"Then she doesn't find out."
"Shealwaysfinds out." His hand comes up and grips my forearm where it rests across my chest. "She always finds out because that's what she does, Amos. She watches and she waits until she finds the thing you're trying to protect, and then she uses it."
"She hasn't found out yet."
"It's been two weeks."
"It's been two weeks and you've been sleeping in our bed and wearing our clothes and your scent has changed so much that every Alpha in the building can smell the difference." I pour another cup of water through his hair. "If she hasn't confronted you yet, either she doesn't know or she's choosing not to act."
His grip on my forearm loosens and his body settles deeper against my chest, the warm water doing its work on his muscles.
"I don't want to stop," he whispers. "That's what scares me. I used to be able to talk myself out of wanting things. My mothertaught me how to shut it down, how to look at an Alpha and see the angles instead of the person. I can't do that with you two anymore." His thumb traces a circle on my wrist. "I look at Dominic and I don't see angles. I just see him."
I press my mouth against his temple because my voice isn't reliable right now.
"Amos?"
"Mm."
"What happened to me?" His voice is small against the echo of the bathroom tile. "The thing that happened after Dominic... I know you tried to explain it, but I couldn't hold onto the words. Can you tell me again?"
I rinse the last of the shampoo with a few more pours from the cup, making sure the water runs back instead of into his eyes. "Your body decided it was safe enough to let go completely. When an Omega trusts a dominant Alpha deeply enough, sometimes the conscious mind just steps aside. Your brain stopped trying to stay in control and dropped you somewhere deep."
"That's why I couldn't talk."
"Yes. Your motor functions went offline. Speech, voluntary movement, sometimes even your ability to track what's happening around you." I set the cup down. "It's not dangerous when the Alpha involved recognizes what's happening and adjusts."
Mattaniah is quiet for a beat. His fingers grip my forearms beneath the water.
"Dominic didn't recognize it," he says.
"No. He didn't."
"He kept telling me to answer him." His fingers tighten on my forearms beneath the water. "I wanted to. I could hear his voice and I wanted to respond, but the connection between my brain and my mouth was just gone. It felt like someone cut a wire."
"I know." My chin rests on the top of his head. "He didn't understand what was happening. Dominic's instinct when someone doesn't respond to his authority is to push harder, and pushing harder was exactly the wrong thing to do here."
"You stopped him." Mattaniah turns his head enough that I can see his profile against my chest. "You told him to stop and he listened to you."
"He always listens to me." I smooth a wet curl off his temple. "Even when he doesn't want to."
Mattaniah hums at that bit of information and I can’t tell if he’s still terrified of that moment or curious to know more. Realizing how easily Mattaniah falls into that headspace isn’t a surprise but I had no idea it would happen when Dominic was being so rough. I for sure thought Mattaniah would push back, the same way he does with everything else, that push and pull we’ve come to enjoy.
"I'm getting pruny," he murmurs, breaking the silence.
A chuckle rumbles through my chest. "Then let's get you dried off."
I climb out first and help him stand, wrapping him in the largest towel I can find. He lets me dry his hair and his shoulders and his back without flinching. Three days ago he would have snatched the towel from my hands and done it himself while apologizing for being a burden. Tonight, he stands still and lets me take care of him.
I guide him back to the bedroom and change the sheets while he sits wrapped in the towel on the edge of the mattress. The damp ones go in a pile by the door and fresh sheets go on along with an extra blanket from the closet, because his body temperature will keep dropping as the adrenaline wears off. When I finish making the bed, he reaches for the pillow on the left side and then stops, his hand hovering.
"What is it?"
"Can I..." He trails off, then reaches past the pillow to something folded on the nightstand chair. My sweater, the gray one I wore yesterday that I left draped over the back after dinner. He pulls it into his lap and presses it against his face, breathing in. "I wasn't going to steal it," he says into the fabric. "I just wanted..."
"Keep it." His eyes find mine over the top of the shirt, wide and startled. "Keep it, Niah. Put it in the bed."
He tucks fabric under his pillow, smoothing it flat before settling the pillow back over it. I watch him arrange it with the careful precision of someone who doesn't realize what his instincts are telling him to do.
