Page 56 of Slick Trip

I couldn’t deal with the painful honesty behind his words. Couldn’t take the sorrow on his face. Something told me Jon couldn’t either. We were both too raw and vulnerable right now.

So I yawned.

“I’m tired, and your constant chattering is keeping me awake.”

Jon paused. “You call this—the talk we’re having—chattering?”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re a regular chatterbox all of a sudden. Or like a . . . like a bomb of emotions. You’re a bomb of emotions inside a chatterbox, and I need to sleep.”

He exhaled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

“We’re going to talk about it,” he said. “All of it. And we’ll deal with it somehow. But it doesn’t have to be now.”

I pressed my body into the solid warmth of his chest.

“Good night, Alpha,” I mumbled.

“I like the sound of that.”

“You need to say it back,” I pointed out, already drifting off.

His hand slid up my back again. A tired sigh escaped me, and my body was already relaxing into sleep.

“Good night, Omega.”

“I knew you’d take care of me,” I murmured.

“I was always going to.”

19

Alone

COOPER

I woke up alone. Panic prickled my skin and sweated my armpits when I looked around the empty motel room.

“Jon?”

My protector was gone, and there was a wild world waiting outside the door, ready to tear me apart. My chest tightened until breathing became a struggle. I could smell my own fear in the air. I tried to cling to a small voice of logic that told me this must be an Omega thing and I wasn’t really in danger, but I felt powerless against the panic.

“Jon!”

Heart racing, I scrambled out of bed. I grabbed the first thing I saw—his discarded T-shirt on the chair—and pulled it over me. Then I snatched his hoodie and frantically pulled it over my head too, before crawling back under the blankets. His scent wrapped around me, but it was just a ghost, not enough to stop the terror creeping into my bones. I cocooned myself in soft layers, clutching the sleeve of his hoodie to my face. Still wrong. Still not enough. Still not safe. A helpless whimper got stuck in my throat.

“Jon,” I whispered into the dark cotton.

The door flew back against the wall with a heavy crack. Jon burst across the threshold, holding a paper bag. He scanned the room until he spotted me wearing his clothes like armor and clutching the monkey. His expression changed from fierce to tender in a heartbeat.

“Hey,” he said, closing the door behind him. “What happened?”

I peeked out from under the mountain of fabric, blinking rapidly.

“You left,” I said. It came out accusing and small—like I was nine, not nineteen.

Jon set the bag down.

“I was gone for five minutes,” he said carefully. “To get breakfast from the lobby.”