“We need to talk,” I whisper.
Shit, that was absolutely too formal.
“Yeah, we probably do,” he says in the same low voice that’s both distant and full of fire. It wraps around me, ratcheting my need higher. My dick hardens, pressing uncomfortably against my shorts. And then he’s pushing off the threshold and stalking into the room, dropping seamlessly onto the coffee table in front of me.
You’re just talking, Cole.
Even still, nerves fill my stomach, so overwhelming I forget how to breathe.
“Dinner was nice,” he offers after a full minute of charged silence. “You seemed really comfortable being on a boat.”
“I love sailing,” I admit. Not that Bill’s yacht really counts as a sailing vessel, but it doesn’t seem like the type of comment that requires nuance at the moment. “I spent my gap year working on a sailboat in the Pacific Ocean.”
Until my first flare put me in an Australian hospital and then an emergency flight back home.
“Gap year?” He tilts his head as his eyebrows furrow. He leans on his elbows, letting his hands hang limply between his knees, leaving his forearms on full display. I swallow the sound crawling up my throat. “But you’re not studying now?”
He adjusts, and his knee brushes mine. Good god, I can’t breathe right now. Just like standing in line at the gala, I can’t do much more than freeze and hope the unearthly need for thisman to press me into a wall dampens. Marcus grunts like he’s been punched.
“Cole?” Even his voice feels far away, but not in that terrifying way right before I have a flare.
I clear my throat and run my hand through my hair.
“No, I’m not studying at the moment. I thought it would be easier to handle the matching process if I wasn’t trying to balance coursework.”
It’s true enough and doesn’t betray just how bad the sickness has been getting since the beginning of the year. Within the bond sickness community, especially those just graduating high school, there’s often a lot of unspoken pressure on whether someone is in school. If they are? There’s a belief that they aren’t so sick they’ve lost hope of getting better.
His shoulders relax. “That makes sense.”
He sits up, pulling away from me, and I practically sob at the loss. Internally, at least. I’m as still as a statue on the outside. I force a swallow and then the words fall out in one quick rush I immediately wish I could take back.
“I totally get if you don’t want this. The attention is a lot, and I don’t know if it’ll ever settle down.” God, I think I’m going to throw up. I don’t want him to say he doesn’t want me. I don’t want him to say hedoeswant me. What if the OBS continues to get worse? I run my hands through my hair again, feeling my fingers tremble against my scalp. “Don’t feel like you have to say yes just because of the bonding.”
My stomach clenches as I wait for him to take the out, to finally admit he’s only trying to do the “proper” thing since our fuck up three years ago.
His eyes widen as shock floods the bond for a heartbeat. And then he’s leaning forward, palming my knees, and I practically groan from the sudden touch. His focus narrows on me, on where my Adam’s apple bobs as I swallow down a second sound.
“You think I’m only doing this because of the bond?” he asks.
Nutmeg surrounds us, so incredibly potent. I want to burrow into it. Instead, I continue on without answering his question.
“I’d understand if you don’t want me.”
“Don’t want you?” he drops from the coffee table with a fluid grace, wedging between my knees as his hands tighten painfully.
Need races through my veins, electrifying me. He sucks in a startled breath, and I know he can feel it, that it’s so powerful it’s overridden the suppressor.
“Well, yeah.” I shift under his touch, my dick so damn hard. “You’ve been distant when Megan and Charlotte haven’t. I figured it was?—”
“Fuck, Cole, stop,” he cuts me off with barked command. His nostrils flare as he breathes deeply, like he’s trying to keep himself under control. “Let’s start with the truth: I can’t even feel the bond most of the damn time, not with the suppressor I know you’ve been taking.”
I grimace, and he growls. Growls should make me worried, should fill me with dread. They’re signs of anger, of an Alpha right on the edge. My wires must be crossed, though, because instead of cowering under the sound, this one has me wanting to melt into him.
“Which means everything I’m doing is outside of that existing. How can it influence me when most of the time I forget it’s there?” He cups my cheeks, pressing a thumb into my lips. I can’t help but let them drop open. His eyes darken, and the nutmeg intensifies until it’s all I can focus on. Another consuming wave of need rushes through me, and he grunts, clearly feeling that one, too.
“And, Cole, I need you so bad I’ve spent the last day in physical agony.”
“You have?” My voice is nothing but breath.
