Her lips thin, but she doesn’t drop her hand, slowly lowering it until it traces the neckline of my shirt. My thighs clench, and my scent surrounds us, but I try to ignore it.
She says, “As long as I want, yes. I don’t want anybody to know yet.”
“Why?”
She shrugs, her eyes shuttering. “I’m not ready to talk about everything yet. I need more time to figure out what I want to do with it all.”
Ollie’s words bounce around in my mind, and I slowly breathe in, trying to find my courage.
“More time? Isn’t this proof of you having made a choice?” I grab her hand before she can run her palm over my nipples. My pussy protests as her touch disappears, but I can’t be distracted right now. “It’s not like they don’t feel every time my body reacts to you, each time your lips or hands are pulling pleasure from me.”
She sighs. “I don’t know.”
I take her in, trying to figure out what exactly is going on in her head. The Billie I knew last year, that stepped in and helped me when I was drowning in too much work, would never string Paxton along like this. Maybe she isn’t doing it to string him along?
“You’re scared,” I whisper, making it a statement rather than a question.
She pulls back, and I drop her hand. “I just don’t want to talk to him yet. And it’s not like he’s reached out since Christmas, either. What if I’m not the only one not ready?”
“You’re wrong,” I say. “He’s been hoping every single day you’ll call him.”
She only crosses her arms. All of the words just rush out of me, inelegant and disorganized.
“Paxton loves you,” I say. “He’s spent nearly a month in complete misery, trying to give you the space you asked for. We’ve been waiting for you, wanting to talk about what all of this might mean for the future. And then you came back last week, and I was just so grateful you were here again. I didn’t fight back on you wanting to stay out of sight. I switched my clothesand washed my hair, making sure none of your scent was on me when he saw me.”
I suck in a breath. “But I can’t do that for six months while you sort out whatever fear has you so convinced we don’t want you or… or whatever it is that has you frozen in the headlights, too scared to admit you want me outside of this apartment. I know Paxton and I were never supposed to… to end up anything like this. But I can’t change what happened, Billie.”
She takes a step back, grabbing the counter.
I continue on. “All I can do is decide what kind of future to build. And I want to build one with you in it. As my friend, as my partner, as someone part of my… my pack. I want a chance to be in a room with Paxton without both of us drowning in guilt and muddy waters. I want to be able to be in that arena around both of them and not have to panic that someone might see. I’m tired of hiding, of keeping things secret.”
“You kept Rhett a secret,” she says, her eyes growing desperate. “Why can’t we do the same for right now? Until everything settles a bit more. Until all-star break.”
I shake my head. “Nothing is going to settle unless the three of us can talk everything out. And I can’t live another month like this.” I gesture at the apartment, at her. “I can’t spend nights here with you when they both can feel me getting off and then look them in the eye and say nothing is happening. You’re asking me to lie in their faces. You’re asking me to destroy a foundation that’s barely been set, that already is shifting because of my heat happening at the exact wrong time and place.”
I try and calm my racing heart.
“He knew for two months and didn’t tell me,” she whispers.
“I know. And I know that feels like a betrayal. But he did it because he loves you. It didn’t change anything for him, not with you or your relationship.” She swallows, tears lining her eyes. “I never would have expected him to open up your relationship.I still don’t, Billie. If you decide you want him alone and not a pack, we’ll never talk to each other again. Rhett and I will move to… to Norway if that’s what it takes.”
“How can I know it’s me he wants if you’re his scent match? If he kisses me, how do I know it’s not you he wants instead?”
The questions are a blow to the gut. Is… does she think he won’t want her because she’s not scent matched with him? After everything she’s had to have felt from him in the last three weeks, everything I just admitted?
“When I kiss you, do you worry I’m thinking of Rhett?”
Her eyes widen. “Of course not.”
“Why? He’s my scent match.”
Her nostrils flare, indignation sparking in her gaze. “Because we aren’t the same person.”
I nod.
“Neither are you and I, Billie,” I whisper.
The silence falls like a sheet around us, too thick to cut through. A hundred different emotions flash across her face, her eyes growing desperate while fear tightens her entire body until I’m convinced she’s about to run. I lick my lips.
