Page 12 of Mating Season
If he managed to follow and find me all the way out in California, he’s going to keep following me. The time away hasn’t dissuaded him. If anything, he seems more obsessed—which isn’t great for me. Maybe I should just talk to him here in a public place and try to reason with him.
Finally, I sigh and nod and allow him to lead me to the booth. We sit. The acoustics of the club are such that all the noise and music are concentrated at the bar and dance floor. While we can still hear the music from our booth, it’s a more distant faded sound so we don’t have to shout to be heard.
Cooper scans the menu. “What are you getting?”
“This isn’t a date.”
“You still have to eat.”
“I don’t want you paying for my meal.” I leave off the part about how I don’t want him to feel like he’s making progress with me, or like a tab is growing and the only way to pay the bill is spending a night in bed with him. But given what he’s already told me and seems to fervently believe, I know it wouldn’t be just one night.
He looks up and arches a brow. “Honey, you’re my mate, of course I’m paying for your meal.”
“I amnotyour mate!” I hiss.
“Take it up with fate.”
He is so infuriating, but I choose not to make a bigger scene. Obviously I can’t be this guy’s mate, but I can at least be decent. He literally saved my life out in the woods, and he hasn’t harmed me even though he had the same full opportunity that other man did.
A waitress shows up and I begrudgingly order a club sandwich and club soda.
“I’ll have the same,” Cooper says, handing the menu back.
He’s friendly and polite to the waitress, but he doesn’t ogle or watch her walk away. Am I keeping a points system in my head?This is not a date. This psycho bear is stalking me. He doesn’t get the benefits of my points system.
“Do you not understand the word,no?” I ask him when we’re alone.
He takes a deep breath. “Rosalie, it’s not like that. Just give me a chance to explain.”
“What exactly makes you different than that man in the woods?”
“I can’t believe you’d ask me that.”
“Well I am asking you that, so tell me, what makes your inability to hear no and his inability to hear no so different? Is it because you’re hot? You think because I’m attracted to you that means I can’t possibly have life plans that don’t revolve around riding your dick?”
“I knew you were attracted,” he says, grinning, and the dimple that appears near the corner of his mouth almost kills me.
I roll my eyes.
“This is why I wanted a shifter mate, not a human,” he says. “Humans don’t understand. And look, I get it, your males are fucking awful. I will be the first one to acknowledge it.”
“Oh don’t pretend like you care. I’m sure you all are the same with the female shifters, pushing your greater size and power around to get what you want.”
Something in his face changes, and I can’t pinpoint what emotion so quickly swept over him. But he doesn’t leave me to guess. “Female shifters aren’t physically weaker than male shifters, so no, we don’t have the same power dynamics within our kind that humans do. I don’t know why nature was such a bitch to human women, but it’s not like that in a lot of the animal kingdom, and it’s not like that with shifters. So whatever you think is going on here, understand I may look like a man, but I’m not one.”
“But you’re stronger than me, and you won’t stop stalking me. So I’m not sure how I benefit from Shifter Social Politics.”
He lets out a frustrated growl. A human sound, not an animal sound.
I sigh. “Fine, explain. What do you think I need to know that would make any difference at all to what I’ve already told you. You’ve made it clear you aren’t going to leave me alone. So my options are just to “accept my fate” as you say. Why should I?”
The waitress returns with our drinks and sandwiches. That was shockingly quick, but sandwiches aren’t exactly the most complicated cuisine. Cooper is silent while she sets down our plates and drinks, his eyes never leaving mine. I’ve stupidly left my hand on the table, and he reaches out to cover mine with his own.
I feel that same electric jolt that I don’t want to acknowledge. This is some kind of magic, it’s not real.
Really, Rosalie? You think it would require magic for you to want to sleep with this guy? THIS guy? Wow.
I could do without my brain’s judge-y internal sarcasm right now. Whose side is she on?
