I stared at Lynn. She had to be kidding, but she wasn’t. I was wearing the second pair of clothes Kat had shoved in a bag for me. I did not bring a swimsuit. That was not a thing I would bring.
And the lake was like a whole big, long hike away.
Though the mountains.
“We’re going to run there.”
Josephine sighed, running a hand through her hair.
“Y’all can lead the way, I’ll take up the rear.”
She had a twin ability to shift… and keep her clothes. I wasn’t sure how that worked exactly, but the rest of us just tore through whatever we had been wearing if we wanted to shift and didn’t have time to undress.
The whole situation was just plain uncomfortable, but now… now I was a little more self-conscious considering I had found out Lee was my True Mate, and it wasn’t exactly like we had done anything to solidify that bond.
Things had to happen for two people to be able to call each other mates. Things… I’ll admit I was getting a bit restless about anyway, but still. Now? Of all the times?
What would happen if we were to shift into our wolves at the same time and they somehow gave us away? Our wolves didn’t give a crap about secrets. They said now, they meant now. They said do this, they were going to do whatever it was.
It was like handing the reins to the crazy side of me.
The side of me who was going to get what she wanted.
I stared off at the walls as Lynn and some of the others were discussing it, mostly in agreement on going. Kat included.
A very warm hand landed on my shoulder and I looked up at Lee. He leaned closer to my ear to speak.
“It’s alright. I think we could handle it if we tried.”
The confidence in his words made me start to feel it.
I nodded to myself.
“Okay.”
But there was still another issue to be resolved.
I tapped Kat’s shoulder and drew her back to where I was.
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”
She grinned at me.
“I brought it for you, in your very forgetful and distressed state yesterday.”
I blushed, avoiding looking at Lee. I felt his eyes on me. He was hearing all of this. Why did it feel like he was smiling?
Like a magician, Kat reached a hand in her bag to retrieve it.
“It matches the dress.”
The dress?
The yellow dress?
That dress?
Since when did I have a yellow–
She pulled it out of the bag and I stopped breathing for a solid ten seconds.
Bikini?
A yellow…
Kat…
She smirked and then dangled it in the air while glancing off at Lee with a knowing look. I snatched it from her before taking a peek at him. He was staring wide-eyed at the floor, cheeks puffed out as he slowly let out air. His face was probably as red as mine.
I shook my head before admitting defeat.
“Fine. We’re… going swimming too.”
Lynn heard me and pointed.
“No take backs!”
I nodded, mostly to myself as I sighed.
This… was going to be hard.
And I really had no idea.
An hour later, we were at the lake. It was a tough run. Very, very tough. Lee and I both managed, barely, to get there without incident. But, dang, if those True Mate instincts were that strong all the time, everyone, and I mean everyone would know about us already.
As it was though, I did get to see his wolf for the first time.
His fur was nearly black. The way it ruffled in the wind… the lightness of his footfalls…
It was like watching magic.
Mesmerizing.
Now, though, I had managed to put on the little bikini and was still kind of hiding a bit as everyone else started splashing around and having fun.
Kat came and found me.
“What the heck are you waiting for?”
“Uh…”
“If you come out, then Lee will probably come out and join us too. You didn’t come with to hide, did you?”
I sighed and took her hand.
“Come on!”
She tugged on me as she dug her feet into the ground, setting us off at a fast speed, straight into the water.
Splash!
I leaned back, letting the water soak into my hair pleasantly. The water was warm, surprisingly, but it felt really nice.
Lee emerged from the brush and hopped in, giving me a good view of that which I’d already hugged and planted my face against last night… but instead of in the dark, this was daytime.
Bright.
Sunny.
Daylight.
And I was staring.
There was no stopping it really, even as he caught my eye. He dove underwater for a moment, swimming closer to me, popping up just a few feet away.
Man, he could swim really well too.
He slicked his soaked hair back and I lost my breath for a bit.
Giving me a grin, he set back to swimming…
Around me?
Like a shark?
The others were playing loudly and paying us no mind as I spun around in a circle to watch him. I stopped, letting him pass out of my sight. The consistent splash of the water stopped, but I didn’t dare turn around, even as I felt him approach me from behind.
I let out a shaky breath in anticipation as I kept an eye on the others.
His fingers grazed my face as he tucked my hair back behind my ear. Not two seconds later I felt the heat of his breath tickle my ear.
“You’re as beautiful as I know your heart is.”
My breath vanished. I didn’t know where it went at all. It wasn’t long before it came back in a stifled gasp as I felt his hand on my lower back.
“Yellow looks really good on you. You’re like sunshine.”
I shivered, seeing his grin come into view just a moment before he was swimming over to the others. As they saw him come closer, they shouted their praises at his swimming.
