“Or our funerals. I like daisies. You?”
Cormac instantly sobered at that, standing up straight. “Okay, you’re right. So let’s get this out of the way. You lied to me. I didn’t trust too many people before the ladies and you waltzed into my life. It was just me and Lenny Kravitz, the stray I found in the woods, near death. It’s a knee-jerk reaction now, I guess. I just haven’t had enough interaction with other human beings in the last three years to test my boundaries of trust. My reaction caught me off guard, too. Being in that cabin, hiding away like some criminal, it changed me, made me paranoid, and I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
Teddy finally relaxed enough to drop down on flat feet. “Fair enough. Are we done with the snide remarks every time I open my mouth, or do you have more you’d like to unload?”
“I think I’m good for now. So here’s the thing, for me anyway. I hear you telling me we’re life mates. I hear you telling me this is the way of the bear, or whatever. But I’m having a lot of trouble focusing on anything other than keeping all my body parts.” He held up his hand and pointed to his missing ring finger. “I’m also having trouble focusing because I’m worried that they’re after you now, too. Which makes it doubly hard to do much but concentrate on saving our hides. It doesn’t exactly scream romance.”
So basically what he was saying was he just wasn’t that into her. Sure, she was cute, and all the things she’d always been to boys. Always more their friend than their romantic interest. Why would her life mate be any different? Only she could rustle up a life mate who wasn’t feelin’ it.
“If what you’re saying is we should put the life mate thing on the back burner, that’s fine by me. I didn’t intend for it to come out the way it did, but I had to say something while still feeling you all out because I felt cornered.”
Moving in a bit closer, he asked, “So what’s the deal with the life mate thing, anyway?”
“I thought we were putting it on the back burner?”
“Let’s put the burner on simmer,” he suggested, his words wrapped in silk.
Cormac so near made her heart pound. He smelled so good, looked so good, she found herself searching for words. “Um…well, there’s a legend about mating. The legend says when you look into your mate’s eyes, you’ll know who’s yours for eternity. I know it sounds silly, but that’s how it goes.”
And she hadn’t believed a word of it until it happened to her.
Warmth crept up along the back of her neck and into her scalp as he used two fingers to tip her chin up. “Is that what happened to you back in Colorado after you shot me with your trusty dart gun?”
Teddy squirmed, shrugging her shoulders, finding a focal point on his shirt. “I thought we weren’t addressing this part of the problem. You know, Russian mob. Death. Destruction.”
“Answer the question. Is that what happened back in Colorado?”
“Something happened back in Colorado, yes. I haven’t had time to process it all yet, okay? It’s sort of like when your mom tells you the poor house is just around the corner and you roll your eyes and ignore her until you find out there really is a poor house, you know? I’m not telling you I’m wildly in love with you. Because I’m not. So if that’s what you’re thinking, relax. I’m just saying that with this information my mother bestowed upon me, I’m supposed to explore the notion that we were meant to be together. I don’t know how those feelings are cultivated. The kind where we’d sacrifice our own lives for the other or whatever it is life mates do. I’m just saying, I felt something. A bond, a thread, a connection, maybe it was just attraction—”
“Me, too,” Cormac interrupted, before he whispered a light kiss over the corner of her mouth, his thumb caressing her jaw with maddeningly sensuous strokes.
“What the fuck are you two doing in here? What about stone-cold killer are you nitwits missing?” Nina yelled as she hustled into the kitchen with Carl not far behind. “Quit stickin’ your tongues down each other’s throats and get the hell back out there where all the shit’s going on! Darnell’s got a line on where Stas hangs his hat and his favorite place to get snockered.”
Teddy scooted away from such close contact with Cormac, avoiding Nina’s eyes by looking at the floor—which was beautiful, in all its white-and-black checkered glossy ceramic tile. “I’m sorry. We were just trying to—”
“Who the fuck broke my counter?” Nina shrieked, her yelp cutting and sharp. “This shit costs the earth! It’s marble from Italy! This is why we can’t have nice things. Greg’s gonna shit a spaghetti dinner.”