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He parted her thighs and stepped between them, but there was no familiar heat in his eyes, only an irrevocable finality.

“Grace, this last week has been the most incredible of my life.” He kept his hands firm on her hips. “Here, with you, holding you in my arms each night, watching you come apart under my hands. Sitting beside you in the hall as we scoured through those grimoires, seeing you reunited with your mother…”

He hung his head, and Grace swallowed the lump in her throat. She’d never met or heard of a shifter who’d rejected their mate.

“It’s not possible for two people to be more opposite than you and I are.”

Grace’s eyes burned.

“You with your quirky cuss words and your innocence that shines so bright it’s blinding, and me…me with my need to dominate, my kinks and darker desires.”

It was because of what she’d said about kissing and hugging. About not wanting to always use his toys. She hadn’t meant never.

He lifted his chin to meet her gaze and she stared long and hard into his beautiful, mismatched eyes, memorizing them. He wanted someone like him with experience. Someone he could take it all the way. Use all his toys on. Someone he didn’t have to temper himself with.

“The truth is, you’re my mate, Grace, and I…” He huffed out a sigh. “As corny as it sounds, you are the light to my dark. You tame me in a way no other woman could.”

Grace’s ears rang. What was he saying?

“What I’m trying to say is, I have fallen in love with you. With your goodness, your willingness to step beyond your comfort zone.” He smiled, his dimples putting in an appearance. “Your kooky expressions and your accent. And I will spend the rest of my life being the man you need me to be.”

He cupped her cheek, and she leaned into him. Something squeezed in her chest and she opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Dark shadows swirled in his eyes. “I’m yours. If you’ll have me.”

They stayed there in suspended silence for a moment, her hands on his shoulders, his palm warm against her cheek. He was asking her to stay. As his mate.

His dimples flashed, but there was an uncertainty in his eyes. “Don’t leave me hanging here, Grace.”

That such a confident, in-control man could ever doubt himself floored her. And were she a different person, were she not so eager to be in his arms again, she might have dragged things out. Kept him waiting. But she was Grace, the green witch from Pickens County, Alabama, and she never wanted to doubt him, or have him doubt her ever again.

She leaned in and brushed her lips against his, gentle, teasing. Then firmer.

“I take it that’s a yes,” he mumbled against her lips.

“Yes, but…”

He pulled back, his Adam’s apple jerking in his throat. “But?”

“Alain, the man I need you to be is the man you’ve always been. That’s the man I love. The man I’ve come to know. And that includes your kink. If you’ll be patient with me.”

“Always.”

She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“Grace.” He took control, as he always did, as she wanted him to. She opened up to him, and all the promise between them in Paris, when she’d pretended to seduce him, was laid bare with his lips, his tongue, their shared breath.

He pulled back, a little breathless. So was she.

He held up her injured hand. “I need to finish fixing this.”

Alain licked her palm, and she giggled, squirming in his grip.

“Hold still.”

“It tickles.”

“I’ll get my restraints.”