He wants to come closer. He wants to leave. He wants to hit me. He wants something else entirely and the wanting is written across every line of his body, in the tension of his shoulders and the white of his knuckles and the way his breathing has gone shallow. And my Alpha instincts are purring so fucking loud, it’s a miracle I don’t just tug him into my chest.
"You don't get to look at me like that," he states, his voice cracking on the last word. "Not after everything you did. You don't get to stand there with your stupid glasses and your stupid surgeon hands and look at me like I'm something you want when you spent six months treating me like I was something you scraped off your shoe."
"I know."
"So stop."
"I can't."
He takes another step.Three feet between us now. His scent has gone so thick and sweet that my vision is starting to blur at the edges, my Alpha snarling against the restraint I'm barely maintaining. Every muscle in my body is locked tight, my shoulders rigid against the doorframe, my fingers curled into fists inside my pockets.
My mother would tell me to reach for him. My father would tell me to hold still. For the first time in my life the two voices are pulling in opposite directions and I am standing in the middle of a dorm room trying not to shake apart while the only person I've wanted in six months closes the distance one agonizing step at a time.
"Why won't you just be the asshole?" he whispers, the anger drained out of his voice entirely. What's left is raw and vulnerable and confused. "I know how to deal with the asshole. I had a whole system for the asshole. This version of you is..."
"Is what?"
"Worse." He closes the last of the distance in one step and his hand comes up, fingers curling into the front of my shirt, the fabric bunching in his fist. His face tilts up toward mine, close enough that I can feel his breath against my chin, and his eyes are bright and glassy and searching mine for something I hope to god he finds.
"Kit." His name tumbles out in a whisper and I’m unable to say anything else, because I don't trust myself with more than one word right now.
He pulls me down.
His mouth finds mine off-center, teeth catching my bottom lip as his fist tightens in my shirt and drags me closer. The sound that comes out of me is low and raw and beyond my control, something from the base of my throat that I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to. My hands are out of my pockets and on him before my brain can catch up, one finding the back of his neck and the other bracing against the doorframe beside his head as I angle my mouth over his and kiss him back with everything I've swallowed for six months.
My mother was right. My father was wrong. Reaching for what you want isn't weakness. Letting someone see you need them isn't losing. The bravest thing I've ever done isn't any play on any court. It's kissing Kit back and letting him feel how much I mean it.
Kit gasps against my lips as his other hand comes up to grab my jaw, holding my face to his, and the sound he makes when I pull him closer, when my arm wraps around his waist and lifts him slightly onto his toes because the height difference demands it, is small and broken and everything I’ve ever needed.
He tastes like coffee and chocolate cake and fury, and beneath all of it something sweet and desperate that I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to earn.
KIT
ThekissbreakswhenI run out of air. I pull back just far enough to breathe as Easton's hand tightens on the back of my neck, his fingers threading into my hair, holding me close enough that his exhale ghosts across my lips. My fist is still clenched in his shirt.
"This doesn't mean anything," I tell him. My voice sounds like it's been scraped raw.
"Okay." His thumb traces the line of my jaw.
"I'm serious. This is still punishment."
"Sure it is."
"Stop agreeing with me. It's infuriating."
"Would you rather I pin you against the wall and shut you up?"
The words land somewhere below my stomach and detonate. My scent spikes so hard that Easton's nostrils flare, his pupils blowing wide, and the hand on the back of my neck tightens enough that I feel every individual finger. My Omega rolls overso fast it makes me dizzy, baring its throat with a desperation that would humiliate me if I had the capacity to feel anything beyond the heat flooding my body right now.
"You couldn't if you tried," I say, my voice shaking on the last word.
He doesn't answer with words. He moves, one fluid shift that walks me backward until my shoulders hit the wall beside his door. His hand stays on my neck, his other arm bracing above my head. All I can see is his chest, his throat, and his jaw. All I can smell is bourbon and cedar so thick it makes my thoughts go slow and syrupy.
Heat floods between my thighs, slick gathering in my briefs as my cock starts to fill in my pants. This is the thing I never tell anyone. The thing I barely admit to myself at three in the morning when my guard is down. I love this.
Being an Omega, the slick and the surrender and the way my whole system lights up when an Alpha puts me where he wants me. I love it and I'm ashamed of loving it and the shame makes the heat burn hotter and the combination of those two things, the want and the self-loathing, has been the quiet war inside me since the day I presented.
Easton doesn't know any of that. He just knows I'm trembling against his wall and my scent is telling him everything my mouth refuses to. I only hate this because it’shim.
