“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s part of the job.” She shrugs and tries to duck her head, but I put a finger under her chin, making her look at me.
“So? It’s still hard. It being typical doesn’t make it easy to carry.” Her eyes drop to my lips as her pulse speeds. Swallowing my nerves, I step into her, crowding her against the counter. “How can I help?”
She shakes her head, trying to brush it off. The tension in her shoulders hasn’t lessened, and the edge to her scent is still there, too. Faint enough most probably wouldn’t notice. MaybeI wouldn’t, either, if I hadn’t been smuggling her clothes to my room for the last several days.
“Really, I’m fine.”
“Megan,” I whisper. Her scent pulses out from her, and this time it’s clean and heady. I can’t help but groan. “I know you’re an Alpha, that you like supporting and helping and being the one in charge. But I want to help you. Will you let me?”
Her throat ripples as she swallows.
“How?”
Flashes of Marcus holding me down, demanding pleasure from my body, rip through my mind. Apple floods the space around us, and Megan sucks in a gasp.
Megan, who always has a list, who has plans for her contingency plans, who uses taking care of others as a way to feel in control.
An idea forms in my head. Before I can talk myself out of it, I take a step away from her and then carefully turn us, moving slow enough to not make me sick. When I’m wedged against the counter, I take her hand and guide it around my wrist, encouraging her to hold it tight.
“Use me to make yourself feel better.” My voice doesn’t waver.
She frowns, her gaze flicking down to where she holds me. Without a word, I move my hand until it’s pressed flat against the counter, like she’s holding me there. She bites her lip, and a flush spreads down her neck and onto her chest. Raspberry surrounds us, even stronger, and I smirk.
“I haven’t done that in… a long time,” she says. Relief crashes through me. I hadn’t guessed wrong. “Most don’t like it.”
Now it’s my turn to shrug. “Maybe I won’t. But I’m happy to try it.”
She leans forward and kisses me, long and hard. My dick reacts like it’s been hit with lightning, hard and aching in a moment.
“All right,” she murmurs as she pulls away.
Then she’s guiding me up the stairs and into her room.
Thirty
MEGAN
Cole is silent as a wraith as I lead him up the single flight of stairs to my room in the townhouse. He pauses just inside the door, but I don’t turn toward him to see what he’s thinking. Not yet. If I look at him, I’m going to climb him like a tree. And that would put his offer to waste.
“Pink?” His quiet voice is surprised.
I suppose it does feel pink. The walls are a warm off-white, and my dresser and vanity table are a deep walnut stain, nearly black. My bed is black and gold metal with a white quilt that has decorative pink stitching. It’s overly feminine, so drastically different from everything else in my life, and I’m not really sure why I like it as much as I do.
When I don’t immediately say anything, his arm wraps around my waist. He presses his lips to the back of my neck. I jolt at the reminder we’re nearly the same height.
My pulse races in my chest as heat spreads through my body and settles low in my stomach. Raspberry surrounds me, tiny waves that give away just how much I want him right now.Sucking in a breath, I pull out of his light hold and cross the room to my dresser, opening the top drawer. Soft footfalls and the click of my door closing tell me he’s actually come inside my room. I grab one of the small bundles and press it against my stomach before finally looking at him.
He stands at the foot of my bed, one hand tucked in a pocket of the warm-ups he wears. His gaze flicks down to what I hold. A moment later, his scent rushes out from him. It slams into me, and the nerves I’d felt of showing him this, the worry he wouldn’t really want to try it, fades under the crashing wave of the siren’s call of the apple scent.
I moan, and his cheeks flush.
“If you want to stop, if you don’t like it at any point, just say ‘red,’” I say. Even my voice is lower, full of my arousal. “If you’re unsure of what I’m doing and need a minute, need me to slow down, then say ‘orange.’”
His eyes flash to mine. His throat moves with a swallow. “All right.”
I take the four steps that separate us, wrapping my open hand around the nape of his neck. I press my body into his as I kiss him. His arm wraps around my waist. Apple surrounds us, drowns us, and my nipples tighten in anticipation. God, I want him inside me. Want to hear what sounds he makes when he’s locked.
