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“What do you mean?”

I kissed his jaw again, this time adding a little nibble.

Next thing I knew, his lips were on mine. It was short, far too short, and I wanted to pull him back in to deepen it. But also, I still didn’t know his name. And if we were going to move on to the mating part of the evening, that felt pretty darn important.

“I’m Chip, by the way.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess we could’ve started with that before we went to the you’re-my-always-and-forevers, huh? I’m Porter.”

He kissed me, this time longer but still not enough.

“That kiss was much better than the first.” I gave him another peck.

“And by first, do you mean when I was trying to give you CPR?”

“Yeah. Although I can think of far worse ways to wake up than with my mate’s lips on mine.”

I wasn’t sure why he was still worried, but I could tell that he was. I decided to distract him and stood up, took his hand, and led him around the room.

“So, as I was saying, I’m here to facilitate renovations of this space. It’s going to be amazing. First, you already know the water’s great, but the plants could use some help.” That was an understatement.

I went on, explaining everything I envisioned as we walked around. I pointed out everything from which walls would be demolished to where I was going to change some of the windows, and what plants I saw for each area. The entire time, I did not let go of his hand, craving his touch.

My mate, a wolf by scent, had finally found me. This job was officially the best one ever.

“Do you wanna go in the water with me? Like my capybara and your wolf?”

He answered by getting naked. It was difficult not to just throw myself at him. We shifted and dove into the water, swimming around, me being sure that I didn’t do anything that could scare him. It wasn’t long ago that he thought I was drowning.

Eventually, we shifted back and sat on the edge of the pool.

“I can’t wait to shift on land.” His arm was around me. “This was great, but my wolf wants to show off.”

“I think I’d like that.”

There’s still so much to wrap my head around. I found my mate. He was real. He was here. He was so freaking gorgeous, and he was mine.

I wanted to know everything about him but also didn’t want to treat this like an interview. Was he from here? What did he do for work? Did he normally like swimming? All those things kept bouncing around in my head. But there were more important needs to tend to, and that included kissing my mate.

Each of our kisses were deeper and more heated. My capybara was pushing at me to mark him already and for a second I nearly did. That was when I realized how dangerously close I was to getting fired.

I pushed back.

“Did I go too far?”

“No. It’s just, this is the biggest project of my career, and this is a communal space. I was thinking maybe we could go someplace more private that won’t get me fired.”

“As long as it’s someplace close to me. Because the thought of putting clothes on you for very long—it’s not doing it for me.”

Which made sense, since it wasn’t doing it for me either.

Chapter Seven

Porter

“Where can we go?” What started as an attempt to keep Chip from drowning had turned into a makeout session followed by the joyous realization that not only my best friend had found his mate. We’d come here to keep our pact and instead been gifted with our true mates by Fate. “Or can we stay here?”

“If you’re implying what I think you are,” said the only male I’d seen who was legit better looking than Angus, and this was soaking wet and laid out on the ground, “They gave me a unit to stay in while I’m here.”