Page 42 of Knot Your Business

"Why was matching with me the worst thing possible?" she asks, a bite in her voice again.

I swallow and run a hand through my hair.

Can I honestly tell her? Dominic is already pissed. Having Violet know the truth won't help anything.

Assuming he comes back at all, that small voice whispers. My stomach clenches at the thought of him leaving me.

Her eyes grow guarded as my hesitation grows. That little bit of distance we just regained is already slipping through my fingers.

Fuck it.

"It... it wasn't supposed to be a real pack," I say.

Her brows furrow, and I continue before she can ask anything.

"Dominic doesn't want to match. He despises that he's an Alpha—not that he’ll ever actually admit it. But he takes the highest dose of suppressor they’ll allow for extended use.” I definitely should not be divulging this to her, these intimate things between Dominic and me. But I can’t manage to stop my mouth. “He hardly scents and doesn’t crave needing to mark the way Rylan does.” I blow out a breath. “Anyway, Dominic's father kept his trust fund from being released until Dominic consented to registering with the Council and going to a gala. We’d just really figured out that we wanted to try being a triad. Except not really? I don’t actually know the term for what we are. They both fuck me, but they don’t fuck each other.”

Her eyebrow rises, but her cheeks don’t darken the way I expect them to. I should have realized she wouldn’t be the same blushing virgin she was when we’d first met. Rylan already admitted to fucking her through a heat last fall. And it’s not like I really care. I don’t. It’s just… it’s one more thing that proves the time and distance between us. Almost the same as before, but not quite.

I clear my throat. “Rylan and I agreed to register with him. The plan was to go to one gala then deactivate and move on with our lives together."

I turn away from her before I can see whatever level of disgust is bound to be there. It's an awful thing to admit to. The Council does an inordinate amount of vetting to avoid precisely what we had planned.

"And then..." My voice grows haggard. "And then I saw you there and realized you hadn't matched yet, and I panicked. The idea of having to see you after the way you left things in Seattle…” I drop onto the sofa and bury my face in my hands, leaning over my knees. “I didn’t think I had it in me to handle another round of you ripping my heart out. And I knew Dominic would try to annul any match that went through. The idea of being in that awkward limbo and you hating me through it was…”

I let my voice fade out.

There's a long beat of silence before she says anything. Her voice is closer than I expect it to be.

"So it wasn't because you hated me and couldn't stand the idea of being stuck with me?"

She thought I hated her? I just admitted I was scared of her being angry at me, of hating me.

I lift my head as I snarl, "Never."

Her eyes are unfocused, her hands held limply at her sides where she stands a few feet away from me. She collapses onto the coffee table, her hand covering her mouth as she tries to hide a sob.

"Violet," I say. I stretch toward her, forgetting everything sitting between us, and pull her into my arms. "Don't cry, Vi. Please don't cry."

"I thought you hated me," she whispers, her voice broken and vulnerable.

My laugh is humorless. “Even when I wanted to despise you, I couldn’t manage. It took me years to be able to date again.”

I don’t mention I haven’t touched a woman since her.

She nods, her cheek brushing against my sternum, and I swear I almost feel my chest rumble with satisfaction.She doesn’t rush to fill the quiet, and so I relax into it, too, feeling her chest move with each breath. I twist a strand of her hair around my finger. A flash of metal catches my eye, and I trace the industrial piercing she didn’t have before.

“I’m probably crushing you,” she mumbles after a while.

I tighten my hold on her. “Don’t you dare start with that bullshit.”

She nods but adjusts in my lap until her legs drape over the side of my thigh. I palm her knee and pull her tighter against me.This time the honeysuckle isn’t from her room, and my breath hitches for a moment.

“I brought you flowers,” I say against the crown of her head.“Sunflowers.”

Violet sits up, and I let my arms fall. Her throat moves with a swallow, and then she grabs my hand and presses it against her waist. The honeysuckle grows stronger. That hollow feeling in my chest lessens. Maybe this chasm isn’t insurmountable.

“But they’re not in season,” she says.

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