“I know. I’m sorry.” I look straight at my feet again because if I look at his chest, I’m going to lose it. “But you’re my alpha,” I say, and I hear him suck in a breath. “I can’t go through my heat without you, but I won’t force you into anything either.”
His growl rumbles deep, and he moves so close that the heat of his body brushes me.
“You keep saying that you’re sorry, and that you ‘know’, but you don’t have a fucking clue. After everything I told you about my ex-wife, after all the shit I told you I’ve been through…Ollie.” I jump as he grips my chin, making me look up and meet the storm in his eyes. “I’ve been so fucking terrified of these feelings I have for you—forLuke—and I wanted to push through and be with you because you are important enough for me to try. Do youeven understand what it means to find out you’ve been lying to me like this? And that I still fucking love you.”
His words stab through my heart. “Timber, I told you. I love—” I move to grasp him as his hand falls from my chin, but he knocks me away.
“I don’t want to hear it again. I’m fucking tired, and I can’t think straight when you smell so good.”
“What do you want to do now then?” I ask quickly because I’m exhausted too. Everything feels too heavy, and I just want to get away from this conversation, even though we have to have it.
“I need some time to think,” he says coarsely. He grabs his jacket from the side of the counter, still not looking at me as he zips it up.
“I’ll be gone by the time you get back,” I say, and he just nods before he turns his back on me and leaves.
As the garage door slams, my breath flies out of me, and my whole body slouches. My thighs are spasming, and my pussy aches, so I lean against the counter for support.
I squeeze my eyes closed to stop the pathetic tears that are fighting to get free again.
I don’t deserve to cry when this is my fault.
Even running after him is stupid when he’s asked for space. Maybe if I get to him before his car pulls out of the garage, I can beg and plead with him to let me explain it properly. I was so startled by everything that I couldn’t tell him what really happened to Luke, and how bad it was for us.
“For God’s sake!” I yell out, slamming my fist on the counter and soaking in the pain that shudders through my hand.
With everything I know about Timber, any excuse I have for him won’t work. He wants space, and, no matter how much it guts me to step back and wait for him, I’ll give him all the space he needs to decide how much he hates me.
Kane
We were pretty much in our dark night of the soul as a pack. Or, I hoped we were. I really didn’t want it to get any worse than this.
Ollie’s mad at me and not replying to my texts and calls, Timber is angry at both of us, and I’m splashing around like a fish in a tub of shallow water as I search for ways to fix it.
Which is why I’m jogging in a freezing forest park at dawn in winter instead of working out in my considerably warmer basement. You’d think a guy who spent half his life on ice would like the cold, but it’s different when I’m in trainers, sweats, a jacket, and a hat while running up a hill, and not smoothly gliding in skates and padding on nice, flat ice.
Yesterday, Timber stormed into practice like he was out for blood. The only time he looked at me was when I passed the puck to Thorne instead of him, and he exploded at me. At least we got some nice one-on-one time as he beat the shit out of me for the first time in weeks. And we’d been doing so well…
From the lines etched into his face and the pain that seeped through his words, it was pretty obvious what happened.
My mind has been racing with all the repercussions Ollie swore she’d deal out after my tricks backfired.
So it makes total sense for me to initiate stage one of my super-duper plan to get my mates back together. Especially after promising Ollie I wouldn’t screw with them anymore.
I’m definitely clutching at straws, because I don’t know how I’m going to get them to make up when they’re pissed off at me. I have to fix that first and get them both to trust me, while also not forcing them into anything, so I don’t upset them even more.
I need a fine balance, and I’m absolutely going to fuck it up. But I have to try. I’ll keep acting like I know what I’m doing until the absolute last moment, and then maybe I’ll admit how terrified I am that I really might have lost them.
As soon as I see the back of a jogger in front of me, I step it up a notch and run straight toward her.
Ollie is so right when she said that my priority is making a pack, so now I have to make sure they’re happy, and that starts by making them happy with me. Easy.
“Well, hello there, sweetness,” I say as I run in close, putting a hand on her shoulder. I’m already grinning because Ollie’s sweatsmells so damn good that it sends a bolt of lust straight through me.
She flinches, and out of nowhere, her elbow surges backward and slams right into my stomach.
The sharp point digs between my abs, and I double over, gasping in shock as I stumble on the slope.
She spins around, glaring as she pulls out her earbuds.
