he plonked himself on the edge of the mattress.
“Tell me what you were thinking.”
I sighed because once again I was in the hot seat.
“As if I'd found something I didn't know I was looking for.” Hmmm, being honest wasn’t as hard as I made it out to be. Though I was keeping a huge secret, one that potentially dwarfed how much I adored him. “Everything made sense, but…”
I wasn’t about to launch into an explanation about shifters, but I stumbled over explaining what was in my heart.
“But it’s also terrifying.” I winced, expecting him to say that if that was how I interpreted what we’d done, I could get out. I took a deep breath and lifted my head because he deserved my full attention and not a cowardly gaze at a chip in the wooden floor.
Weston’s face lit up. “I’m pretty sure I’ve experienced the same emotion.”
“You have?” I reached out and stroked the back of his hand, and he squeezed my fingers.
The distance that had stretched between us when I walked in the room diminished, and I was able to breathe without the oxygen clogging my lungs.
“I was upset when you weren't here this morning,” he admitted. "I assumed you'd decided last night was a mistake and that you regretted it.”
“No!” Yikes, that was too loud. “No, not at all.”
Now his smile was wider instead of tentative, and he let out a breath. “That’s good, because well, this is probably too fast, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since we met.”
I got up and sat beside him. Our thighs touched, and my shoulder brushed against his.
“I panicked because of the intensity of my emotions.”
Weston took my hand and placed it over his heart. What I was experiencing, and I hoped he was too, was nothing to do with logic. That was for humans who didn’t fall for shifters and who weren’t fated mates.
But if I elected for us to fall onto the messy mattress and have riotous sex, I was mistaken, because though Weston was smiling, I sensed something wasn’t as it should be. There was tension in his jaw and shoulders.
“Is there something you want to get off your chest? You can tell me anything.”
He cupped my chin, and I placed a hand over his, and we sat not saying anything or moving.
“It’s me, not you.”
Damn, those oft-repeated words were like a guillotine, ending whatever we had. I glanced down, expecting to see my severed head in a wicker basket.
“It’s work stuff.”
My bear was shaking his fist at me. You’re such a pessimist.
Maybe that was a result of what happened to me when I was six but didn’t see the world in black and white. There were shades of orange and green.
“You don’t want to hear about it.” He waved his hand at the papers on the desk.
“Try me.”
“I think my funding is about to fall through.” He explained the grant he was depending on that he feared was going to be pulled.
“I was going to study the polar bears in this area because they’re an anomaly.
Someone else will study them, but they might not do it ethically and they’ll see the den as data points instead of living creatures that deserve respect. ”
He cares.
I believe he does.
I told him to tell me about his research. “I’ve lived in this area my whole life. I know the wilderness and the wildlife.”
Weston was so animated when he spoke of this work.
He explained how the tracking collars were designed to fall off after a few months and that they’d help understand migration patterns and territory ranges.
He spoke of conservation, protecting habitats, and making sure human expansion didn't destroy what remained of wild spaces.
“I study them so we can understand what they need to survive.”
His passion was infectious, and what he detailed was fine for wild polar bears but not for shifters. But I’d identified and destroyed one stumbling block because he wasn’t going to harm my kin. Actually, we’d overcome two. He didn’t hate me and appeared to reciprocate my feelings for him.
“I know how to approach the polar bears' territory without spooking them.”
That was stretching the truth. I hadn’t been near the den since I was a child, and they were shifters, not wild bears. Perhaps I could lead him to my wild cousins. But was that ethical?
“I care about them too.” I’d have to perform some fancy footwork to reveal myself to Father and engage him about the study and how we were going to get around creating an uproar in the scientific community.
“What if I could help you study them and make sure it's done right?”
I needed to come clean and tell him about shifters because the deeper I got into this, the harder it was to get out. I imagined myself in a maze without an exit and each fib I told brought the damned hedges closer together.
“You'd do that? Why?”
“Because I care about them and you.”
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away. But I didn't. His lips met mine. His kiss was tentative as if he was afraid I might vanish again if he pushed too hard. I returned his kiss and tried to say what I couldn’t in words with my lips pressed on his.
“Stay. We can figure out the research tomorrow.”
“I will, but I have to take care of something first.” I stroked his cheek. “It’s family business, but I'll be back as soon as I can.” I had to let the pack Alpha in on what I was doing.