Hallie laughed at his question.
“What so funny?” he asked.
“Honestly? You’re a fucking hypocrite.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“Seriously? You wouldn’t give me a second to explain the whole Gerri thing, but you expect me to sit here all patiently and shit and let you explain why you didn’t bother telling me about you. See the irony here?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah, I do. I was an ass. Is that what you want to hear, love?”
“Yes.” It was, in fact, exactly what she had wanted to hear, among other things.
“Look, I'm sorry, love, for the way I acted. I shouldn't have been such an ass. Can you ever forgive me?” Rev asked.
Hallie wanted to forgive him. She wanted to close her eyes and forget everything that had happened between them. The fight. How easily he had just dismissed not only her but her feelings. How quickly he had been hellbent on throwing everything away when it came to their relationship. She was still pissed about it.
“I honestly don't know. That’s a pretty big red flag that you threw out there. If I were smart, I’d walk right out that door, get in my Jeep and never look back.”
She watched as his face fell. She knew by seeing his reaction that he knew he had fucked up.
Big time.
But she wanted to know everything about him. The good, the bad, the furry. Did she want to see where things between them could or would go, or did she want to take the easy way out and walk away while she still had a chance?
Her mind told her to run from all of the drama and crazy that came with Rev. Her heart told her to hold on for what promised to be the wildest ride of her life. The time she had been with Rev had been absolutely magical. From chilling and doing nothing to those heated moments in bed. He was everything she had never expected but had hoped to find in a partner.
Did it matter to her that he was a magical creature? One she never knew existed until today. She thought back over her rescue and how happy she had been to see him, not just because he had saved her but because she knew at that very moment that he cared about her just as much as she cared about him. He wouldn’t have risked his life if he hadn’t.
“So why aren’t you going then? Why are you still standing here?” he asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
“I never said I was smart, did I?” The truth was she had fallen for him hard and fast. Hallie didn't know if she could walk away from Rev. Not after everything they had been through. Even finding out that he was a shifter, part of some magical community, it still wasn't enough to scare her away.
* * *
“So after everything.Me being a complete ass and the fact that I turn into a
ginormous tiger, you’re still willing to stick around and see where this goes between us?” Rev asked.
“Pretty dumb, right?” She smiled back at him.
He wanted to jump for joy, shout from the rooftops that even though they were completely different, she still accepted him for who he was. He had no doubt that she, human and all, was his mate. He was done giving a fuck about what his family or the tiger community as a whole would think of her.
When they had made love, he had bitten and marked her as his mate. The mark, while not visible to the human eye, served as a warning to other shifters that she was his. The mating mark was basically his way of telling other shifters to stay the hell away from his woman or risk a horrible, brutal death.
Not only that, she was covered in this scent. Other shifters would smell it from miles away. So yeah, with the mating mark and the fact that she smelled just like him, that was his subtle way of shouting from the rooftops.
“I don't think it's dumb at all. I think you're one of the bravest, most beautiful women I've ever laid my eyes on. I knew that from the second I met you. I've been fighting it ever since. But I'm done fighting all the reasons we shouldn't be together. I'm ready to fight for all the reasons we should be together.”
“And what are those reasons?” Hallie asked.
He couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or if she was genuinely curious. So, he opted to answer her questions as truthfully as possible. “There are many reasons why we should be together. First, you are my mate. I didn't think it was possible because you are a human, but I was wrong.
“Second, no matter what I do, I can't seem to get you out of my head. It doesn't matter if I'm with you or far away from you. You're always there. I'm always wondering if you're okay, if you're happy, or if you're sad.
“Third, you've managed to break through every barrier I built around my heart over the years. It's like you took a damn sledgehammer to them and smashed right through them. It felt like I was having a heart attack every day when we were apart and that I woke up without you. It took me a while to realize that my heart physically hurt because of the way things had ended between us.”
Rev knew that everything he had just spewed from his mouth was absolute mush, but it didn’t matter. Not when it was the truth. He had missed Hallie so damn much that it had hurt to breathe. There wasn’t a single second he didn’t spend in mourning over what could have been between them.
He wasn’t about to make those same mistakes with her again.