Soon I have to use my full strength to keep Blue from being crushed in the corner, my tense muscles trembling. In the process, my chest starts getting closer to him until it’s barely an inch from his face.
In this setup, I have nowhere to look except at the wall above his head or into his eyes. For some reason, I choose the latter.
Up close, his eyes are even more beautiful than I’d noticed before, with long lashes and irises threaded with fine streaks of dark navy and silver.
So I stare, caught up in that unexpected beauty. I study him with open fascination, and he looks straight back at me. Slowly, my gaze drops to his lips, their soft shape and tempting fullness drawing my attention.
Fuck! What is wrong with me?
I keep reminding myself I spent a year and a half bashing Blue, and now I can’t stop staring at his… lips! C’mon, that’s twisted!
And why does his closeness make my head feel slightly light? It’s insane, and yet I find a strange kind of pleasure in it, even as I’m forced to use my whole body the entire time to hold back the immense pressure of the crowd.
Suddenly, for completely stupid reasons, I say very quietly,
"I’ll protect you, I won’t let you get crushed."
I realize how ridiculous it sounds, since that’s exactly what I’m already doing. There’s no need to say it, but to my surprise Blue responds just as quietly, so no one else can hear,
"I appreciate it."
His voice is kinda soft, a rare tone for him.
Then I realize something else. Amid the overlapping rhythm of all the hearts in the elevator, I can hear his as well, and it seems a little faster than usual.
Is it stress from the situation, all those bacteria around… or something else? I don’t have time to think about it, because the elevator stops again and the people heading to the conference finally get off, and suddenly there’s much more space.
I can finally step back a little, though I do it with a hint of reluctance. Now we’re just standing side by side as the numbers keep ticking up.
I feel odd, going back to that moment when I stood over him. It should be nothing, just work. I was protecting him, but why did he keep looking at me the whole time? He could have looked away, but he didn’t, so what was the reason?
Is this because he’s an omega and I’m an alpha? Some primitive instinctive thing going on when our bodies got closer?
When we reach the Malden floor, Simon is already waiting for us and immediately brings Blue several updates, one of them being that a meeting scheduled for next week has been moved to tomorrow. It’s a meeting with several college professors. That means going outside again, which for me is heightened alertness.
Blue goes to his office and immerses himself in answering emails, while I remain slightly dazed after the elevator situation. From time to time, I catch extremely brief glances from him, so quick they’re almost impossible to notice if you blink.
BLUE
I’m having serious trouble focusing on Adams’s reports.
What’s been happening to me over the last few days doesn’t resemble anything I’ve experienced before.
Everything started with that stupid spitball incident, though in some ways it probably started even earlier, with the paint balloon.
While I stood there listening to Gabriel firmly demand punishment for the alpha who tried to spit on me, something strange happened, something extremely rare for me.
I got hard.
It’s not like that never happens at all.
Of course I get morning erections, I still have a human hormonal system even if my AO hormone levels are significantly lower than those of most omegas.
So yes, I possess a basic libido, but in my case it’s heavily suppressed—it’s psychological. Ever since the accident, I’ve lived inside a sort of self-imposed block, consciously removing sexual fantasies from my thought process. Whenever those kinds of thoughts try creeping into my head, especially late at night or early in the morning while I’m lying in bed, I push them away immediately.
But ever since Gabriel appeared in my life, it’s becoming harder and harder to suppress those absurd, intrusive thoughts.
Discreetly, I lift my eyes.
