Chapter 10 Have Sex Tonight

Julius

The car swerves.

Patricia throws a quick side glance at me. "Everything all right?"

"Obstacle in the road," I answer, and correct the wheel.

Caesar's declaration is still reverberating through me like a struck bell.

"What do you mean?" I ask him internally, my hands steady on the wheel. "You've been telling me to go back to Gloria. What changed?"

Caesar is quiet for a moment, which means he's deciding how much to tell me.

"I've been thinking," he finally answers. "About what the witch said. About what happens to a Lycan who goes without a mate bond long enough."

"It gets uncomfortable. I'm aware."

"It doesn't just get uncomfortable." His tone shifts heavier. "I know what heat is, Julius. From instinct. From the Moon Goddess herself, in the dreams you always dismiss. Without a true mark, everything we're doing now is temporary. The contact, the scent... It's a patch on a fracture. Eventually the fracture wins. And when it does, the heat won't just be painful. It will make you feral."

"I'm not going to go feral."

"Not right now. But you will. Eventually."

"You could have mentioned this earlier."

"I was still hoping for Gloria." He doesn't soften it. "After the witch's speech today, I stopped."

"Even if I wanted to mark Patricia," I tell him, "the ceremony is already scheduled."

"Then move it up."

"I can't move it up. All the—"

"Then mark her privately and do the ceremony. As a formality."

"That is not—" I stop. "She hasn't agreed to be marked. I'm not going to mark someone without their consent."

Caesar makes a sound of frustration. "Then at least... You know what's more effective than scent contact and proximity?"

I know where this is going.

"No," I say flatly.

"It's the most direct form of mate bond chemistry outside of marking. It would stabilize the heat better. The witch would confirm this."

"I know what it would do." I pull the Phantom into the estate's front drive and cut the engine. "That's not a decision I can make unilaterally."

"Then ask her." Caesar sounds genuine urgency. "Julius. Ask her."

"I'll think about it."

"You'll think yourself into a feral episode and then there won't be anything left to think with," he snaps. "If you refuse to mark her and refuse to ask, I will make your next heat so miserable that you'll do both just to make it stop."

"That's extortion."

"That's love," Caesar says, with absolutely no shame.

Patricia is already unbuckling her seatbelt. I get out of the car.

Inside, I tell her to rest and go to the kitchen. Thankfully, the refrigerator has what I need.

Caesar, to his credit, stays quiet while I cook.

She comes down before I've finished plating. She sits at the counter without being asked, and something about her willingness to simply occupy the same space without filling it with noise is, I have noticed, one of the things I find unexpectedly easy about her.

I watch her eat, running through openings and discarding each one. There's something I need to discuss with you? Too formal. The witch said something today... Too much preamble. My wolf thinks we should... Absolutely not.

She finishes before I find the right angle.

"I'll clean up," I tell her.

She nods and goes upstairs.

I take longer with the dishes than necessary. Caesar starts making pointed comments around the ten-minute mark. By the time I've dried the last pan, he's escalated to what I can only describe as internal heckling.

"You're washing a dry bowl."

I set it down and go upstairs.

The bedroom light is still on. She's changed, sitting on the edge of the bed.

I sit on my side of the bed and finally find an opening. "Are all your clothes in the closet?"

"Yes."

Okay, that doesn't go well.

"All right." I reach over and turn off the lamp on my side. She turns off hers. We both lie down.

"Julius!" Caesar shouts.

"I know."

"She's right there!"

"I know."

"You are going to lie here in the dark and do nothing and then tomorrow the heat will be worse and—"

I reach across and put my arm around her.

She goes rigid immediately. In one motion she's sitting upright, pulling away, and the look she gives me in the faint light through the curtains is not frightened, exactly, but it is very alert. "What are you doing?"

I don't have an answer that sounds like anything other than what it is.

"Tell the truth," Caesar says. "She'll understand."

He is probably right. She is a researcher. She has dealt with physiological instability. She understands biological mechanisms without the flinching that most people bring to them.

"I've been experiencing heat episodes," I tell her. My voice comes out steadier than I expect. "Intermittent. Since Gloria's reject. The witch's suppressant isn't working as well as it should, and she's told me the most effective stabilizer is..." I pause. "Extended contact with a female wolf. Specifically one whose scent is already calibrated to mine."

"You mean sex."

"You could say that."

Patricia is quiet. She has drawn her knees up slightly. "Is that why you were smelling my clothes that day?"

"Yes," I confirm. "I'm aware this is not what either of us anticipated when we agreed to the arrangement. And I'm not asking you to commit to anything beyond what you're comfortable with. But I wanted you to know why I've been..." I search for the word. "Present. More than the original arrangement required."

Another silence. Longer this time.

"Your heat," she says at last. "I know it's not entirely controllable. And I can adjust my schedule at the lab. I'll block off one day every weekend, keep it consistent. If something comes up and I need to shift it, I'll give you advance notice."

She has just offered me a standing appointment, phrased in the language of calendar management and shift coverage, delivered with the same tone she probably uses to schedule reagent reaction windows. It is possibly the least romantic proposition I have ever received in my life.

I find it completely reasonable. But...

"My travel schedule isn't predictable," I tell her.

"Then we adjust." She says it like it's obvious. Like she's already built the contingency into the framework.

"Agreed," I answer, and I feel something settle in my chest, the specific relief of a complicated problem resolving into a clean line.

"Not so fast," Caesar says.

I know what he means. He means tonight. He means that the schedule addresses next week and the week after, but it doesn't address tonight. Truth is, the heat hasn't really affected me that much today, and she clearly has a long day; it's not like we absolutely have to do it...

She hasn't moved to lie back down. She's watching me with that researcher's attention, reading something in my silence.

I open my mouth. I intend to say: Tonight doesn't require anything. We can start next weekend.

What I actually say is: "Tonight—"

She interrupts, "Do you want to have sex tonight?"