Page 93 of Scrum Heat

I fall back into the cushions, heart pounding, skin tingling, and the weight of four alpha gazes still burning across my body.

We might not have bonded yet, but after tonight, I know it’s only a matter of time.

And god help me—I cannotwait.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jax

I’m not sleeping. I haven’t even tried.

I’m flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, one arm slung across my forehead, the other pressed to my bare chest like I’m trying to hold myself still from the inside out. The window’s cracked open, letting in a cool spring breeze, but it does nothing.

It’s been two hours since game night ended. Since she kissed me.

No—that’s not the word for it.

She climbed into my lap, touched my chest, and kissed me like she meant it. Like I wasn’t a threat. Like I wasn’t a second thought.

Like shewanted me.

Andfuck—I’m still not okay.

Her fingers slid over my sternum, warm and gentle, and I flinched. It wasn’t hard—barely enough for anyone to see, maybe not even enough for her to notice—but I felt it anyway. That instinctive twitch that’s half muscle memory, half warning flare;something deep within telling me to brace for something that never came.

Because it wasn’t rough. It wasn’t my stepdad’s hand around my neck for talking back, or the sting of a belt across my spine for forgetting to take my boots off at the door. It wasn’t my mother saying I was too loud, too tense, too hard to love.

It wasn’t the kind of touch I’ve learned. It wasn’t the kind of touch I was raised on.

Her touch was… soft. Curious. Even a little greedy.

Frankie touched me like she wanted to learn something; as if I wasn’t a locked box or a live wire. She touched me as though she had all the time in the world to figure me out—and more than that, she touched me as though she was willing to wait even if I didn’t give it to her straight away.

That’swhat messed me up.

Not the kiss, not the closeness, not even the way her hips shifted over mine like she couldn’t help it.

It was the tenderness.

I’m not used to that. Not since before my mom married the alpha who taught me silence as survival. Flinching was safer than speaking. Shrinking down made me easier to ignore. I figured out early that bruises fade faster when you don’t make a sound.

So. I stopped making them.

By sixteen, I was bigger than him. Stronger, too. I could’ve fought back, could’ve won, I reckon; but when the time came—I didn’t. I just left. Packed a bag, walked out, and never looked back.

I cut my mother off the same day. She called twice, but I haven’t heard from her since.

I sigh into the night, breath heavy as I blink up at the ceiling, and just like some twisted dream cue—I hear it.

Footsteps, down the hall.

Light at first. Hesitant and careful.

And then they stop outside my door.

My whole body tenses at the quiet creak of the handle turning, and I sit up, the covers pooling at my waist, heart suddenly hammering in my chest.

The door creaks open just enough for her to peer in, and our eyes meet in the dark.

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