Page 110 of Shifted Desire

Shit, here come the tears again.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m always the problem. Always causing d-drama. I didn’t mean to ruin M-Max’s w-wedding.” It’s getting harder and harder to speak as my shame and worry about my parents not accepting us crescendo, until Nathan wraps his arms around me and I’m sobbing into his chest again.

Nathan soothes a hand over my hair. “It’s okay. Shh, It’ll be okay. You didn’t ruin anything,” he murmurs.

“You… this is more than a drunken moment?” I can’t see his expression, but the shock in Dad’s voice is clear.

“Mmm, I’m pretty sure our Sam is that woman he told us about.” The edge is gone from Mom’s voice, and that’s what gives me enough hope to look back up at my parents with a very undignified sniff.

“You told them about me?”

Nathan nods, a hint of a smile curving his lips. “Yeah. I couldn’t hide that I was seeing someone. That I was in love.”

Dad’s gasp is almost comical, his hand raising to his chest like he’s got the vapors. If we get through this and to the other side, where he accepts our relationship, I’m going to tease the shit out of him about it.

“Do you love him?” Mom asks, but there’s no real question in her tone. She’s finally using her empath powers on me after years of trying to respect my boundaries, and honestly, it’s a relief.

I send all of my adoration for this wonderful, caring man out to her. “Yes. How could I not?”

Tears well in Nathan’s eyes as he squeezes me closer, and I decide I don’t care if it scandalizes my parents more as I raise up and give him a soft kiss of love and reassurance.

The gasp my dad makes this time is less horrified. Still shocked, but an improvement.

“How long has this been going on?” Dad’s brow furrows and a flash of his anger reappears in his eyes. “I swear to the gods, I will hex your cock off if you looked at her any time before she was thirty-five!”

I can’t stop the snort that comes out of me at the age he chose, even though I get his concern.

Mom shakes her head. “He didn’t. Didn’t you notice her throwing herself at him at all those Samhain’s back in her twenties?”

Dad opens and closes his mouth like a dying fish. “N-no! Samantha. He was twice your age!”

“It didn’t work,” Mom says with a reassuring squeeze of his hand. “Nathan was thankfully as oblivious as you were.”

My handsome werewolf nods emphatically. “I had no clue. And I swear on everything I hold dear I never so much as had a stray thought about her until…” He trails off, flushing.

I decide to go for broke and find out if my parents are really as sex-positive as they’ve always proclaimed. “We had an anonymous, masked encounter at a club. Neither of us knew it was the other person, but Nathan… put the pieces together when we started working together.” I alter the truth a bit, not needing them to know how I argued my way into a sex contract and overpaid assistant salary.

“Oh.” Dad’s face flushes an even darker red, but he nods.

Mom raises a brow at Nathan. “You tried to resist her, but it didn’t work, did it? That’s why you’ve seemed off around us.”

Nathan pulls me closer, looking down at me instead of at my parents. “No, I couldn’t. Not because she’s a succubus. Not even because she’s my mate.” My eyes go wide at this new bit of information and Nathan smiles sheepishly before he continues. “But because I finally feel at peace when I’m with her. She makes me happier than I ever thought possible. She’s funny and brilliant and wonderful and I was powerless to fight that in the end.”

He finally directs his attention to my parents. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry for how damn awkward it is for me to be with your daughter. But I can’t apologize for loving her, because loving Samantha is like breathing. Vital and effortless and sustaining.”

“We know,” Dad says, sniffling.

My chest swells with the palpable love swirling between us, all directed toward me.

“Please say you’ll be okay with this,” I murmur. “I know it’ll take time to get used to, but we both love you so much and I can’t bear the thought of ruining your friendship with Nathan.”

Dad swallows hard. “All I’ve wanted is for the people I love to be happy.” A tear spills down his cheek and Mom wipes it away, whispering something to him that makes him smile and kiss her cheek. “We’ll figure it out. I-I won’t be the reason either of you don’t get the happiness you deserve.”

I rush over to him, wrapping my Dad in a hug as he sniffs, squeezing me back. “He makes you happy?” he whispers again, like maybe I couldn’t answer truthfully before.

“More than I’ve ever thought possible.”

He releases the hug and searches my face, smiling as he sees the truth of my words.