Chapter 36
brOOKE
“Roy bought me a loft,” I blurted, the moment Mark brought me into his office. I clung to my purse like he might steal it.
Mark raised his brows. “Oh?” His nostrils flared like he was sampling my scent, and his gaze darted to my shoulder, like he could tell Roy had marked me.
I sounded like a crazy person. Like one of those people who dumped overly personal stuff on the first person they saw.
But it had been ten days, and I had so many confused thoughts and feelings bottled up that seemed to be shaken loose by this crazy loft purchase. Like soda shaken up, I started spewing.
Mark was my only link to Roy, and for the first time since we broke up, the heaviness had lifted. Mark didn’t just know Roy, he knew him. What he was. He understood because he was a shifter, too.
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Yeah, um. Sorry. It’s just that I need…”
His number. Advice. Clarity.
“I heard, ah, you ended things with him,” Mark offered, pointing to a chair for me to sit.
Relieved he at least knew that much, I dropped into it across from him as he sat behind his desk.
“Yeah. It was too fast.” I licked my lips.
“I guess I freaked out. I mean, I was all set to drive off to Montana with a guy I’d just met who I know for a fact killed five people.
” I lowered my voice to a whisper on that last part and glanced left and right as if one of his law enforcement colleagues might jump out from behind a fake plant.
Mark arranged his expression into that of a concerned counselor. “That part bothered you.”
I shrugged. “No. I mean, a little. Not really. I don’t know. Aren’t I supposed to be bothered by someone being a murderer?”
“You know each time he was protecting someone.”
I nodded. “The woman in Afghanistan who was being assaulted.”
“And you,” he added.
“If you were my friend, would you let me date a guy who killed people?”
He smiled. “Roy’s not any guy. And you’re not any woman to him.”
“Still. I was rash. Blinded by–” I cut off my sentence and blushed. I was not going to share with him that I’d been blinded by orgasms. “I wasn’t thinking. I need to take time and think things through. Plan.”
God, I didn’t make any sense, did I? I’d felt so sure in the moment, but right now, I couldn’t even articulate it.
“I just don’t have good instincts,” I continued. “I mean, I can’t trust them, which means I was making bad decisions. Rash ones.” I looked at him. “Don’t you think it’s important to… I don’t know, look before you leap ?”
Mark cocked his head and ignored my question. “What makes you think you don’t have good instincts?”
I blew out my breath and let my shoulders slump.
“Experience. I mean, I just don’t.” I shrugged and thought about my past. “I didn’t have a good role model.
Growing up, my mom jumped from man to man, and they were all losers.
Just recently, she got dumped by a guy in Texas, asked me for money to get by, then two days later messaged and said she’d fallen for a man and was going to Florida. ”
Mark quirked his mouth and leaned back in his chair.
“In college, the first time out on my own, I ended up picking a string of loser boyfriends. My friend tells me I miss all the signs.”
Mark leaned forward and set his elbows on his desk then rubbed a hand over his face. “Let me ask you a question. On Friday night, what made you bail from that meeting at the Four Seasons?”
“Well…” I blinked. “I realized I was involved in laundering money.”
He nodded. “Realized, yes. Where did you feel it in your body?”
I stared at him for a moment as I thought back. “Right here.” I held a fist in front of my gut. “It got real tight.”
Mark quirked a smile. “Right. Your gut told you something shady was going on. All humans have good instincts, just like wolves. It’s just that you don’t always heed them. You trust your brain instead of your gut. And our brains don’t always know best.”
My mind tied itself in a knot trying to decipher his meaning. “But…doesn’t my brain know better?”
Mark shook his head. “Your gut knows.” He spread his hands. “Tell me, how did you feel when you ran into Roy?”
I thought back. Smiled. “Relieved. Safe. But then my brain caught up and told me I shouldn’t be alone in a man’s hotel room, and I got nervous. Wouldn't that be my body telling me it wasn’t safe? I was afraid I’d misread signals again.”
Mark’s lips quirked. “It is confusing. Your thoughts can create tension in your body, for sure. That’s when you have to really check in. Like right now–try this: tell me how it feels in your body when I ask, are you safe with Roy ?”
Tears speared my eyes. “Relief,” I said. I dabbed the corner of my eye.
If I felt relief, why was I crying?
Oh, right, because I’d pushed away the best thing that had ever happened to me out of fear.
Mark stared quiet. Patient.
“I’ve been an idiot.”
He grinned. “You asked if I thought Roy’s body count was a red flag. If he was some kind of serial killer or murdered people when he got angry. I don’t. Alpha wolves have an instinct to protect anyone weaker than them.”
“Like the Afghani woman.”
“And you,” he added. “Roy is a Marine, and his training combined with that wolf instinct make him lethal in dangerous situations. I consider that an asset. It might be because I’m also a shifter, but I’d say I want someone like him having my back.”
I did, too.
“I also know that a wolf who has found his mate will do everything in his will to make her happy, provide for her, and protect her from harm. I mean everything. I knew before you even did a gut check that you are and always will be safe with Roy. In fact, being with Roy is the safest place you could ever be because you’re his mate.
Marked, too. But I understand about things going too fast. Falling that fast for a human can be scary, but a shifter like Roy? No wonder you freaked.”
I sighed, relieved that he was clearing up my thoughts.
“Roy freaked, too. He rushed you to go to Montana without you having enough time to understand our ways. He knows that was a mistake.”
The remaining weight that had been suffocating me lifted. I could breathe again. Hope was expanding. Taking flight.
“You talked to him?” I sniffed, willing the tears away.
Mark nodded. “He’s been to my cabin to run every night.”
“What?” I shot to my feet. “He’s still here? In Denver?”
Mark stood, too, looking surprised. “Well, yeah. You didn’t know that? I don’t think he’s capable of leaving you behind. As your mate, it’s his job to take care of you, even if you don’t want him around.”
It made sense now. Imagining that I’d seen Roy. The loft.
He’d been here the whole time. Watching over me. Taking care of me.
“Oh my God.” My whole body reverberated with something powerful. Love, maybe? Or the sense of honor that I could mean so much to another person.
I knew, suddenly, what my gut had been telling me for the past ten days: how much Roy meant to me. It didn’t matter how long we’d known each other. What we had was real, and I shouldn’t have thrown it away. Or been scared of it.
I needed to go to him. Right now.
My gut seemed to celebrate that decision. Happiness fluttered in my chest. An effervescence fizzed all around me. “I need his number,” I said, excited. “You have it, right? Where is he staying? At your cabin?”
Mark chuckled as he pulled his phone out and jotted the number on a sticky note. “No, he’s been staying at the Four Seasons. He wanted to stay closer to you, I think.”
He’s been in the same place all along?
I snatched the piece of paper from him and dashed out the door. “Thanks! I’ll come back later to sign the paperwork!”
“Yeah. No. You go. Your mate is waiting.”