Carter looks at me across the table. The candlelight catches the planes of his face, the sharp line of his jaw. "Me neither, but then I don’t know what I expected.”
“Yeah,” I say. My skin is getting warmer. I can feel the flush creeping up my chest, my neck. The heat is building faster now, responding to Carter's proximity, to his scent filling the small cabin. Every breath I take is saturated with him.
I'm hyperaware of his hands as he eats and the way his fingers wrap around his fork. The way his mouth moves when he chews. His every makes my pulse quicken and my body clench with want. I want to throw the plates to the floor and bend over the table. I want…
"I should—" I stand abruptly, my chair scraping against the floor. "I'm going to get some air."
I don't wait for Carter to respond. I cross to the front door and step out onto the porch, letting the cold hit me like a wall.
It helps. Briefly. The winter air is sharp in my lungs, biting at my overheated skin. I grip the porch railing and breathe, trying to will my body back under control.
The stars are out. Thousands of them, more than I've ever seen from the city, scattered across the sky in careless abundance. It's beautiful. I should appreciate it. I should be thinking about anything other than the man inside.
It doesn't work.
The heat isn't building anymore. It'shere. I can feel it rolling through me in waves, each one stronger than the last. My skin feels too tight. My clothes feel like sandpaper. Every nerve ending is lit up and screaming for the alpha waiting inside.
I close my eyes and grip the railing harder.
This is just biology. It’s hormones and pheromones and millions of years of evolution demanding that I find an alpha and mate. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have to mean anything.
But my body doesn't care about that. My body cares about the man inside, about his scent and his hands and the way he felt inside me less than two hours ago. My body is flooding with need so intense it's almost painful, a hollow ache that starts low in my belly and spreads outward until I can feel it in my fingertips, my toes, the roots of my hair.
I drop my head forward, breathing hard.
The cold isn't helping anymore. If anything, it's making it worse—the contrast between the freezing air and my burning skin is too much. I'm shivering and sweating at the same time, my body confused and desperate and completely beyond my control.
The last part of my rational brain thinks about calling Akari. Telling her I made a mistake, that I shouldn't have come here, that I need—
But I don't need her. I don't need anyone except the alpha inside, the one whose scent I can still smell even out here, carried on the cold air with me.
Besides it’s too late. Deep inside I know that. I couldn’t refuse him now. I couldn’t refuse him every time he texted me in the last months. I couldn’t refuse him in that first hotel room. I was lost the moment Carter Crane III walked out onto the set of Point of Contention.
I drop my head forward, breathing hard.
I turn and go back inside.
Carter is still at the table, but he's stopped eating. He's watching the door, and when I come through it, something in his expression shifts. He knows.
I must look wrecked already. I know I’m flushed and glassy-eyed, my chest heaving, my hands trembling at my sides. Sweat beads at my temples even though I was just standing in the freezing cold.
"Jamie," Carter says. His voice is lower than before. Rougher.
"I need—" I can't finish the sentence. I don't have words for what I need. I just have this desperate, all-consuming want.
Carter stands. He crosses to me slowly, like he's approaching something wild. Maybe he is. I feel wild right now and completely untethered, like I might fly apart if he doesn't touch me soon.
He stops inches away. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body, smell his scent so strongly it makes me dizzy. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide.
"Tell me what you need," he says.
"You." The word comes out broken. "I need you."
Carter's hands come up to cup my face. The touch is gentle and I lean into it helplessly, turning my head to press my lips against his palm.
"Okay," he murmurs. "I've got you."
He kisses me, and it's nothing like before.
