Page 15 of Heartless

“Why did you come in here, Vail?”

It was a quiet question, but loaded with emotion, and I could taste them on my tongue as I tried to swallow the lump of bread in my mouth. Curiosity. Hope. Confusion. Even a touch of fear. That last one was enough to make me set down my spoon. “I wanted to say I appreciate your proposal. Offering yourself and Reed as Callum’s seconds is a big deal and I know it’s not something you did lightly. I also know it would cause you a lot of problems if you went through with it.” He opened his mouth, but I shook my head. “Just let me say this, okay? I want you to know that if things were different, and if we really could go back to how we were, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But for tonight, could we just… not talk about it? Or at least, stick to safe topics?”

“Safe topics?” He echoed, his brow arching.

I squirmed a little. “You said in the library, we could just hang out. Could we do that tonight?”

“You want to hang out with me?” That silk brow rose higher, but the flickering candle danced over his growing smile. “Yeah, I’d like to do that a lot.”

I nodded, but even while we finished our food, I was thinking over the proposal I didn’t want to discuss. An alpha triad, with the three strongest wolves in the school. He was offering protection, and I didn’t think he meant the kind that came with collars and trackers. But he’d also told Reed and Callum he wanted an end to the secrets and confusion between us. And I didn’t need the bracelet in my pocket to know that was something I could never give him.

To distract myself, I cleaned up our dishes and headed over to the coffee table. I couldn’t resist picking up the picture frame he’d wrapped in my hoodie, my eyes widening as I took in the familiar grins and sunshine hair. “Are these your brothers?”

“Yeah. Rowan and Finn. It’s from a couple months ago, back on the Arras Estate.”

Of all the things I’d experienced at the academy, meeting his brothers had been a highlight. The girls had smuggled them into my room on Den Night, and even though things had ended badly, it had been my first taste of puppy love. And I was a total addict. “They’re so cute! They even have your dimple! But they look so big! I thought they were just babies…”

I was still babbling about his brothers when he snatched the picture out of my hand and tossed on the sofa. A squawk rose in its place, but Jasper was cupping my face, his eyes a little wild. “You think gushing over my dimple is a safe topic?”

“Umm..”

“Don’t you get that pretty much anything you say is torture?”

“I didn’t -.”

“In fact, just looking at your mouth makes me nuts. There’s a dent here, where you’re always nibbling. And your pout pushing your lip out right here in the middle. And when you smile, and it stretches all the way to your eyes, I swear it’s like a hook straight to my heart.” I might have had something to say in return, if he wasn’t following each comment with the brush of his own mouth. Tiny kisses, almost like little punctuation marks, that made each patch of skin tingle with delight. “I want to hang out with you, too, but not as much as I want to do this…”

We lost any hope of retreating to a safe topic as his mouth covered mine.

I’d once wished the heat between us would fade, believing I could move on if his kiss tasted different – if the thing between us was a watered-down version of what we’d had – but kissing him had always been perfect. Because he didn’t just focus on my mouth, his hands skimming my body like he couldn’t touch me fast enough. And the sounds coming from his throat were all wolf, deep and desperate, greedy enough to make heat pool under my skin. When he dropped onto the sofa, I didn’t wait for him to pull me across his lap. I leaped at him, pressing down as his hips rolled up. He was so hard it made me shudder, my thighs shaking at the need to grind down and feel him.

We might not have gone all the way, but we’d been this far and further. Only it had never been like this, with a kind of frantic energy sizzling between us. Maybe it was because my heart knew what my head wouldn’t admit. Tonight was very likely our last night together. This was our goodbye. And for one damn moment I wanted to take everything he would give me. I wanted something I could hold on to when this world was far behind me. When Jasper had moved on, and mated with a proper omega. A real wolf who his clan approved of, who could give him pups, and lead by his side. It was enough to make me crazy, and I clawed at his sweater, pushing it up until I could feel the heavy thud of his heart. Once, our chest had rattled in unison when we pressed them together, and the thought of the silence that would greet us now made me want to weep. But the animal urgency in my blood had nothing to do with being a shifter. I wanted him, wanted his skin sliding along mine and his heat buried deep inside me. “Please, Jasper!”

