Light the Fire (Jackson's Hollow #1)

Chapter 33

Jo was staring at him. She wasn't saying anything. Her eyes were huge, deep brown and unreadable. Ryker ran his thumb over her cheek, not sure what to say since he wanted to give her a chance to say something first.

She leaned into his touch the slightest bit, but she still didn't say anything. The silence was beginning to stretch, and it wasn't the comfortable kind of quiet that usually rested between them. He wished he had had a chance to talk to Brett or his dad about this before he had brought it up with Jo, but even then, the situations were entirely different.

"Jo...?"

She blinked. "You're sure?"

"About you being--"

"Yes, that. You're sure?" Jo narrowed her eyes at him, searching. "How can you be sure? I'm not a werewolf or anything. What if it only works with other werewolves?"

Ryker was already shaking his head. He wanted to reach out and pull her to his chest, but he also knew he should give her space. His fingers itched with the need to hold her. "It's happened before."

When both her eyebrows shot up her forehead, he quickly held up both his hands. "Not with me," he said firmly, "I'm just saying that there have been other pairs where one is a human. Or something else." In case she was worried about her fire powers also making this bond weaker or something. In his opinion, maybe that made it stronger. In any case, he knew she was the one and the only one for him.

"But how do you even know for sure?" she asked. She pushed her long black hair back behind her ears as she started to pace the floor. "Maybe it's not."

Ryker crossed his arms over his trust. "Trust me. I've never felt this way before. I know it's you."

"Then why didn't you say anything earlier?"

Ryker sighed. "Jo, how would you have felt if I told you a couple weeks ago that I'm bonded to you for life. That you're the only woman I'll want to be with for the rest of my life, and imagining my life without you would be like imagining my life without lungs. Which I need, by the way."

"That's...a lot." Jo pressed her lips together as she turned toward him. "And it's just biological?"

"No!" Ryker looked away, grabbing his flare of frustration and trying to bury it. He wanted to help her understand but he felt like he wasn't doing a great job. He could kill Duncan for dropping this on her. "It's not just because of genetics or something. The bond between mates is different. It's bigger than that, and I didn't tell you because I didn't want to freak you out."

"I'm not freaked out!"

Ryker started to say something about that then stopped himself. Gently, he reached out and touched her arm, his fingers sliding down her skin until he reached her wrist. With a careful twist of his fingers, he encircled her wrist and stopped her pacing.

"Jo. It's okay. I just...didn't want you to worry about me leading you on. It's not ever been that."

Jo sighed, staring up at him, but this time the silence wasn't strained but...searching, or even accepting maybe? Yeah, or maybe that was just his brain trying to manifest what it wanted. "What has it been?" she asked after a few moments, her voice uncharacteristically soft and hesitant.

Not his Jo.

He hated he'd been part of causing that.

Ryker moved his hand from her wrist to her hand, interlocking their fingers before looking up at her. He'd never been a spill-your-guts, bare-your-soul kind of guy, but if ever there was a time he needed to be, he figured now was it. But in a normal, human way that Jo could be okay with. Damn it, he should have taken that speech class, learned how to be better with his words. He took a deep breath, putting into words the way he'd been feeling over the past week. "Like I discovered the home I didn't even know I needed, and every day I keep finding things out about it that make me love it even more."