I stepped closer so the two complex and frustrating females that had been robbing me of sleep could survey each other a little better.
“She’s beautiful,” Adalyn whispered, while Willow sniffed her outstretched hand. “Her eyes are different, just like her face. I’ve never seen a cat like her.”
“Willow’s a chimera,” I explained, my gaze fixated on Adalyn’s face. Her smile was small as she inspected the cat in my arms. I liked that barely there tilt of her mouth. “They’re born after two embryos fuse together. That’s why she looks like that.”
Willow purred, Adalyn hummed, and I felt myself relax for the first time this morning.
That was probably why I went on, “She was blind in one eye when I adopted her, I thought it might have been related to it so I researched.”
“Oh,” Adalyn whispered. “That’s…” Her face turned serious. “Really sweet. You’re full of surprises, Cameron.” Her saying my name so softly did something to my stomach. “On top of having tried every single hobby that has ever existed, you have cats you call family and know about hackles and sickles and peeps. You’re afraid of goats—”
“I’m not afraid of them,” I interjected. “I find them untrustworthy.”
She rolled her eyes but I could see it there, the way she was biting back a smile. A full one. A real one. “Still,” she said. “I wonder what else you’re hiding.”
“Wildlife.” The information toppled off my lips. “Not just farm stock. I find wildlife and nature fascinating. I’ve watched a lot of Animal Planet through the years. It helps me relax. Unwind.” I readjusted Willow in my arms. “The hackles and sickles are nothing compared to what I’ve learned on there.”
She tilted her head, and I knew to brace myself. “Tell me a random fact.”
“You want me to prove it to you?”
“Only if you can,” she said with a shrug. “Knock my socks off, Animal Planet man.”
This woman. Issuing challenges like that at a man like me.
I looked at her straight into those chocolate-brown eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, the rightful king of the jungle is not the lion. Only a very small percentage of them live in the jungle. So small, they’re endangered. A proper candidate for the title would actually be a Bengal tiger, leopard, or jaguar.”
She nodded slowly, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed.
I set the mug on the banister of the porch and held my free palm up. “Koala fingerprints are so similar to ours that they could be mistaken for a human’s.”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
I could do better than a brow arch. “The heart of a shrimp is in its head.” I brought my hand to the side of her face and brushed her temple with the back of my hand. Her lips parted at the gentle touch. “And if a female ferret in heat doesn’t mate for a prolonged time, the increasing levels of estrogen in her body can eventually lead to her death.”
A shiver seemed to crawl down Adalyn’s body. I let my fingers fall along hair that had fallen over her cheek. “She would die?” Her voice was soft again, gentle. Sad. “She would die just because she can’t find a mate?”
I stepped closer and gave her a nod.
A small frown appeared. “That’s… That’s really unfair.”
My eyes roamed all over her face, finding great pleasure in the vulnerability I saw in her expression. In how close we were standing.
I should have probably brushed this whole thing off, gone back inside and jumped into the shower so we wouldn’t be late to the game, but something in me had shifted. Changed. “It’s rather cruel,” I said, letting the pad of my thumb flick across her cheek. “Don’t you think?”
Adalyn’s eyes fluttered shut, and when she answered, it was a whisper. “It is.”
I moved my hand, reveling in the effect the gentle contact of my skin against hers had in me. Her. Both of us. “It doesn’t seem like that’s the ferret’s fault.”
Eyes still closed, her throat worked. “Maybe,” she started. And this time, my thumb brushed her forehead, the spot that she’d hit that first day. The urge to place my mouth there was hard to tame. “Maybe, she doesn’t have time to spare to search for a mate,” she continued, a little breathlessly. “Or maybe there’s nothing about her that’s appealing to the male ferrets around her.” She opened her eyes. The brown in her eyes had glazed over. “Perhaps she thought she was fine like that, alone. How is any of that her fault?”
“It’s not,” I told her, inching even closer. Gravitating toward her. Until there was barely any space separating us. I cupped her face in my palm. “Perhaps she’s been neglected,” I continued, craning my neck down. Now I could really smell her. Her shampoo. Soap. She smelled so fucking sweet. “Maybe she’s being overlooked.” I spread my fingers, my thumb brushing the corner of her lips. Adalyn’s breath caught. “All of this sweetness, misjudged.” I shifted my hand, digging the rest of my fingers in her hair. “What foolish males.”
Adalyn exhaled, the puff of air hitting my chin.
And I—Fuck. I—
A sharp pang of pain cut straight through the moment, and I winced.
Willow mewed from my arms. And before I could stop her, she landed on the ground and flashed through the open door. I attempted to go after her, but Adalyn’s hand was on my arm.
I looked down, finding her warm, gentle fingers against my skin as they probed, inspecting the scratch. “It doesn’t look deep.” Her tone was concerned and still so goddamn sweet it killed me. What was happening to me? “But I think you should disinfect it.” The tip of her index finger traced the inked skin around the tiny cut. “Does it hurt?”
It did. But not in the way she meant. “No.”
“Will it ruin the… design?” she asked, her thumb hanging over black lines I’d collectively sat down for many hours to get done.
There was barely a spot of skin that wasn’t inked between my collarbone and the upper sleeve of my right arm. Same went for my right pec. And the top of my left thigh. None of them were tattoos I went around showcasing. They were not for anybody but myself and that’s why I always wore long sleeves. Her hand moved, sidetracking me. I’d suffered through some of the most intricate ones yet somehow those delicate, light grazes of her fingers over my skin felt more powerful than all the needles I’d endured.
“This one is so pretty.” Her palm had stopped at the side of my biceps, and I was so emboldened, encouraged by her touch that I turned my arm so she could properly see. “Who is she?”
Out of every possible tattoo she could have possibly chosen to ask about. It had to be that one. The one that held the most meaning. “I think you know, darling.”
“Your grandmother?” she whispered. I gave her a nod and let her inspect it. I was thankful it wasn’t one of the tacky or senseless ones I’d gotten when I was young and mindless. This one was an old-school rendition of a young woman with black hair. Simple. Thick lines. No shadowing or color except for two red flowers atop her head. “What about the rest? What do they represent?”
I had to swallow for the words to come out of my throat. “The beginning,” I said, voice thick. “The end. Everything in between.”
My eyes bounced back to her face. She was biting her lip. “Does Willow do this often?”
I shook my head, barely able to rasp out an answer with her attention on me like that. I liked it far too much. “She’s never acted like that, but perhaps that’s because I’ve never given her a chance to be jealous.”
“Jealous?”
I nodded, my tongue still in twists. My head, too, when all of a sudden, I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had tended to my wounds.
Had it ever happened? Had it ever felt like… this?