No one had ever gotten her flowers before. Nevada stooped, picked them up, and smelled them like she’d seen girls do on romantic television shows. They smelled good and were cold to the touch. “Where did you get dandelions this time of year?”
Nox pushed a scratched, blue cooler forward with the toe of his boot. “My dad shipped them overnight for me. He grows them for my mom all year round in a greenhouse behind their trailer.”
“He grows weeds?” she asked softly as she sat down beside Nox and rested her back against the wall. She wished she could lean her head on his shoulder because she was so dang relieved to be near him again. She’d thought he was gone for good, and admittedly, she’d cried last night because the ache in her chest wouldn’t go away.
“He used to give them to my mom when they were kids. He would say, ‘Look for me in the dandelions.’ And when they found each other again when they were older, he gave her them again. He was never good at I love yous.” Nox chuckled. “The other kids would give me so much shit because my dad would give me a flower when he was proud of me. I would press them in an old dictionary, and then when they were dry, I would put them in this scrapbook of plastic sleeves. Torren saw it once when he spent the night.”
“Torren is your friend?”
“No. I hate everyone.”
Nevada frowned and cuddled the flowers to her chest, then scooted close to Nox. “Then why did he spend the night?”
“Because my mom was worried I would end up…” He let the words trail off and swallowed hard as he gave his attention to the falling snow.
“End up, what?”
His lips ticked up in a sad smile. “She was afraid I would end up like this.”
The ache in Nevada’s chest grew, so she moved closer until their arms brushed. Nox’s reaction to her touch wasn’t to flinch away like she’d feared. Instead, he lifted his arm over her, rested it on her shoulders, and pulled her tightly against his ribs. And now she got to rest her head on him. He smelled of mint toothpaste, some hot-boy cologne, and the subtle scent of fur.
“She would invite the boys from around Damon’s Mountains for sleepovers to try and socialize me. Torren was okay. I hated him the least, but he never understood my language. He is big and dominant and broken like me. He’s got animal problems. He’ll be sick in the head soon. Totally fucked. He was raised in a small family group of gorilla shifters outside of Damon’s Mountains, down in Saratoga. He was an outsider like me. But when he slept over, he saw the sleeves of dried dandelions and asked me why I had a book of flowers. And when I told him it wasn’t a book of flowers, that it was a book of I love yous, he laughed. So I beat the shit out of him, and he asked my mom to take him home. She wised up and didn’t try to force people to be friends with me after that. Nevada?” he said suddenly, turning to her. His face was so close to hers, his lips only inches away. “I’m not going to be good at it either.”
“At what?”
“The I love yous and romantic shit you’ll need. I’m not built to be a good mate.”
She lifted the dandelions and smiled. “You’re doing just fine.” Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek on his chest, listening to the quick drumming of his heartbeat. “You don’t have to be anything other than what you are with me.”
Nox let off a sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath, and his arms tightened slightly around her. He was so strong and steady, all her anxiety melted away. Here, in this little world this feral man had created, she was safe. Not only safe from other people, but safe to unapologetically be herself, and that’s what love was…right? It wasn’t a trapped feeling. It wasn’t a cage. It was freedom. She wouldn’t tell him how hard she’d fallen yet because it was too soon, and she didn’t want to seem desperate. But her animal had picked him, she’d picked him, and that was that. She would give up her den to have one day like this, where she could breathe easy, feel valuable, and be touched by a man who wanted to touch her because he thought her soul was pretty, not because she could give him kits.
“I did research,” she said cheekily.
“Uh oh.”
“Yep, I did research on why you bit me, and I found out about claiming marks.”
“Woman, you’re a shifter. How did you not know about claiming marks?”
“Because foxes don’t do those. We stick to our own and don’t concern ourselves with what you barbarians are doing. Get it? Bar-bear-ians?”
Nox chuckled and tickled her ribs. Surprised, she wiggled away from his touch and laughed. “I’m not ticklish. Don’t even try it.”
“Lie,” he called her out.
“Well, that’s how you’re supposed to do it. You pretend early on in a relationship that you aren’t ticklish, and then they never try to tickle you again because it’s boring if you won’t react.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t stop me. I’m going to keep tickling you just for the excuse to accidentally touch your boobs. Do you want to fuck?”
“What?” she asked, sure she’d heard him wrong.
“Do you. Want. To fuck?”
“Not romantic.”
“We can do it naked this time.”
She sighed. “Last time you ran away. It hurt my feelings.”
“I will hurt your feelings six hundred times a day because I’m a monster.”
“Well try harder not to!”
“I am trying! I hurt other people like eight hundred times a day.”
“Oh.” Well that was kind of romantic in Nox’s way. “I want missionary position.”
“Bland.”
“That’s what I want, and I don’t want to call it ‘fucking,’ and you have to look me in the eyes when you finish. And no more biting.”
“I don’t have to bite you anymore. You’re already mine.”
“Hmm. Are you mine?”
“Not yet.”
“Doesn’t seem fair. I don’t want to belong to a man who doesn’t belong to me.”
Nox blinked slow and slid her a challenging look, his eyes sparking silver. “Then make me yours, little fox.”
The smile fell from her face, and her heart hammered against her breast bone. Nox was hot when he went all serious and told her what to do. “And we come at the same time,” she whispered, still negotiating.
He gave her a wicked grin just before his lips pressed onto hers. He laved his tongue against hers, once, twice, and then she was in the air, in his arms, being carried into the house. He was squishing her dandelions between them, but that was okay. She was going to press them and dry them and add them to a scrapbook with plastic sleeves. She was going to make her own I love you book. She hadn’t missed the meaning of these flowers. He’d had them shipped here just to give to her. He loved her already, as she did him. They didn’t have to say it out loud for it to be true.