I put my fork down and push the plate away. “Is that what it’s always like for you?” I ask.
“Watching you eat? Yeah.” He gives me an impish grin, then turns to his own plate like I didn’t just feel his arousal through the bond. To his credit, aside from the sensations the bond is giving me, nothing in his expression or mannerisms revealed his desire. I could have given him an O just by scarfing my breakfast, and I never would have guessed.
Either Nik has the perfect poker face, or I’m not as good at reading people as I thought.
“What do we do now?”
Nik surprises me with a sad smile. “We learn to deal with it. Now, where are the twins?”
My cheeks heat up as I remember my dumb bonding idea. “Um … They might be mad at me. Like, really mad.”
“How mad?”
“Kip walked out.”
He groans and scrubs his face with his hands. “What the fuck did you do to make that happen? Kip would stroll right into Hell at your side if you asked him to.”
“It’s, um, not important right now.” I’d better change the subject before I end up inserting my foot even further into my mouth. I tap my phone with my fingertip instead, redirecting Nik’s attention. “We need money. Since Dave found me out and we had to skip, we know we won’t be getting anything from the Donnellys.”
“We’ll be lucky if they don’t sue.”
I slam my fist on the table. “I should fucking sue them! Drugging me, planning who-knows-what for me …” A light bulb goes off in my head. “Wait,canwe sue Dave? He’s not as loaded as the parents, but maybe he left some fingerprints on one of my vials or something.”
Nik places his hand over mine. “We’re not opening that can of worms. I don’t want to risk it.”
Ugh. Can’t even squeeze them for some compensation fees. “This sucks.”
“What part of this is sucky?”
That sounds like a trap. If I say it’s the bond, he’ll think I regret last night. Hell, what am I saying? He probably already thinks that because I think that. But it’s not regretting the bond so much as regretting the consequences of said bond. I might have lost Kip over my enthusiasm for finding more work through pack bonding, and even Kaden is butthurt about it. If Nik rejects me, too … God, might I really end up alone because of this?
“Please stop thinking, Mags.”
I look into Nik’s green eyes, and a bolt of pain lances through my heart. The bond isn’t the telepathic kind—I can’t hear his thoughts—but this new empathy, this strength of emotion, can cut like a fucking knife sometimes.
“Sorry.”
He leans over and kisses my cheek. “You don’t have to apologize. I know it’s new for you, same as me. We’ll just have to adjust, and that’s going to take time.”
Who has time to adjust to a mate bond when life is imploding all around me?
Groaning in frustration, I put my elbows on the table and cover my head with my arms. I just want to hide from everything for a while, until things settle down. Maybe if I vanish for a few days, I can come back to a normal house. Kip will be back, Kaden will forgive me, and it’ll put enough distance on the mate bond to let Nik enjoy it without my own insecurities fucking things up.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Yep.”
I spend the next four hours moping about the house, trying to distract myself from feeling anything personal and failing miserably. Nik gives me the space for it, which I appreciate, but it’s got to be hard on him. I don’t know if my self-hate is making him hate himself or hate me or what. How does that work, anyway?
Kaden reemerges at a quarter to nine. His hair sticks up on one side, and he’s got enormous dark circles under his eyes, so I’m guessing he never got back to sleep.
He strolls through the living room as usual, except for the conspicuous lack of eye contact. I watch him enter and leave like a sick puppy hoping for some ear scritches at the pet store.
No ear scritches to be had. Not even a little pat on the head.
“I’ll pat your head.”
