“It’ll come eventually,” Aria assured me. “But before you completely change the subject, what’s wrong?”
She flipped so that she was laying on top of me, her knees on either side of me as she straddled me and forced me to look up at her. I’d known, of course, that Aria wouldn’t have given up so easily on knowing why my mood had shifted so suddenly. It wasn’t in her nature.
With a sigh I finally shared what had been on my mind before she’d brought me into the nest, “I’m worried that Theo still sees me as a child.”
“Why do you think that?” Aria looked surprised at my words.
I absentmindedly reached up and tucked a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear, “He hasn’t madeanymoves since I kissed him in the kitchen. Doesn’t that mean he’s not interested?” I was so used to Matteo, Aria and even Cobb being overly affectionate and flirty after I took the next step in our relationships, so it was strange to me that Theo still seemed like he was holding himself back.
Laughter bubbled out of Aria’s mouth and she pressed her forehead into mine.
I folded my arms across my chest and pouted up at her, irritated that she was laughing at me. “It’s not even remotely funny, Aria.” I scolded and was rewarded with laughter filled kisses on my nose, forehead, cheeks, and lips.
“Sorry, sweetheart, I’m not laughing at you. Just at the situation itself. Theo is definitely interested in you. Half of the time the way he looks at you makesmewet.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, “what do you mean?”
“Have I ever told you about when Theo and I first started dating?” She asked and I shook my head. Aria rolled off of me so that we were laying next to each other, staring up at the ceiling. I linked my fingers through hers and waited for her to tell the story.
“Well, he was a trainee at Quantico, and I was a student at the University of Virginia. He was a regular at a bar that I worked part time at, and generally avoided me. He wouldn’t even look at me half of the time when I handed them their drinks.” Aria grinned at me, “One day, I’d finally had enough of his attitude and I cornered him on his way to the bathroom and asked him what his fucking problem was. This tall-ass FBI-agent-to-be blushed as red as an apple and stuttered out that he didn’t mean to. He just liked me and couldn’t figure out how to tell me.”
Surprised laughter rippled out of me and Aria joined me a moment later. Once we’d finally calmed down, Aria continued, “you may see a confident older man in front of you, but he’s shit at dating. It took him a year into us courting Matteo to finally tell him his feelings. Cobb was definitely an outlier and even then, look at what happened there.”
“So...what do I do? Do I just wait for him?” I asked, I really wasn’t sure how long I could stand that. Being around the others had completely spoiled me, and I was quickly turning into an incredibly impatient omega.
“Not necessarily, but have a little bit of patience with him.” Aria’s hands slid up into my t-shirt, “In the meantime, if you need some attention, then I am more than willing to oblige.”
She kissed me and all of my thoughts of Theo floated away with one hot stroke of her tongue.
CHAPTER 37
––––––––
“Keep your boots onthe ground, Emerson. This guy can’t hide forever.” I was standing in the middle of my bedroom at the lodge, listening to Emerson’s report with a frown.
Jamie Jordan/Jeremy King hadn’t shown up to work for over a week. We’d searched his apartment and had found a computer set up that would make Owen Samuels green with envy. Apparently Marion Burnes’ story about her grandson being in law school was, frankly, untrue...which we’d all figured anyways but it was confirmed by the presence of his computers. The kid had more than enough experience with computers and hacking to have hacked into the electronic billboards and changed them easily. He also hadn’t had any trouble getting into the San Francisco Omega Academy’s computer files, hell, I could probably get into those if I tried hard enough.
