The statement exits my mouth with a viciousness that would alarm anyone who does not understand that my threats of violence are proportional to my attraction and I am currently experiencing both at levels that should require medical supervision.
His lips curl.
Not a smirk. Not quite. A slow, deliberate curl at the corners that transforms his angular face from impassive to provocative in a single microexpression.
"I'm totally into the dom kink if an Omega does it." His voice drops half a register, the words arriving with a casualness so calculated it borders on performance art. "So I wouldn't mind."
I stare at him.
My brain produces static.
Pure, uninterrupted, white-noise static, like a television that has lost its signal and is broadcasting the void between channels directly into my prefrontal cortex.
Did he just invite me to choke him?
Did this quiet, measured, chess-playing, kickboxing, broken-glasses-wearing nerd of an Alpha just look me dead in the eye and tell me he would enjoy it if I put my hands around his throat?
I want to rip my hair out.
I want to rip HIS hair out.
I lunge upward and do exactly that.
Not rip. Ruffle. My fingers sink into the ginger chaos on top of his head and tousle it with the aggressive enthusiasm of someone vandalizing a piece of art they find simultaneously beautiful and infuriating. His carefully disheveled strands go fully chaotic under my assault, standing in copper spikes andflattened patches that transform his appearance from dangerous model to electrocuted scarecrow.
"You SUCK!"
"Bold words from the girl who just kissed me like she was trying to climb inside my mouth."
"I did NOT?—"
"You wrapped your legs around me."
"That was?—"
"And moaned."
"I did not MOAN?—"
"Into my mouth."
"SHUT UP!"
He grins. Not the restrained smirk from the living room or the reluctant half-smile from the forest trail. A full, unrestricted grin that reshapes his entire face and makes my cardiovascular system perform a maneuver that I am fairly certain is not sanctioned by medical science.
Fuck. He has dimples. Shallow ones, barely visible, hiding in the freckled skin at the corners of his mouth like secrets he has been concealing behind wire-rimmed frames and a permanent frown for years.
I am composing my next insult, selecting from a rich vocabulary of profanity accumulated over two decades of locker rooms and trail runs and arguments with my mother, when a knock shatters the atmosphere like a puck through glass.
Three sharp raps against wood. Decisive. Paternal.
We freeze.
Simultaneously, completely, the kind of full-body paralysis that occurs when two people engaged in compromising behavior are suddenly confronted with the imminent arrival of authority. My hands are still in his hair. His hands are still behind his head. I am still draped across his lap in a position that, viewed fromthe doorway, would look exactly like a prelude to activities that neither of our fathers would describe as tutoring.
My head swivels toward the locked door.
Then down at myself.
