Iron: Blue Collar Wolves #1 (Mating Season Collection) by Ronin Winters, Mating Season Collection Page A

lips, and when she didn’t listen he stepped toward her and took her hands in his. It forced them to stop, but it had the unfortunate side effect of now putting her warm silky skin within his grasp.
    Somehow this was not better.
    Her mouth set into the mulish line he knew well. “You’re the only one allowed to act like they’re three and throw tantrums?”
    “I don’t throw tantrums.”
    “What was that at the bar?” Challenge laced every line of her body and curled around each word. “It was you lashing out at me because you were scared, and you needed to get your way. You were a jackass of the highest order, and you know it.”
    “Yeah, well…” Not that he could argue that. If nothing else, Steel sure as fuck set him straight there. Time to change tactics. “I’m not up for this now, Bella.”
    “Then when do you want to talk? After you mate Laura ? Or how about after I fuck Sam?”
    That tore the growl from his throat, had him baring his teeth in full aggressive display. “You’re going to talk about fucking another man right after telling me you want to be my mate.”
    “No, I’m talking about fucking another man after you refused to mate me. Who do you think I am? Do you think I’m going to be one of those women who pine for the rest of their lives because the guy they love doesn’t want to stay with them? I don’t know if you caught the memo, but-” and Bella used her hands to gesture up and down her body. “That’s not me. I’m not holding my life up for anything.”
    “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Me holding up your life.”
    Confusion began to creep over her face, flitting into corners to mix with the anger. “Iron, you need to answer a question. Do you love me as much as I love you?”
    Evasion. He let go of her hands, only for her to wrap hers around his wrists. “That’s not the point-.”
    “That’s not an answer. I asked a question.”
    No way he could lie. No way he could deny her to her face. He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again, and the words that poured forth weren’t what he planned, weren’t what he wanted, but they couldn’t be stopped. “My dad. I’ll…uh – My mom was his true mate. He was a high-school dropout opening a bar, and she was entering law school. She was going to be a prosecuting attorney. Before my dad…she was going to be a lot of things.”
    *
    Iron was a broken thing. Small, even though he towered over her, his face lined with the weight of family secrets. Bella curled her fingers around his wrist, pushing as much emotion as she could through that small touch, the only thing she would allow, because she did not want to interrupt what might be her only chance to see inside his head, the thoughts that had kept them separated for so many years.
    “You know what it means when someone is a true mate, right?” he asked, pausing to see her answer. Bella nodded, not wanting to speak. A perfect match. The person meant for you. She had cried when her grandma had explained it to her, making her wish she’d been able to feel it. Maybe she did, in her own way. She’d never wanted anyone but Iron, a surety in her heart, but it wasn’t choirs of angels singing or a ray of sunshine spotlighting the other person. It was bone-deep rightness and a contentment that, no matter what else she accomplished, she only felt with Iron. Then again, maybe that was enough.
    He continued. “True mates, they feel drawn to each other, like the world’s most right when they’re together. But true mates aren’t set. It won’t kill you or cripple you if you walk away, and my mom, she didn’t want pack life. She wanted her career, and she didn’t want kids, and she wanted to be in the thick of things. She liked my dad, but she told him she wasn’t mating him.”
    Iron was rigid, so hard that if anything were to hit him right now, it would break on him. There was no doubt what came next, but though her heart ached to spare him, he needed to finish. They needed