Big Bad Academy

I’m done second-guessing myself or worrying that I’m not good enough or that it’s the wrong time. We’ve wasted enough time already, and the truth is that destiny or not, I want him. I don’t care if this is something we’re unable to totally avoid. I don’t really care if this was destined from before the time we were born.

All I care is that this is the guy I want to be with more than anyone else in the world.

Somehow, we end up entwined on the bed, kissing wildly, passionately. My entire body feels like it’s on fire. It’s not and aching and all I want is him. My vision seems to cloud as I lose focus of everything except him. He’s all I see. He’s all I can think about.

I just want him.

But he stops me, grabbing my wrists, and he holds them.

“Heather,” he’s breathless.

“Flynn, what’s wrong?”

“If we do this, then everything changes,” he whispers. “The dreams will stop. The mating...we’ll be mated.”

I realize what he’s saying. I may be a writer and not a shifter expert, but I know what he’s trying to tell me. Our relationship will be solidified. The bond between us will be finished. Complete. Even if we were to break up or leave each other, it wouldn’t matter because our relationship would always bring us back to the other.

But then I realize something else, too.

That’s what I want.

I don’t want to live in a world without Flynn.

I don’t want to go back to life without him.

Yeah, I love being a writer, but being without Flynn is also really, horribly boring. My life before I met him was monotonous. I love my cats, and I love my books, and I love my fans, but Flynn pulls me from the world inside my head I so often get stuck in. Somehow, he manages to yank me out of that hole where being a writer is the only thing that seems to matter.

He reminds me that there’s more to the world around me.

He helps me to feel alive.

“I love you,” I whisper. He completely stills. He’s shocked. I can’t smell him or scent him or read his emotions or anything like that, but I can clearly see the expression on his face. He wasn’t expecting this. Not from me. Why would he?

For a couple of weeks now, Flynn and I have been barely more than roommates. Oh, there’s been the occasional kiss when we can’t seem to control ourselves and there’s been incessant longing, but that’s it. We haven’t slept together, and we haven’t said that we love each other.

But I’m ready.

I’m ready for all of that.

I want him to know how I feel.

I want him to know that I crave him.

That I need him.

That I’m so fucking wild about him I can’t stand it.

“I love you, too,” he finally whispers, and my heart feels like it’s singing. He does. He loves me. Okay, cool. Happiness and contentment wash over me, but also just this crazy feeling of peace. He’s accepting me just as I’m accepting him.

We’re actually going to do this.

“I have to mark you,” he tells me, as though this is the worst thing in the world.

“Where?”

“You can choose where you want your mark,” he says. “You can have it here,” he presses his hand to my neck. “Or here.” He touches the inside of my wrist.

I only think about it for a second before I hold out my wrist to him.