“What, sweet wolf. What do you need?”

The endearment, coming so soon after finding out I didn’t have a wolf, was enough to make me howl.

I didn’t realize I’d pushed him away until he said, “Fuck. Sorry. You just wanted to hang out and I let it get out of hand…”

“No,” I said thickly, climbing to my feet and pulling my hoodie tight against my body. “I wanted it. I mean, I was into it as much as you. I just…”

“Are you leaving now?”

I froze, surprised by the hurt and defeat in his tone. But he wasn’t talking about leaving the academy… he just meant leaving his room. My shiver was a mixture of relief and dread, because the only bed I was willing to go to outside of this room was out in the snow. “No. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to sleep here for a while.”

“Really?” Hope bloomed in his eyes, some of that Cocky Jasper in his sudden grin. I could almost read the images flicking through his mind – because, after all, he wasn’t the only one still breathing heavy in this room – but he locked them down enough to say, “You can have my bed. It’s a new mattress, too, not that we ever....” He grimaced and looked down at the sofa. “I’ll sleep here.”

“No.” As much as I wanted to resurrect those days in the rose cottage, I knew that time had passed us by. Just as I knew I would always have this cracked feeling in my chest, because there was no confusion in my heart. I loved Jasper. And because of that, the only thing I could leave him with were secrets hidden inside a few bittersweet memories. “I want to sleep here.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but while he went to get a pillow and blanket from his bed, I crossed to the door and flicked the lock. It wouldn’t keep a determined shifter out, but I wasn’t worried about Callum storming the room to reclaim me. It was the thought of sleepwalking in my cat skin that made me shudder, and was just another reason to resist the temptation to sleep in Jasper’s bed. He might like the idea of going to sleep with me in his arms, but waking up to my whiskers in his face would probably scar him for life.

With a grimace, I lay down on the sofa and after plumping the pillow, pulled the blanket over me. Both smelled of laundry detergent, which just made my scowl deepen. According to Jasper, this was my scent, and while I liked fresh sheets as much as the next girl, I preferred to sleep with my nose buried in a puddle of sunshine. Or better yet, pressed to the golden chest that was now settling into the armchair next to me. “I feel like an invalid,” I muttered as he tilted his head and watched me through hooded eyes. “You can go sleep in your bed, you know.”

“I’d just creep back out here as soon as you fell asleep,” he replied with a shrug. “Better get used to it, Vail. If I can’t touch you, then I’m going to watch you. Now close your eyes and dream about my dimple.”

I snorted, but it didn’t take long for me to obey. After the scorching kiss, his dimples weren’t his only attribute to feature in my dreams, and I woke with a smile on my face. But it quickly dimmed when I realized it was the other side of midnight and he was still sitting in the armchair. Instead of looking relaxed, his limbs were tense, his head pressed on his hand like he couldn’t hold it up on his own. Without candlelight playing over his face, I couldn’t miss the dark hollows under his eyes, or the strain around his mouth. He was beyond tired, and for a moment I thought about waking him and taking him to his bed. But that was enough to get me off the sofa, and to start collecting my things.

It was less than a dozen steps to Callum’s door and a part of me hoped it would be locked when I reached it. But the knob turned smoothly under my hand, and I braced myself as I stepped inside. Moonlight peeked between the heavy drapes, and despite the chill in the room, Callum was lying on top of the covers. He was shirtless, but still wearing his leather pants, and I averted my eyes as I approached the bed. He’d been watching me from the moment I opened the door, but he didn’t prop himself up until I was right by his side. Before he could open his mouth, I held out my hand. “You can cuff me,” I told him, “but there’s no way in hell I’m tying myself to you again.”

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