I was lucky he took all the attention from me and my likely brightly colored red face.
Well…
Most of the attention.
As I looked back at the group, swimming closer as he had, I saw Kat raise her eyebrows and give me a smirk.
Great.
I laughed lightly, shaking my head.
Rooting for us, huh, Kat?
It was all good and well, except I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive our rendezvous under the balcony tonight. I wasn’t sure if I’d survive this at all.
It was almost too much.
Lee… were you just containing this the whole time we were writing letters and talking over the phone?
For years?
Was it all just coming out now? In like a giant flood?
Was this–
My face grew even more heated as a thought crossed though my mind, and then hovered like a fish on a line in front of me.
Was this what it was going to be like from here on out?
I looked over at Lee smiling and laughing with the others. It made me smile.
I could get used to it, I guess.
After an hour of roughhousing and playing in the water with everyone else, I went off to the side, next to a patch of dense brush and trees. I was getting, well, restless was one word for it. I stared at Lee until both he and Kat noticed me. She nudged him and whispered something to him that made him stare at her with wide eyes.
She tossed her head my way and said something else before giving him a shove my way.
He looked at me, cutely baffled. I shrugged.
As he swam my way, Kat turned and gave me a secret thumbs up and a wink.
Oh, jeez.
Thanks, Kat?
She was going to cover for us. And she did, drawing everyone’s attention to her as she dove into the whirlpool Lynn was making with her abilities.
“Noooo, Kat!” they laughingly shouted as they mockingly tried to save her.
She laughed and played it up, being in no danger at all.
Lee emerged from the water and I drug him into the trees with me, out of the sight of others.
I hugged him, both of us dripping water and just generally soaked. He laughed lightly, wrapping his arms around me just as tight.
“You know – you’re so beautiful,” he whispered in my ear. “I can’t handle it.”
He leaned back just a bit to look at my face, moving aside clumps of my sopping wet hair, unsticking it from my skin.
“Mhm.”
He nodded to himself, smiling gently.
“You should see yourself,” I replied, ruffling a hand through his hair, sending water flying everywhere. “You’re beautiful too."
He laughed, a little pink settling in on his cheeks.
“You called me over?”
Nodding, I grabbed his hand firmly in mine.
“I just wanted a moment. With you.” I took a shaky breath in, feeling myself grow more serious as I did, recalling the feeling I’d been having, like an ache, needing him closer to me. “Away from prying eyes.”
He leaned closer, pressing his forehead to mine.
“I think I needed this too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed contentedly.
“I couldn’t wait until tonight.”
“I know what you mean,” he grumbled as he moved to rest his chin on my shoulder, wrapping his arms around me again. He lightly kissed my neck and I leaned against him for support. At the second kiss, I pulled his face back up to mine to look him in the eyes.
Only a second passed before our lips were colliding, me pressing him back up against a tree. It was different from last night.
Much, much, different.
And I wanted a whole heck of a lot more.
The heat between us could’ve warmed a whole city for the winter.
Water dripped down from our hair, our eyes were closed as we savored each other completely. He kissed along my jaw, trailing back down to the most sensitive spot on my neck, giving it his full attention.
“Mmn.”
When we pulled away from each other all at once, we were realizing what was going on.
“Oh crap.”
“Yeah.”
Our hazy vision returned to normal.
He licked his lips and my sight flicked to it instantly.
I took a deep breath in.
“We should probably…”
“Go back to the others.”
Our eyes met.
“…Before I do something really dangerous.”
I nodded, understanding exactly. At the same time, though, I wished I could just dive right into that danger without a second thought. It was a good danger.
It was going to happen eventually, part of me tried to say.
But…
We didn’t want anyone to know yet.
This… it wasn’t so easily hidden under a freaking bikini.
He headed back first, as I took a moment to compose and scold myself.
What did you think was going to happen if you called him over here, alone?
But did we really almost just…
I gulped.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours – get it together.
How were we going to make it past a week like this?
Everyone… was going to know.
No, I told myself, we can control ourselves. We’ll do it. We can.
I vaguely recalled my father’s words, from when I was little, telling me about how shifters can sense if someone has a mate, family or not, whether the process was completed or not.
“If someone was bitten, but the process of becoming mates is not completed, it has a distinct smell, of sorts.”
“Whether you have a mate or not, you can sense it on other shifters.”
Those words seemed odd at first, but after I shifted for the first time, I understood it.
If… If Lee bites me, everyone will know.
“It is the same smell whether someone is the marker or the marked.”
I emerged from the trees to rejoin the group quietly.
Nobody noticed I was gone, except Kat.
Good.
Just let me have some time to figure this out…
Figure out what the heck we were going to do now.
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