Page 25 of Forged Bonds

“He can come out and grab it himself. His injury is almost healed.”

Caspian moaned around his cock, and Shan let out a soft grunt.

“‘Almost’ isn’t the same as healed.”

I brought the container into the kitchen and made up a plate, leaving it out for them after. It was hard to ignore the sounds Cas and Shan were making on the couch, combined with the wash of arousal from Ozzy, but I was doing my gods damned best. I didn’t want to go in to Emmett with a sexual mindset. I needed to charm him with my personality first, however the fuck that was supposed to work.

Plate in hand, I slipped through the door and closed it behind me.

“I heard you come in, but I thought you would have joined the two of them,” Em said. “They moved it out there as if I can’t hear it all anyway.”

He was sitting up in bed, no longer looking like he was in pain doing it. There was a book across his lap, not quite hiding how the sheets tented over his crotch. “You saw me get fucked this morning. I’m good. Besides, you needed food.”

“I can walk.”

“Everyone keeps saying that, but you’re not going to fucking walk. Take the food.”

I handed it to him and rounded the bed, sitting with my back against the headboard on the opposite side from where he was sitting. Being too close to him made his scent too tempting, the bite mark on my wrist throbbing, and I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable with closeness. I had to tiptoe around him, not necessarily because he needed me to, but because I needed to.

If I didn’t tiptoe, I would pounce, and I could only take so many rejections before I got grumpy.

He ate in silence for a couple of minutes, idly flipping the pages in his book but not looking like he was reading at all. When he’d devoured half the plate, he sighed. “Are you going to sit there in silence staring at me forever?”

“No. I was trying to figure out a suitable topic for small talk. We could discuss the weather?”

“Neither of us has been outside in days.”

“Our favourite colour?”

“Mine is blue, yours is purple.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, turning to face him fully. “How do you know that?”

“Every outfit you wore at the club had a purple accent, matching the shade of your eyes.”

Did they? Thinking back to my closet, I did recall a large amount of purple clothing. I was drawn to it, because it complimented the shade of my hair. I’d never reallynoticed, though, so I was shocked he had. “You only saw me at the club twice.”

“In person, yeah. There are plenty of pictures of you on Club Chaos’ website and various social media platforms, plus from the surveillance other teams did of the club before we were called on to the assignment.”

“And you’re telling me you stared at these for long enough you noted the most common colour of my outfits? Are you sure you’re not in love with me?”

I regretted the words the second they came out, frowning. Trying to build rapport wasn’t my strong suit.Don’t taunt your mate, Freya. Dumbass.He laughed, soothing my worries a bit. “I was curious about you because Caspian was falling in love with you. It was hard to figure out what it was that he was drawn to from only the pictures, but I managed.”

“What was he drawn to?”

“Confidence.”

“Makes sense. Do you enjoy confident women, too?”

Emmett placed his plate on the side table, closing the book in his lap. “Are you asking if I enjoy you, specifically?”

My cheeks went fucking pink.

Gods, I hated this whole romance thing, making me feel like a blushing maiden, but I wanted Emmett to like me. Ineededit. Completing the bond was a constant desire humming at the back of my mind, but I wasn’t sure how well he needed to know me before it was an option. He’d only shown mild sexual interest in me so far. Would he ever be aroused by me, or would we be forever stuck in a half-complete bond?

“Come here, Freya.”

I did as he asked without complaint or question, a rare occurrence because I wasn’t quite sure how to answer his previous question. Crawling across the bed, I knelt beside where he sat, staring at the bandages wrapping his torso. His hand grabbing me made me jump, but I settled to lie beside him and relaxed under his arm.

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