But I couldn’t do that. I’d spent most of our time together griping at Caleb about his tendency to act without mercy. I couldn’t exactly turn around and ask him to kill for me.
“No.”
Caleb protested, “But—”
“No. I love you too much to make you a killer.”
Caleb pouted. “Not even a thorough maiming?”
“No.”
“OK, then, forget your ex. Forget everything but what you want to do right now, what you know in your heart is the right thing for you. Just for you. What do you want to do?”
I leaned my forehead against his and pressed my lips to his. “I want to go home with you.”
Red-burn was going to be so pissed at me when I told her I didn’t need that ID after all.
Whooping, Caleb dragged me down to the floor and kissed me. He nuzzled at the place on my neck where he’d bitten me all those months ago, and it tingled a bit. I pulled away, rubbing at my former hickey. Caleb noticed the gesture and pulled himself back up to a sitting position. “So you know how things work with us, right? The mating thing? The claiming bite?” I nodded. “Well, I hope that’s something you’re willing to consider.”
“Are you sure we know enough about each other to be mated?”
“I know that you’re strong, you’re adaptable, and you’re smart, all qualities that make for a fantastic mate.”
Somehow I was both touched and slightly insulted that he hadn’t mentioned me being at all pretty.
“But I won’t put the claiming bite on you until you’ve finished your business with Glenn. Divorced, separated by church and state, lock, stock, and barrel.”
My mouth dropped open. “But that could take years.”
He shrugged. “I’ll wait.”
“Is this some sort of bizarre stall tactic?”
“No, this is about you getting closure before we start something new. I think it’s important for you to finish this on your own terms. And frankly, I’d like to put your real legal name on our marriage certificate, not an alias. That means that you can’t be married to someone else when we file it. Werewolves don’t file a lot of legitimate government paperwork. We take the marriage licenses pretty seriously.”
“This is the worst proposal I’ve ever heard.”
“Not true. That honor belongs to my cousin Maggie, whose mating and proposal involved accidentally biting her mate on the ass.”
“You’re right,” I conceded, remembering the number of stitches required to sew up Nick’s butt cheek. “That was worse.”
“This is important,” he told me. “It’s something you need to do for yourself, not for me. I can be patient. You can take all the time you need.”
I sighed, peering up at him through my lashes. “You’re right. I thought the answer was to just keep moving around, but that hasn’t worked so far. I have to change tactics. And I would feel a lot better not lying to people every time I open my mouth.”
He fluttered his hand over his heart. “A nonromantic response to a nonromantic proposal.”
I laughed, whacking him with a pillow, wrestling with him until I pinned him to the floor and pressed a kiss against his throat. I was fairly certain he let me win. “I’ll start the paperwork just as soon as we get back to the valley,” I promised. “If nothing else, I have to come home with you so I can see the look on Maggie’s face when she realizes I might end up her in-law.”
13
Pandora Was a Total Idiot
We were leaving. I’d never looked forward to traveling like this. Usually, departures meant distress. Now I was going home.
We would be leaving for the valley in a few days. Caleb was working diligently to close up whichever of his pending cases he could close and to send progress reports to his clients on those still open. Since I was able to type more than five angrily pecked words per minute, I ended up sending out most of them while Caleb dictated.
“I don’t suppose you would give up typing for the day and get naked with me?”