FOUR
I come back to myself in pieces.
I feel sheets. Expensive ones, high thread count, cool against my burning skin.
It’s dark where I am, but not completely. Ambient light spills from somewhere to my left, enough for me to make out the shadows and shapes of a high ceiling, heavy curtains, and bedroom furniture.
The air is heavy with alpha pheromones. So thick I’m drowning in them.
And then there’s the need. Raw, desperate, overwhelming primal hunger that demands to be satisfied.
I’m in a bed. Enzo’s bed, probably, because it smells like him. Cedar-smoke and alpha, soaked into the sheets and pillows.
My clothes are gone except for my boxers, and even those feel like razor blades against my hypersensitive skin.
A breeze filters through, and the whisper of air hitting my skin makes my nipples bead up.
I shift, and a wet squelch sounds between my ass cheeks.
And I’m hard. So fucking hard it hurts.
I reach down without thinking, palming myself through my soaked underwear, and the moan that slips out of me is obscene. My hole clenches in response, and I nearly sob at the emptiness.
I need something inside me, something to fill the aching void, need—
The soft click of a door opening echoes through the room.
My hand freezes on my cock as my head snaps toward the sound.
Enzo appears in the doorway, and whatever air I had left punches straight out of my lungs. He’s still dressed, still perfectly composed, standing there like a statue of ice while I burn. His eyes drop to where my hand is still pressed against myself, and something dark flickers across his face.
I pull my hand away slowly, my skin burning hotter under his gaze.
He steps inside and closes the door behind him. Immediately, the room feels ten times smaller. And with every step he takes toward me, I sense a shift in his scent. It’s growing heavier, laced with the unmistakable musk of an alpha’s arousal.
He stops at the edge of the mattress, close enough that his knees brush the sheets. Those dark eyes rake over me, taking in the sweat-soaked sheets and my trembling limbs before landing on the obvious tent in my ruined boxers.
“How do you feel?”
I let out a strangled laugh. “How do I feel? Like shit.”
I try to push up on my elbows, but the strength isn’t there. My arms buckle, and I drop back onto the sheets with a pathetic thud.
“What the hell did you do to me? Where are my clothes?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he says, his voice smooth and maddeningly calm. “And I took your clothes off because you were burning up and clawing at them. You’re welcome.”
“Fuck you.”
I manage to rise onto my elbows, my vision swimming as I glare at him through the haze. “Give them back. I need to leave. I need—”
“Lie down.”
The command rolls down my spine in shivers, and my body obeys before my brain can catch up. My back hits the mattress, arms falling limp at my sides. I stare up at the ceiling, chest heaving as my mind reels from how wet I just got from two words in that voice.
“What the fuck,” I breathe.
He moves closer, and my eyes betray me, landing on the impressive bulge straining against his slacks.
