The Maverick Pride Tales - Chapter 191: Chapter 191

A sudden longing filled him, and his chest rumbled with his Wolf. He’d never wanted that before, but sitting with her Cole couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was like that old song, the one about everything the girl did being magic. Megan was magic. And Cole was completely bewitched.
“Is there something in my teeth?” she asked, checking with her tongue, and he shook his head.
“Of course not. No. Why would you think that?”
“Oh, um, nothing,” she replied.
She wiped her mouth and put her fork down. Her cheeks were going pink again, and while he thought her blushes cute, Cole liked her smile even more.
“Megan,” he growled.
“It’s just you were staring,” she said.
Well, fuck. Yes, he was staring. But not for the reasons she was thinking. Another one of those warm, sizzling shocks of awareness spread through him. His Wolf growled, watching her, breathing her in. Damn. She was pretty. So, so pretty. Did she even know it?
“So, let me try that thing you do where you go over what’s happening out loud.”
“I do that?”
“You do that. It’s fucking adorable. Anyway, my turn. So, you caught me staring at you and you blush? You are a very interesting woman, Megan Sudak.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, for one thing, you don’t seem to know how damn interesting you are. For another, I find it crazy you called me a ten and you a seven⁠—”
“Six point four,” she corrected.
“I rounded up,” he said without pausing, “but you see, that’s crazy. I mean, I am the one who can’t stop staring at you, lily. I have tried, and believe me, I can’t look away.”
“You’re just being nice⁠—”
“Woman, are you serious? I’ve never been accused of being nice. I’ve been called eerily quiet, sometimes cold, and downright scary, but not nice. Also, I am not the only man here having a problem keeping my eyes off you.”
“That’s not true. Oh my⁠—”
Megan looked around, her expression shocked as she saw what Cole had been trying to ignore for the better part of the last half hour. At least half a dozen men occupying seats at nearby tables were giving her the side eye, some openly gaping at her. Cole bared his teeth for the one group he knew were fucking Shifters. They turned around, fast.
“You’re even giving the staff fits. The waiter, Carlos, almost tripped over his feet when he saw you sitting here with me.”
“Well, maybe it’s because you usually date women who are perfect tens too,” she replied without heat.
“I told you I don’t date often. In fact, you are the first woman I ever sat down to dinner with here on a date.”
“That can’t be true,” she scoffed.
“But it is, and I know you can hear a lie, lily.”
“I told you my name is Megan.”
“I know your name is Megan. I know you’re a badass Tiger, too. That’s the part I can’t figure out, though.”
“What part?” she asked, and her bewilderment was downright adorable.
“The part where you don’t seem to know you’re a motherfucking badass, Megan Sudak. Fierce she-Cat. Brave woman. Pretty as a flower. I call you lily because that’s what you are. A rare and beautiful tiger lily. You’re the ten. Not me,” he said, touching her chin with his forefinger when she would have looked down.
She didn’t fight him on it. Just held his stare with those unbelievably gorgeous eyes of hers.
“That’s right. Hold my gaze, show me how bold you are.”
“Men don’t like women who show strength,” she whispered, as if repeating something she’d been told.
Cole narrowed his eyes. He could hear her heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil from where he sat, and his own matched that tempo. Something was happening here. Some magic he’d never expected or guessed even existed. No, he wasn’t looking for a mate. Never expected to find one in a big, beautiful she-Tiger. Maybe that’s why this woman was so damn captivating. Cole never saw her coming. Not for a million miles.
“I don’t know who told you that line of bullshit, but they were wrong. I’m a man and I like your strength. Whatever the fuck is wrong with the males in your Pride, that is their problem. You are stunning,” he said, and there was not one hint of a lie in his tone.
“Boys don’t call me that,” she said and scoffed, shaking her head.
“There you go again, mixing me up with other people. I’m not a boy, lily. I’m a man with an eight-hundred-pound Dire Wolf inside of me, and let me tell you something, we don’t always see eye to eye. My Wolf can be a prick most of the time,” he said.
“My she-Cat can be finicky too,” she replied, scrunching her nose up as she munched on a hand-cut sweet potato fry.
Cole wondered where the sudden need to expose every fucking thought in his head was coming from. He was never like that. Mouthy. Especially not with women. But for whatever reason, he was unable to stop the tide of words tumbling past his lips.
