The words were out before Matt could stop them.Christ.He froze.
So did Jesse, staring at him, unbreathing. Fear flickered over his face before it hardened into fury. Then he yanked free. This time, Matt let him.
“Nice line of manipulation you got going there, Urban.” Jesse’s voice was bitter, his eyes sharp with disgust. “Grabbin’ me didn’t work, so you try fairy tales?”
Matt dragged a hand through his hair, somehow resisting the urge to beat his head against the nearest wall for not keeping his damn mouthshut. “I shouldn’t have dropped it on you like that. When I come back, we’ll talk. But for tonight, I need you here, watching out for Tristan.”
“Why the ever-loving fuck do you think I care what you need?” Jesse’s voice was ice.
“Because you’ve got a brain, and you know going out there puts you in danger.Please, Jesse.”
Something in Jesse, the hard, obstinate thing that had been worse than a brick wall as Matt had battered against it, disappeared. Matt didn’t know why, but he’d take it.
“Guess I better get my colorin’ books out if I’m on babysitting duty,” Jesse muttered. His tone was sour, but the snark was back—and with it, a sliver of hope that things weren’t broken beyond repair.
Matt would have to try and fix it tomorrow. If he could.
Tonight was about keeping Jesse and his pack safe.
Chapter Twenty-one
JESSE
Everything he thought he knew was gone. The picture he’d built up of Matt, the quiet time they’d shared last night—he’d created something in his head that had never been what he thought.
Matt was no different from anyone else. It never did matter to anyone what Jesse wanted.
He folded his arms as Matt left, holding himself together because he was shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or shock. He hadn’t expected Matt to lay hands on him. Not in that way.
His skin was too tight—he wasitchingto shift. To run far and free, armed with his teeth and claws. But damn it, Matt was right that leaving the house now would be the most boneheaded thing Jesse had done since letting Matt dismantle his defenses. No, he just had to get through tonight. Tomorrow, in daylight and with those wolves gone, he could get to the nearest truck stop and catcha ride so far away that no wolf could ever track him. He just had to get through until then. And find a way to stop shaking.
“Jesse?” Tristan’s voice behind him, soft and uncertain.
It sliced through Jesse’s spiraling emotions, his urge to shift and run. “What?” He didn’t turn around, and it didn’t escape his unamused notice that he was acting just like Matt.
“I know it’s tough, not being out there when the rest of them are, but Matt knows what he’s doing.”
At that, Jesse did turn around. He stared disbelievingly at Tristan, who was standing there filled with the naive trust that his alpha was always right.
“Did it hurt, losing your balls? Or haven’t you noticed they’re gone?” Jesse heard himself say, bitter and sharp, and way too cruel to say to Tristan. He didn’t evenmeanit, not really. He was just so fucking angry at Matt, at himself, at the whole damn situation.
Tristan’s warm eyes were wounded for a moment, but then he put his shoulders back and squared off. Notquitesuch a tame wolf as Jesse had thought him.
“He’s our alpha,” Tristan said. “Healwayslooks out for his pack. Everything he does is to protect us.” His brow furrowed, and Jesse could see that quick mind of his at work. “Did you think he just bosses us around? That we lick his boots just because he’s alpha? Icanthink for myself, you know.”
Jesse didn’t want to fall out with Tristan, who’d been nothing but welcoming, but he wasn’t putting up with this shit. “You’re sayin’ he takes it well when you disagree with him? I seen that temper of his. What Iain’tseen is any one of you standing up to him.”
“Because there’s been nothing to disagree with him about!” Tristan flung his hands in the air in exasperation. Jesse flinched again. Seemed like he still wasn’t over Urban grabbing him.
“But yeah, if one of us had concerns about a decision he’d made, ofcoursehe’d listen,” Tristan declared.
Jesse wasn’t convinced. Earlier, he’d witnessed the power that flared so bright and hot in Matt when he was giving his orders, and he understood now why even Christian and Karl obeyed him.
Tristan made a frustrated noise that sounded more like a bull elephant than a wolf. “I don’t get it, Jesse. If you think that little of Matt, why on earth are you sleeping with him? Why are you still here?”
He turned around and left, stalking along the hallway in a manner that was so un-Tristan that Jesse felt bad for making him feel that way.
“You haven’t heard of casual sex?” he muttered. “S’not like we were dating.”
