Don't Disturb Stella and Her Mates novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: No Bonds, No Promises
Ansel crossed the last step between them and stopped with his hands raised, not touching her.
"Tell me to go," he said. "Go on. Because if you don't, I'm not going to."
Thora stayed on the rock with her back against the tree.
His scent had changed.
Smoke and cold air and something clean underneath.
Her body knew it before she did.
She felt heat run all the way down to the soles of her feet.
"Listen to me," she said. "No bonds. No promises. You keep up or you don't."
"Fine."
"I mean it. I'm not here for the five of you. I'm here to get through this forest."
"Fine," he said again, and his voice cracked on a laugh. "Say all of it. I'm keeping up."
"You're shaking."
"I haven't had anything in my head for five years but a fog, and now it's gone. Of course I'm shaking."
"Ansel."
"I remember you," he said. "At the dinner after you came home. You sat at the end of the table and nobody passed you the salt. I wanted to pass you the salt, and I didn't, and I don't know why. I think about that every day."
His eyes were full.
"I'm so sorry."
She looked at him for a long moment.
This was the same man who had stood at the launch pad and said, "That's what you always say."
She did not forgive him.
She did not have to, to want him.
She reached out and took hold of his collar and pulled him down.
His mouth landed on hers hard and clumsy, then slow.
He tasted of woodsmoke and water.
He made a small sound against her lips, and his hands came up at last and framed her face.
"I've wanted this for years," he whispered.
"If you start apologizing I'm going to leave."
He grinned against her mouth, helplessly.
"Not apologizing."
He kissed her jaw, and the line of her throat, and the hollow under her ear.
She pulled his shirt up over his head, and he sat back on his heels and let her.
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