I do. That’s the scary thing. I do feel it, but I’m a deer in headlights right then, unable to say anything, unable to do anything other than stare at him with wide eyes and suddenly clammy hands.
“I try to ignore it, I do, but anytime I see you, anytime you’re close—” The hand resting between us on the dock moves an inch or so closer to me, not quite close enough to touch me, but enough movement that I detect the underlying sentiment. “—I get that same feeling all over again. It doesn’t even matter that you hide your scent. My inner beast knows.”
My throat is dry. I want to get up and leave, end this conversation before he can say anything else, but I’m frozen where I am, rooted in place by some magical force.
Rourke says something that definitely would have knocked me off my feet if I wasn’t already sitting down, “I think we’re scent matches.”
Scent matches. The stuff of fairy tales. They say you’re insanely lucky if you meet your scent match in your lifetime. Some people are lucky enough to have two or more, but most people live their whole lives never meeting their supposed scent match. Some people don’t even think such things are real.
What about me? Do I believe in scent matches?
At the very core of the issue lies a problem: scent matches are supposed to instantly recognize each other by, you guessed it, scent. The mere scent of your match is supposed to send you into overdrive, make you lose your mind, maybe even turn you into a different person.
How can I have that when I’m as damaged as I am? How can I have a scent match when I can’t smell him?
But all the other things that supposedly come along with scent matches… there’s something between us, I can’t deny it. The way my heart acts up, how my breath seems to catch more often when he’s close, how I think he’s the most attractive alpha I’ve ever seen. I could rationalize away one or two of those things, but now that the wordsscent matchare in my head, I can’t shake them.
A long, tense minute passes before I echo faintly, “Scent matches?”
Rourke nods once. “I spoke to my friend Pax about it, asked him what it felt like when he found his. Everything he described, it’s the same thing with me when it comes to you.”
My mind is racing, my thoughts bouncing around with no destination. I feel lightheaded, a little dizzy. Rourke can’t be my scent match. It’s ridiculous. It’s preposterous. I mean, what are the odds? What are the odds he’d show up at my last stint at the Omega Garden, that he’d approach me, take all of my insults by the chin, and be my freaking scent match?
It’s a cosmic joke. It has to be.
I don’t know what to say at this point, and the way Rourke keeps looking at me makes me feel strange, like he’s expecting me to leap into his arms or something. Or maybe that’s all in my head and he just wants me to say anything, to give him an ounce of affirmation.
I’m slow in standing, only when I’m certain my legs can carry my weight. Getting up is the last thing I want to do—of course, I want to crawl on his freaking lap and whine out my frustrations, feel his strong, firm hands everywhere on my body—but putting space between us is probably the smartest thing I can currently do while I reckon with everything he told me.
“Don’t follow me,” I say. “I need some space to think.” I leave my shoes and socks on the dock as I walk away, and I hope that makes it clear I don’t plan on going too far.
Rourke turns to watch me go, and thankfully he doesn’t get up and try to follow me.
I make it to the folded blanket and the picnic basket, and I grab the blanket and spread it out among the pebbles that line the shore. Once it’s spread, I sit down on it, and a few moments after that, I collapse backward and stare at the blue skyoverhead. More clouds dot the pretty blue, but they seem to miss the sun’s path each time.
Even now, even though I’m not side-by-side with Rourke, my heart still struggles to slow its pace. He thinks we’re scent matches. Maybe it’s true. Maybe that’s why I feel like I’m losing my mind when he’s near. Maybe the only reason I’ve been able to keep my mind intact is because I can’t smell him, and maybe the only reason he hasn’t gone bananas yet is because of the cream I lather onto my body after every shower.
I wear that cream to lower the temptation, the possible attraction. I knew coming here with Asher would be a risk, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible. Not in a million years did I ever believe Rourke would show up and that he’d claim we’re scent matches.
Scent matches. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to. Even if, by some miracle, this plan of mine works, if Rourke is truly my scent match, I don’t think he’ll ever want to be kicked out of my life.
This makes everything so much more complicated.
Chapter Eighteen – Asher
When I finally make it back to the lake, I find Rourke sitting on the edge of the dock, alone, while Jess is laying on the blanket near the basket. I didn’t have the easiest time lugging all these fishing rods and the bait tins back here by myself, but I made do; however the moment I spot Jess by herself, I know something’s wrong.
Something happened while I was away.
I make a beeline toward her, and I carefully set the rods and the tins down before I move to sit next to her. She doesn’t stir. Her eyes are open, and she stares at the sky like it holds the answers to the universe.
She looks… out of it, like she just received some not so good news.
I glance at Rourke. Though he’s a good fifty or sixty feet away, his back is to us, and still I can see how tense he is. Something had to have happened between them while I was away, but what?
“Is everything okay?” I ask her, breaking the silence and forcing her to lose her staring contest with the sky.
Just by the way she looks at me, I can tell something heavy is weighing on her, something she’d rather not discuss, but she has to know I won’t drop it. I can’t. I need to know she’s okay.
