My eyes widened. He’d taken my hesitation the wrong way. I felt terrible for inadvertently hurting his feelings.
“That’s not it,” I reassured him. “It was my own personal doubts bothering me. Not you.”
His eyes were narrow slits. “What personal doubts?”
The dark thoughts swirled. If it were anybody else, I would’ve slammed the door to my inner world shut—but Alaric shoved in his foot and didn’t leave.
“If you only want sex from me, I’m happy to provide it,” I began in a civil tone.
He cut me off indignantly. “What are you talking about? Do you think I go around fucking every alpha in my path?”
My stomach dropped. My anxieties accidentally caused Alaric to spiral, too. I had to be deliberate and honest if I wanted to avoid upsetting him further.
“Not at all, Alaric,” I stated. “Please let me explain.”
He glared at me expectantly. A barrier of ice formed in front of his previously fiery, passionate eyes.
“I’ll be frank with you. I never expected to forge even a single connection with an omega during the Games,” I admitted.“I have difficulties making bonds with people. I’m polite to everyone, of course, but—”
Alaric arched a brow. “But secretly, you’re a perverted, misanthropic freak.”
His brutal statement knocked a laugh out of me. “Yes. Exactly.”
Alaric’s face softened. “And you don’t think any omega will like the real you. Is that it?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Alaric hit the nail on the head. He understood me in a way nobody else did.
“Precisely,” I said.
Alaric rolled his eyes, scoffing loudly. “I’dneverlet you collar me and kiss me if I didn’t like you, idiotic dragon. How dense can you be?”
My heart fluttered. Itneverfluttered.
I smiled as the unusual sensation lingered in my chest. “Apparently, quite dense.”
“I’m here to find my fated mate. Not to fool around,” Alaric declared.
There was a hidden question in there:are you my fated mate?
I didn’t know the answer to that. Or rather, I was scared to find out if Alaric’s answer wasno.
A storm of variables raged in my head. What if he found a better alpha—one without outrageous fetishes? I couldn’t be the alpha he’d always dreamed of. I was too bizarre.
But I knew he wasmine.
My dragon instincts smothered my doubts. Unlike my human soul, my dragon soul lived in the moment—and right now, he craved the omega sprawled beneath me.
With my dragon’s awakening, a hint of a growl slipped into my voice. “I don’t fool around, either. I’m here because I want to be. Because I wantyou.”
Alaric’s eyes rounded. His wariness dissolved as he took my words to heart. It wasn’t an admission of love—we were both too absorbed by lust and snared by our own anxieties for that yet—but my dragon instincts roared it to the heavens.
Him, him, him.
Claim him.
Alaric’s frustrated groan only highlighted his taut anticipation. “Ugh, enough already. Keep touching me. You’ve tortured my cock enough for one day.”
My inner dragon bristled eagerly. We both wanted Alaric to feel good.