“Well, I have another confession to make, lily. Tonight is the first time in a long while that my Wolf and I agree on something.”
“Really? What’s that?”
He paused a minute, staring into her bright amber eyes. She blinked slowly, swallowing her fry, and wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Oh, she was trouble. She was changing everything just by being there. Bold. Bright. Honest. Brave. And Sexy as fuck.
“We both think you’re worth paying attention to, and we want to spend some time with you.”
“As friends,” she added.
Something nagged him about that word. Still, he nodded. Cole didn’t want to spook her. She had him mesmerized. And he never felt like that before. He never wanted to know more. But there were a million questions floating in his mind and all of them centered on her.
“Yeah, I want to be your friend.”
For now. Cole didn’t add that part out loud, but he thought it.
“Look, I know you never meant Uncle Uzzi to arrange a date for you. And you didn’t have to do all this with me, dinner, and everything, but I am glad you did, Cole. I am glad you offered to be my friend,” she said with the starts of a smile teasing her lips.
“You don’t have to thank me, lily. You are right. I didn’t arrange this. I didn’t have the courage to do something like you’re doing, actively searching for your person. Fuck, I am in awe of you, woman.”
“Ha! That’s real funny.”
“Not trying to be funny. People rarely admit what they want from life, but you, you just go out and say it, and not only that, but you asked for help to find it. I think that’s fucking amazing. I wish I was brave like you.”
“Come on,” she murmured, but he wasn’t giving her time to overthink.
“Listen up, lily, cause I am not repeating this, but I sort of wish I had called Uncle Uzzi. I wish I had the balls to put myself out there, to risk setting all this up. That old boy knows what he’s doing, and he has excellent taste. You’ll be matched before you know it,” he said.
The fact he was probably right about that hit Cole like a sucker punch. He had a hard time getting in enough air with his next breath, but he managed. And he held onto his skin, too, even though the Wolf was shredding him.
“You think so?” she asked, eyes sparkling with hope.
Cole nodded. Yeah, he thought so. It was one of those undoubtable truths. Megan was meant for happiness. Sometimes a person could just tell that about someone else. He didn’t have the sight like Thor, but Cole was more sensitive to things of that nature. Some said it was the Apache blood running deep in his veins, but he figured it was so diluted with German, Dutch, Irish, and whatever the fuck else, that couldn’t be why. All he knew was he felt very strongly that the woman sitting across from him was destined for joy.
“There, now you’re blushing for the right reasons,” he murmured, a grin stretching across his face. “It’s sexy when a woman knows her own power, lily. You keep looking at me with those big eyes of yours, and you’ll see what I mean.”
“So, what exactly are you saying?” Megan asked.
“I’m saying, let’s finish dinner, then I’ll take you home. And tomorrow, we can do this again. This time I’ll pick you up at your place, take you somewhere quiet so we can talk.”
“As friends?” she asked again, and this time, he simply smiled.
There was a loaded moment where neither of them said anything at all. Cole waited, trying for patience, but just as she opened her mouth, Carlos approached. The waiter cleared away the appetizers, handing them off to another server, then he placed two plates loaded with perfectly grilled Chilean sea bass and thinly sliced, lightly seasoned vegetables on the side in front of them. Momentarily distracted by their meal, he watched as Megan closed her eyes and sniffed the air, a small smile on her sweet face.
“Wow! It smells extraordinary.”
“It’s gonna taste even better,” he told her, glad she was happy.
“Okay,” she said, taking her fork and spearing a piece of succulent fish.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I’ll go out with you tomorrow.”
Cole couldn’t control his smile if he tried, and no, he didn’t want to try. He was really going to do this. He was going to take out this interesting female, who some matchmaking Witch had put in his path. His inner beast stirred, the Wolf scratching at him to get closer, mark her with his scent to ward off all those fuckers staring at her.
He shook off the animal, shoving him deep down inside himself. Last thing he wanted was to act like a possessive psycho. He’d only known her for like seven minutes. It was way too soon to feel like she was his.
Is it, though?
Cole knew magic existed. He was proof of that. But fated mates? Love at first sight? He wasn’t so sure about that. And yet, crazier things had happened.