Page 45 of Knot Their Girl
“And why,” he pauses as he takes a single step in my direction, “do you want me to stay?” Though there is at least ten feet between us, it’s suddenly not enough. It feels as though his six-and-a-half-foot frame is towering over me, reminding me of how easily those shoulders can block out the rest of the world.
If he can make me forget I’m in public, if he can make my inner omega whine while surrounded by strangers, what can he make me do in the privacy of this house? I don’t want to think about it, mostly because I already know the answer.
“I…” Usually I’m quick with either a smart comeback or the truth, but something about the way he’s looking at me makes everything get caught up on my tongue. Instead, I decide to ask him: “Do you really want to leave?”
“No,” he says simply. “But I should, if you want to keep up the pretense of courting the beta.”
“I’m not courting him.”
“Then I should go so he can court you.”
“There is no courting going on—”
“That’s not what it looked like last night. You two looked pretty damn comfortable together out there.”
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to think of something to say, but my mind draws a blank, and when I open my eyes I find Pax has closed the distance between us and now stands less than two feet away. I find my voice under his intense scrutiny, “Jealous?”
“No,” he says the word again, and strangely enough I believe him. After all, what does an über alpha like him have to be jealous of? Nothing. “You’re not… you’re not mine. There’s nothing to be jealous of.”
Something in me makes me curious. “Are you really never going to find someone and settle down?”
“I wasn’t planning on it—which is why you’re making this job a lot harder than it needs to be.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Why?”
“You know damn well why.” His gaze shifts to my bare neck, which is still a little oily thanks to the cream I applied there after my shower. “You can put all the shit you want on your skin, but bits and pieces of you still sneak through. You’re a drug, and it’s killing me that I don’t know how you feel.”
Call me crazy, but I don’t think he means he doesn’t know how I feel emotionally. No, I’m like ninety-nine percent sure he’s talking about something more on the physical side of the spectrum.
My inner temperature threatens to climb under the heat of his gaze, so I look away and move around him, deeper into my room, mostly to put more space between us once again. “Well, Mr. Alpha, I guess you’ll have to keep wondering—” Though my back is to him, I hear it, and anything else I might say dies in my throat.
A growl. A deep-throated, guttural growl that radiates from his thick chest easily. A growl that’s not meant to scare or frighten, but a growl that’s a signal of just how starving he is.
And I don’t mean for food.
My core is seconds from releasing slick onto a fresh pair of panties, so I think about other things instead of the growly alpha in my room. I tell him, “Maybe you should… go get some air, or something.” Fuck, it’s difficult to say that. All I really want to do is turn around and run toward him, feel that growl reverberate in my own body as I arch into him.
Pax thankfully doesn’t say a word. He stomps out of my room and shuts the door loudly behind him, and only when he’s gone can I relax my shoulders and collapse onto my bed.
Wow. That was a close one. Too close.
Shit. How the hell am I supposed to survive in this house? Maybe I need to go home when it’s time for my next heat—I sureas heck don’t trust myself not to beg for that jerk’s knot when I’m out of my mind and delirious.
Maybe I should have told Gideon I wanted Pax gone.
But, as I think that particular thought, I can’t help but cringe at how untrue it would’ve been.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Raeka
I spend most of the next few days in my room, watching videos. There are some online courses I could enroll in that might be better in learning sign language, but I want to start off slowly. I can’t fool myself; I’m not a fast learner when it comes to that kind of thing, so it’s going to take me a while before I can understand a full conversation in sign language, but I want to try, and I’m not going to tell Colter I’m doing this. I want it to be a surprise. Not sure if it’ll be a good surprise, but whatever. I’m trying here.
Pax does his best to steer clear of me mostly. We don’t have the choice when it’s dinner time—even Colter forces himself to come down and eat dinner with us. It’s like we’re a family. A new, slightly awkward family, but a family nonetheless.
I end up staying up late most nights—something I’m used to, but only because I like going out and having a bit of fun. There are a few omega-friendly clubs in the city I’m missing, not going to lie.
It’s a Thursday night around midnight, and I’m right in the middle of a video about the alphabet when I get a little thirsty. I’m the type of person that can’t focus on shit when something is wrong, so I pause the video and head downstairs in search of some water. I’m able to navigate the house without turning on any lights, and by now I know exactly where the glasses are in the upper cabinets. Soon enough I have my glass of water and am about to return to bed when I see the light on in Gideon’s room all the way down the hall. I must not have seen it before, giving that end of the hall my back when I left my bedroom.
It seems late for him to be up, the self-proclaimed early bird. I shouldn’t, but my curiosity gets the best of me, and I tiptoepast Pax’s shut door and go straight for the light shining beneath Gideon’s closed door like a moth to the flame.
