He’d never been a man who hesitated, but he did so tonight, unsure how to read her silence. Lara always talked to him, even when she was angry. Walking to the shower without breaking that silence, he shrugged off his clothing and stepped under the heated spray. Once there, he focused not on the way she’d left him this afternoon, striding off without a backward look, but on how she felt inside him, her love unshaken.

Shuddering, he pressed his palms to the tile, head bent under the spray.

His grip on the simple, inexorable truth of her love a bloodless one, he wiped himself off, and hitching the towel around his hips, he walked back into the bedroom. Lara had put down her reader, turned off the light on her side, and lay on her back with one arm above her head…and he saw what he hadn’t earlier.

She was wearing the nightgown he liked best.

Everything came to vibrant life inside him as he realized she had spoken to him. He simply hadn’t listened well enough. Not a mistake he’d make again.

Throwing the towel over a chair, he slid in under the sheet, switched off his own light, and reached for her. She came, warm and soft, and his. He shifted to enclose her with his body, his forearms on either side of her head. “Did we,” he whispered, “just have our first fight as a mated couple?”

Lara felt every ounce of tension leach out of her at that quiet question. When he’d gone into the shower without saying a word, she’d almost burst into tears. Now, she nuzzled at his throat, taking the clean, male scent of him inside, her wolf’s fur rubbing up against her skin. “Yes. This is the making-up part.”

He shifted his weight to settle more intimately between her legs. “In that case, I’m already looking forward to our next fight.”

He was playing with her, she realized, this man who hadn’t believed he had the capacity for such lightness of heart. Throat thick with emotion, she curved one leg over his hip, stroking her hands across the slightly damp skin of his shoulders—he never dried them properly and she usually had to finish the task.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you then took off,” she said, feeling terrible about how she’d avoided his touch. It had been an unconscious effort to protect herself from pain, but the instant she’d cooled down enough to think, she’d realized she’d hurt him, hurt her mate. It had killed her. “I didn’t mean to deny you skin privileges.”

He nuzzled back at her, kissing the side of her temple. “I know. It’s okay.” His jaw, rough with stubble, rasped over her hair. “Will you forgive me, too?”

Her eyes burned at the unvarnished request. “Always.”