Emily met my gaze in the rearview mirror for a moment before refocusing on the road. “Did you miss him when you were at the alpha’s house?”
“I missed my freedom. He was the one who made it possible before the skulk found me, so missing him was the default,” I said.
“Right.”
“I’m sure he didn’t miss me. I made him feel guilty about letting me be forced into an arranged marriage, and he had already accidentally bitten me. So it was his bear that forced him to come after me. Not love.”
“A shifter’s animal is just a wilder, more instinctual side of them. But sure. Maybe the mate bond was what pushed him to stay awake all night rather than sleep well knowing he had a solid plan to rescue you.”
“A mate bond would do that to anyone,” I said.
Including me.
It had to have been why I couldn’t sleep either. And why I had missed Bo when we were apart.
“Probably,” she agreed.
“A week isn’t long enough to fall in love with someone, anyway.”
“You spent more time together in that week than most people do in the first few months of a new relationship, and you already knew each other.”
“So?”
“So a weekcouldbe long enough. Especially if there were already strong feelings between you.”
“Unpleasant ones,” I pointed out.
“He was obsessed with your scent. That’s not unpleasant.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“That was just about sex,” I said.
“Okay.” Emily didn’t sound convinced.
I was starting not to feel convinced, either.
“Are you always this difficult?” I asked her.
She laughed. “Pretty much.”
“Artie deserves worse.”
“I’ll try extra hard to give him hell for you this week.”
“Thanks.” I leaned my head back against the headrest, staring out the window once again. “What if Bowasin love with me? Just barely?”
“Then you’d want to decide how you felt about him. And keep his feelings in mind before you do anything he could see as intimate. If he’s in love with you and you don’t feel the same way, screwing him could cause problems.”
I grimaced. “I guess you couldn’t really have casual sex with someone who was in love with you if you didn’t love them back.”
“You could. You just might feel like shit afterward.”
“That’s obviously not ideal.”
“Not when you’re already permanently mated.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. It was drying weird, but it usually did. “What if he already had feelings for me before we started hooking up? That was supposed to be casual. And meaningless.”
