Page 35 of Diesel

He took a breath. I watched his chest expand, watched something flicker behind his eyes—and for a split second, I swore they caught the lamplight wrong. Too bright. Almost amber.

“I’m a wolf shifter.”

The words hung in the air between us.

“There’s a whole world most humans never see. Packs, shifters, all of it. My club, the guys I ride with, we’re a pack. Have been my whole life.” His jaw worked. “And my wolf...shifters have this thing. A mate. One person the wolf recognizes as ours. It doesn’t happen for everyone. Some of us wait our whole lives and never—” He stopped. Started again. “Mine chose you, Ollie. And I’ve been trying to figure out how the hell to tell you, because I couldn’t take you to bed with that secret sitting between us. You deserved to know what you’re getting into before we—”

“Okay,” I said.

He blinked. “Okay?”

“Okay. I mean—yes. Okay. I know about shifters.”

Diesel went so still I could feel his heartbeat through his chest, hammering against mine. His eyes narrowed, searching my face like he was waiting for the punchline. “You...know.”

“I dated one. A wolf. Well, dated is generous. We went out for four months before I found out he was a condescending jerk who treated me like an idiot because I dropped out of high school. The shifter part was actually the least of his problems.” I shrugged against the pillows, which was harder than it sounds when you’re pinned under two hundred and forty pounds of stunned biker.

“Jesse. He told me about a month in. Showed me, actually, in his backyard. Scared the absolute hell out of me for about ten minutes, and then I asked if I could touch his ears, and he got offended, which honestly should’ve been my first red flag. Who gets offended about ears? They were very good ears. Objectively.”

Diesel stared at me.

“He also told me about mates,” I continued, because apparently my mouth had decided this was the moment to unload everything. “Kind of bitterly, actually. His wolf never chose me. He made sure I knew that. Like it was my fault. Like I’d failed some kind of cosmic entrance exam.” The old sting flared up, small and stupid, and I hated that it still lived in me somewhere. “So when we broke up—when I threw a vase at his head, which he deserved—part of me figured that was that. Shifters were real, mates were real, and I wasn’t anybody’s.”

“Ollie.” His voice came out wrecked.

“So you’re telling me,” I said, and my own voice had gone embarrassingly thin, “that your wolf—the wolf belonging to the hottest man I have ever seen in my life, who came to senior bingo and lost on purpose—that wolf chose me.”

“The flyer’s on my wall,” he admitted. “The bingo card too.”

“Oh my God, you’re a scrapbooker.”

“Ollie.”

“You’re a giant tattooed biker scrapbooker and your wolf picked me.”

“Yeah.” His thumb traced my cheekbone, and his eyes weren’t playing tricks this time—they were glowing, a warm amber ring burning around the blue. “He picked you. I picked you. Same thing. We’ve never disagreed about anything in my life the way we agree about you.”

My throat closed up. I lay there under him, staring up at this impossible man with his impossible glowing eyes, and every anxious, overthinking part of my brain—the part that had spent thirty minutes on shirt selection, the part that ranked worst-case scenarios, the part that had believed Jesse when he’d implied I wasn’t mate material—all of it went quiet at once.

“I want it,” I said.

Diesel’s breath caught. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight. There’s a lot to it. The bond, the bite, the pack—I planned to give you time, court you properly, let you meet everyone before—”

“Diesel.”

“I’m serious. This isn’t like agreeing to a second date. A mate bond is permanent. It’s forever. My wolf will never let you go, and I need you to understand what forever means to a shifter before you—”

“Diesel.” I grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look at me. “I have spent six months eating dinner alone. My family doesn’t speak to me. The closest thing I have to people who love me is five senior citizens who keep trying to get me arrested via matchmaking. And then you showed up, and you remembered Edith’s tuna, and you carried me out of a paint class like an angry cat before I could ruin my own life, and you framed a flyer.” My eyes were burning. Great. Crying naked. Fantastic look. “I want to be your mate. I want the wolf. I want the forever. I have never been more sure of anything, and I once committed to a yellow shirt purchase, so I know what doubt feels like.”

He laughed, a broken, rough sound, and then his forehead dropped to mine. His whole body shook slightly, and I realized the shaking wasn’t laughter. Or wasn’t only laughter.

“Say it again,” he rasped.

“I want to be your mate.”

The sound he made wasn’t entirely human. A low rumble rolled up from his chest, vibrating through me everywhere our skin touched, and something primal in my hindbrain recognized it and melted. His mouth crashed into mine, and this kiss was different from every kiss before it—deeper, hungrier, edged with something wild that had been held on a leash until this exact moment.

He nipped at my bottom lip, and his eyes blazed amber. “I’m gonna take my mate apart. Slow. So you know exactly what you signed up for.”