The Unlikely Mate

Chapter 16

Lennox reached down and helped Jennifer to her feet. The touch of his hand bringing sparks to the surface of her skin, and a warmth filling up inside of both of them. Jennifer quickly stood up and the two stared into the eyes of the other, the mate-bond between them strengthening as they moved closer to each other, unable to stop themselves.

Lennox pulled Jennifer into his arms, wrapping them around her waist, and she willing fell into his embrace, staring at his eyes, feeling the gaze reach into her very soul. She brought her hands up, cupping his face between them, and at the instance of her wolf inside, she leaned in ready to kiss him, throwing all caution to the wind, thoughts of William having disappeared as soon as Lennox had touched her.

Lennox leaned forward about to kiss Jennifer, completely unable to stop himself, and wanting desperately to taste her perfect lips. He gently touched her chin with his finger, bring her face next to his, but before his lips touched hers, she jumped back and winced as if she were in pain. Her gasp and sudden movement pulled him from the trance he had been in upon catching her at his doorstep, and he looked at with a new sense of confusion, as she stumbled backward away from him back out of the doorway.

"Who are you?" he asked quickly, as she took another step back.

"I'm..." she faltered, looking at him and grabbing the hand he had used to touch her chin a moment before. "I'm Jennifer" she finally said after looking at his hand and then dropping it quickly.

"I'm sorry, I have to go" she then said, before turning and running along the back of the building and quickly out of sight.

"Wait!" Lennox shouted after her. "Come back!" he yelled in her direction, but she was already gone. He wanted to follow her, but forced himself to stay put. He felt far too confused to go chasing after someone who he had just caught snooping at his back door, and the fact that he almost kissed her made him very concerned about his state of mind, and convinced himself it would be unwise to pursue her until he found out more about her.

He went inside and closed the door, looking at his hand that she had just held. He didn't know what she saw that could have made her run off like that. He had his silver ring on his hand, and that was it. Nothing else very interesting or seemingly relevant to have made her run. Although, he reasoned to himself that nothing about his interactions with her thus far had been normal or made sense, so is confusion seemed to be consistent with their interactions overall. He dropped himself into his seat, leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to make any sense of what had occurred the last several hours.

*****

Jennifer ran home quickly, not stopping until she was in her apartment with the door closed and locked behind her. She ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and noticed a small burn on her neck, from Lennox's silver ring. It had brushed up against her when he had touched her chin, and the silver had stung at the contact. She was actually feeling grateful for the interruption, because she hadn't planned to kiss him. She wanted to, her wolf was ready to pounce on him then and there, and his perfect lips begged for hers to be pressed upon them. The gaze of his seemed to speak to her inmost being, almost as if he were telling her he loved her and that her past meant nothing to him, that he wanted to love her and be with her forever.

If the silver of his ring hadn't startled her with the burn against her skin, she was pretty sure she would have marked him by now, the mate-bond within her was pulling at her so strongly. But she continued to tell herself and her wolf, that she had no right to allow that to happen, until she had resolved things with William. Both out of respect for each of them, but also because she was a little afraid of William, the warnings of Jackson repeating in the back of her mind, and she didn't want to put her mate into danger as a result of her foolishness prior to having met him.

She was pacing around the room, thinking about what to do next when she was startled by her alarm clock going off. It was time to get ready for work. She was exhausted, but knew she couldn't avoid going to work after yesterday's debacle, so she quickly showered and began to get ready for work, suddenly remembering that she still had never responded to William's texts from the day before.

Hi, sorry I didn't respond sooner. Was feeling sick yesterday and ended up leaving work and going to bed for a while. We'll talk soon.

That was the message she finally settled on sending to him. She knew they needed to talk, and she wanted to also tell him about the conversation she'd overheard in the woods, but she also didn't want to lead him on in any way, so she tried to keep it friendly and polite, but without any tone of romance.

She then determined to put everything on her mind into the back, and focus on work. She needed to pretend that everything was as normal as she could. She didn't want to answer a lot of prying questions from her co-workers while she was still trying to answer them for herself.

"How are you feeling today?" Katie asked her, as soon as Jennifer had walked in the front door.

"Still a little worn out, but I'm good" Jennifer responded, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "I'm sure it was just a stomach bug or something."

"Glad you're here" said Tommy as he walked in a few moments later. "Cameron and I were pretty worried about you after last night."

"Why were your worried?" Katie chimed in.

"She fell on the coffee table and broke it" Tommy said accusingly.

"That's weird" Katie said, looking at Jennifer suspiciously. "You sure you're ok? Are you having dizzy spells or something?"

"I'm fine," Jennifer tried to reassure Katie. "Really, I was just being clumsy and was asleep when these to knuckleheads came pounding on my door late at night" she continued, gesturing toward Tommy and Cameron who had just come over to join the conversation. "I stumbled when I got up and completely shattered the worthless piece of junk." Jennifer then walked into the employee room and put her things away, donning her apron and moving about the restaurant to get it ready for opening.

Katie watched her closely throughout the morning, trying to decide if she was going to believe that Jennifer really was ok. Katie liked Jennifer, but she was definitely odd. Katie had decided that Jennifer was a bit of a puzzle, and she had every intention of figuring her out. She didn't have many friends and Jennifer had come along and been so pleasant and Katie enjoyed having another woman to talk to that didn't seem to be bothered by her constant need to chatter.

It was about midway through her shift that Jennifer thought she felt her mate's presence. She glanced quickly around the restaurant and confirmed for herself that he hadn't come inside, but she was sure that he was nearby. She took the opportunity to take some trash bags out to the dumpster behind the restaurant to look around. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was close and she was pretty sure that he was watching for her. She was a little nervous about it, and had it not been her mate she would have probably gone looking for a fight. But in this case, she actually felt a little comforted by his presence, and then she silently cursed the mate-bond for making her lose all semblance of rational thought.