Mate her? Mating her wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t plan on mating anyone—ever. His parents had mated without being fated mates. And after he’d gained his powers, he’d told himself he wasn’t ever going to mate, even if he found his fated mate.

Fuck, Emma made him crazy, but even though she smelled so good, he would know if she was his fated mate. Every shifter child was told the stories of fated mates. After everything that happened with his dad, he didn’t want any more of it. He didn’t want to be a part of a lie. He didn’t want a love match mating or a fated one.

But he did want this woman, this witch. And while it would matter later, it didn’t matter now.

“Emma.” He picked her up. He couldn’t help himself. She made him want to protect her, guard her. This woman made him lose all control. The bed sat four strides away from his dining room table but had been leagues away after they’d started.

And as much as it confused him, he didn’t want to only fuck her. He wanted to mate her, and his insides started to tremble. They trembled the same way they had when his magic had unbound. His stomach squeezed. Mate her. Take her and keep her.

After laying her down, Flint stepped away from the bed. Emma sprawled on top of the quilt his grandmother had made him. His sister’s face flitted through his thoughts. What was he doing? This wasn’t some girl that had picked him up at a bar. Vivianne and Eloise had picked her out like they judged his cereal. Don’t eat the sugar-coated ones, they have no substance. And then they’d thrown a box of double-shredded wheat into his cart.

Vivianne hadn’t had an emergency. No, she’d seen Emma and wanted to push her and Flint together.

This was his grandmother’s quilt, not the tiny backseat of his truck. This was the kind of woman his family expected him to bring home and keep. And he wasn’t keeping any female.

He glanced down at Emma. Her hair lay over his pillow, her lips puffy from his harsh kisses. He’d done enough damage.

She turned her head and sniffed his quilt. “This is pretty.” She rolled to the side to move it out of the way. Shit, he couldn’t fuck a woman on his grandmother’s quilt, and he doubly couldn’t fuck a woman who knew enough not to fuck on his grandmother’s quilt. His feet stuck to the pine planks, paralyzed.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and when he opened them, Emma had pushed up onto her elbows and was staring at him.

Flint took in a deep breath.

“Now it’s my turn to ask. Are you okay?” She shimmied to the edge of the bed and looked up at him.

“Never better,” he lied. His hand smoothed down her hair on the side of her head, and his magic wound into the strands like an electric flaming crown.

She grabbed the back of his leg, and goosebumps trailed down it. When he cocked his head sideways, flames circled his leg. It was too much. He wanted her, but the whole thing had gone too far. Too damn far.

He stepped out of her grasp. “Let me get you something to eat.” He grabbed a pair of jeans from his stack of laundry next to the bed.

Her brow furrowed, and she swallowed.

Flint didn’t feel like a fool. He knew he was one. He pulled his jeans on but didn’t button them. That shit still wasn’t possible.

“Ah, right? Did I do something?” The flames around her arms weren’t stretching for him anymore. Instead, they flickered around her like an outline, like how his oldest niece of six drew the skin of monsters, purple and pointy.

That’s what he was right now, a monster. He was taking a woman with a broken gauge of what a male should do, could be, and bending the needle even farther over to empty. Flint had stepped into the same role of a big piece of shit. Worthless like her ex. And he wasn’t going to do anything about it.

“I’m not hungry anymore.” She took one of his T-shirts from the floor and put it on. There were girls at the club downtown with shorter skirts than Emma in his shirt, but none of them turned him on the way her bare legs did. Emma found her leggings underneath the television and searched for her shirt and bra. Her knees on the sofa, ass in the air, she peered between the wall and the sofa. “I don’t see my shirt.”

Penny barked from outside her doggy door. Flint only locked Penny outside when he had one of his sister’s babies sleeping in the house—his oldest niece would shift to play with Penny, and it would always wake up the youngest. His dog had remained silent until now. She yipped with irritation. Yeah, me too, his inner wolf said.

Emma glanced back at Flint. “It’s too cold to leave your dog outside.”

He wanted to laugh. He’d slept outside last night, and it was a good twenty degrees warmer now. “She’s got a thick coat. She’s good.”

Emma stared at the dog looking in the window like she was trying to decide if she believed him. “Yeah, well. It’s not nice.” Her scowl said her opinion of his actions didn’t end there.

What he wanted to say was it’s not nice having a dog watch me get it on. Instead, he grunted. “Can I get you something to eat?”

Emma glanced out the side window that faced the muddy trail of the road he lived on. “I’m good. I’m going to go.” She sat down and pulled on her boots.

“Okay.” Flint nodded, sealing his place in the Asshole of the Month Club. He took his truck keys from the counter and pulled on a shirt.

“I can walk.” Emma pulled open the door, and the dog came blasting in. Emma petted Penny’s head.

“It’s three miles into town.”

“I can walk three miles.”

“I’m sure you can, but you don’t have to.” He held up the car keys and jingled them before closing his hand around them. “I’ll drive you.”

“Seriously, Flint, don’t put yourself out.” Emma stepped out into the yard, and a cold wind circled her.

“Emma.” It was a low blow. He didn’t recognize himself. His wolf was pissed. He wanted her.

“Don’t.” She held her hand up. “Goddess, help me.”

He flinched.

She scowled. “If you say it’s not you, it’s me . . .” She forcefully stuffed her arm into her coat. “I’ll . . . I’ll . . . I have no idea what I’ll do, but it will be amazing.”

“I’m sure it would be.” He smiled at her.

“Don’t you go being all supportive when I’m angry at you.” She poked him in the chest.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Flint’s lips thinned. But he would dream of it, of her, and what he’d missed out on. “Let me drive you home.”

“No.” She marched out onto the road.

He watched her go. Penny watched her go too. First, they stood in the yard before they moved inside at the side door, and then the dog made her way around the house to the various windows until turning and staring at Flint, giving him the stink eye.

“I know.” Flint picked up the papers he’d swept onto the floor. Emma’s shirt and bra were under them. He set the papers on the table and picked up her clothes. He held them to his face, breathing her in. He was a damn fool. He tossed her clothes on the table and pulled on his work boots, found his canvas work jacket, then opened the side door. “Let’s go, Penny.”

The dog bounced alongside him until he opened the truck door. He calculated Emma should be maybe a half a mile down the road by now and possibly a little more welcoming to a ride.

The truck bounced in and out of the potholes on the dirt road. Five minutes down the road, he caught up with her.

He rolled down the window. “Hi, there.”

“Go away.” She quickened her pace.

“Emma, get in the truck.” He wanted to alpha her, stop the truck, and lift her into it. But with her spunk, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Mostly because keeping her kept sliding around in his head.

She marched and didn’t turn to look at him.

“You’re going to ruin your boots.” It was the best thing he could think of.