You’ve both forsaken yours. Forsaken them and shacked up with other wolves.” Inwardly, Jaime flinched. He was right—there was no escaping that or buttering up what she was doing. As if Dante sensed the twinge of guilt she was feeling, he took her hand in his.

Dante inclined his head at Nick, allowing that. A part of him felt bad about it, but there was no way he’d let Jaime go, and that was that. “But we’re not insisting on sticking our noses into their business and hanging around them, are we?”

“Don’t kid yourself into thinking that if your true mate comes along you’ll be able to ignore her. No matter how content you are with another female, the draw will be there. No matter how many times you tell yourself to keep a distance from her, you won’t be able to. If I were either of you, I’d get out of this relationship while you can. Before one of you gets hurt.” He was gone before either Dante or Jaime could respond. Jaime wasn’t exactly sure if, or how, she would have responded. Nick had been right again. If Dante’s mate appeared tomorrow, she would lose him. Even if he didn’t leave her, Jaime would still be hurt, knowing that he was with her and thinking about someone else. He’d said he didn’t want to find his mate, but Jaime knew that if he did find her, things wouldn’t be so black and white to him anymore. It was one thing to know your mate was out there and another altogether to actually see her, wasn’t it?

For Jaime, to find her mate truly would be the worst thing ever. Although she was determined to fight her wolf’s desire to take over, she knew there was still a chance that she could. To join with her mate would therefore be to risk his life, and she couldn’t do that. In Dante, she had found someone she cared for who wouldn’t demand more than she could give. Someone who would care enough to be upset if anything happened to her, but who wouldn’t die along with her. In him, she had found what she needed. And losing that would break something inside her, even if it was kind of melodramatic.

“Hey,” said Dante gently as he skimmed his thumb over her jawline. He didn’t like how quiet she was, knew that what Nick said had gotten to her. “You okay?” Nodding, she let him lead her outside to the Chevy. When she didn’t object to him driving, he knew her mind had to be racing like crazy. His usually animated Jaime was mute as he drove. Halfway to pack territory, he pulled to the side of the road. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine,” she said without looking at him.

“You’re not fine.” He cupped her chin and turned her head so that he could see her eyes. So much confusion and anxiety there. It caused a weird tugging sensation in his chest. “Talk.” After a tense pause, she finally asked, “Dante, are you sure this is what you want? You, me, this relationship?”

“You know me well enough to know that I don’t make important decisions without giving them clear thought.”

“I know but…Look, you said you wanted a relationship, but, I mean, what constitutes a relationship to you?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t have much experience with them. For me, this is permanent. Exclusive.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You’d have been this possessive no matter who I was.

Relationships—permanent or not, exclusive or not—can be casual, or they can be semiserious, or they can be something much deeper.” She wanted to know just how much he was willing to emotionally invest in this.

He shrugged. “As deep as it can get between two people who are so against the idea of being bonded. I don’t know how deep that can go, Jaime.”

Neither did she, but she did know that their resistance to being bonded made the relationship about as secure and settled as a feather in the wind. Which meant that Nick was right; Dante could easily leave her if his mate came along. Just the idea of that made her chest ache. She hadn’t thought it had the potential to hurt her that much. “Maybe we should take Nick’s advice and end this now.”

“What? Why?” He twisted in his seat to fully face her.

“I get why you don’t want to find your mate. But let’s say that you did. You’d be curious to know if your position was something she could have accepted. You’d want to talk to her, get a feel for the type of person that she is. It’s only natural. If it turns out that you being Beta is something she can accept, you’ll go to her. I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

“That’s not going to happen. The likelihood of me recognizing her on sight is a million to one anyway. What happened with Nick and Shaya is rare.”

“But if it did, you’d leave me for her. I wouldn’t blame you, but I’d still want to rip your heart right out of your chest with my bare hands. And her heart, for that matter.” His expression turned fierce. “I’d do the exact same thing to any guy who tried to take you from me, even your mate. I told you that.”

“The difference is that nothing could change my mind about mating with him. I’d never do it.

But with you…it could turn out that you’re wrong and she is okay with the Beta thing, and then you’ll be gone and I’ll be alone and it’ll goddamn hurt!” Her voice broke slightly at the end, and she turned her head away to blink the tears from her eyes.

“Look at me, Jaime. Look at me.” Finally, she did. “I want this. I’m keeping you. If you think you have a choice, that’s not my problem.”

“Keeping me? I’m not a stray kitten, I’m a person.”

“If you were a stray kitten, I’d give you a kick up the ass and walk away.” She did a double take. “You’d kick a kitten?”

“I’d kick Hunk if I didn’t think the gremlin would eat my foot.”

“All right, we’re getting off the subject.” Inhaling deeply, she let out a long breath. Her voice was small when she spoke. “I just don’t think I could bear it if I got comfortable in this relationship and then you left me later.” There, she’d set aside her pride and admitted her fear.

He cupped her nape and joined his forehead to hers. “Ah, baby, that’s never going to happen.

I’m not leaving you, and there’s no way you’re leaving me again, so don’t even think it.” He crushed her mouth with his, shooting his tongue into her mouth and coaxing her own to play. Relief filled him when she responded as enthusiastically as she always did. “Like I said, I don’t know how deep this can go. Neither of us wants to be bonded, we test each other’s self-control, I don’t have a good work/play balance, I’m going to drive you absolutely insane trying to control you, and you’re going to drive me insane when you rebel…Maybe it’s f**king doomed, I don’t know. But don’t you want to know?”