"What would you prefer I say?"
"I'd prefer you admit this was a terrible idea so I can stop being the only person in this room with common sense." He sits up, the sheet bunching at his waist, the motion exposing the bite mark blooming on his collarbone. The sight of it sends a possessive heat through my chest that I have no right to feel and can't make myself regret.
"I'm not going to say it was a terrible idea because I don't think it was." I keep my voice even, pressing myself back against the headboard. Kit is in fight or flight mode right now and any sudden movement will send him out the door with his armor sealed shut. "I'm also not going to apologize for what I said."
His whole body tenses. He knows what I mean. "Don't."
"I'm not taking it back."
"I said don't!" His voice sharpens, his hands fisting in the sheet. "Don't bring that up. That was a physiological response, nothing more. Omegas are wired to respond to vocal commands from Alphas, especially during physical intimacy. It's basic biology. It didn't mean what you think it meant."
He's explaining it to himself more than to me. I could let him, and it would be easier for both of us if I did, if I let him shrink this down into biology and pheromones and auction adrenaline. But I watched his face when I said it and how his body went still.
"You asked me to say it again," I tell him.
His throat works once, the muscle jumping beneath his jaw, and when he speaks again his voice has grown a rough edge. "We're not talking about this."
"Okay. We don't have to talk about it."
"We're not talking about any of it. Not the wall, not the bed, not the..." He gestures vaguely at the space between us, the motion encompassing everything that happened tonight without naming any of it. "None of this happened. I'm going to go home and you're going to go back to being an asshole in the hallway and this night ceases to exist."
"Is that what you want?"
Kit's mouth opens, the quick dismissal already forming, and then it closes. His eyes drop to his lap where his hands are twisted in my sheets. The silence stretches for five seconds, then ten, and with each second that passes without him saying yes, the answer becomes louder.
"It doesn't matter what I want," he says finally, quiet enough that I almost miss it.
"It matters to me."
"Since when?" The words come out like an accusation. "Since when does what I want matter to you, Easton? Because for six months what I wanted was to walk down a hallway without getting shoved into a locker, and that didn't seem to register."
The old version of me would have matched his sharpness with something crueler, turning the guilt outward so I didn't have to sit with it. That version got me nothing but a dorm room with a trembling Omega who fell apart beneath my touch and is now trying to convince both of us that it was just chemistry.
"You're right," I say. "I don't have an excuse for any of it." Something about having him in my bed is rewiring everything my father taught me. I don’t feel weak in this moment. I feel like I’ve finally caught something I’ve wanted forever.
His shoulders drop half an inch, the anger on his face flickering into something unguarded and confused before he catches it and pulls the mask back into place. He picks up the water glass, takes a long sip, and sets it back down. Then he lies back against the pillow, and stares at the ceiling with his arms crossed, maintaining every possible defense while voluntarily staying in my bed.
"You don't get to be sorry and also be the person who did it," he tells the ceiling, the words quieter now, stripped of performance. "That's not how it works. You don't get to shove me into a locker on Monday and hold my face on Tuesday and expect me to know which version of you is real."
"Both of them are real. That's the problem."
He turns his head on the pillow and looks at me, and whatever he sees on my face makes the crease between his brows deepen. "That's a terrible answer."
"I know."
"A person who was actually sorry would have a better one."
"I know that too." I slide down the headboard until I'm lying beside him, keeping a careful distance between us. "I'm not going to give you a speech about why I did it because every reason I have sounds like an excuse and you deserve better than excuses. But I can tell you that the hallway version of me was the lie. This one, right now, is closer to the truth."
Kit snorts and in that moment, I know that all that Alpha bravado has broken everything I ever wanted.
"I'm not staying," he pushes out, but he doesn't move. "I'm resting because you wore me out with your bullshit."
"Understood."
"And I'm keeping this pillow."
"It's yours."
