Page 35 of A Shot in the Dark
“If you would actually stop. If you could control yourself.”
He rocks back on his heels, stunned. When he lunges to his feet, I can see he remains fully erect. His hands run through his hair. “I was so fucking worried,” he admits. “I thought… I thought I had hurt you.” He looks away—this man who might yet kill me but has so far stayed his hand. This man with a softer heart than he’ll ever admit. “I would never hurt you.”
My little impromptu test drive has proven that fact.
“You… You don’t trust me,” he says, stricken. “You let me fuck you but…you don’t trust me?”
“I trust you now,” I admit. Rubbing gently at my wrists, I look at him from beneath my eyelashes.
“Two different worlds, princess. My people? We don’t fucking cry wolf.”
“I won’t,” I swear. “Never again.”
He nods, knowing I’m telling the truth because for whatever reason, I cannot lie to Boots. Now I know: not only do I have the power to consent, but at a moment’s notice I can change my mind and that will be respected. He has the ability and the honor to control himself and see to my needs.
That’s the hottest thing ever—the combination of trust and control.
There’s not much to do in the room other than eat, watch the single available channel of tv, have sex, and sleep, so we do what we do best. Not as frantically or desperately, but when the need begins to overtake me, he’s there. We maintain the ground rules; he strategically places condoms all around the room so whenever the mood strikes one is always close at hand. We take more showers than necessary, Boots shaves like it’s a necessity of some religion, and we luxuriate in the nearly squalid room as only two people on a lengthy roadtrip can.
I enforce a strict sleep schedule, focusing on taking care of Boots’ needs, of caring for someone who keeps insisting he doesn’t care for me. Regardless of what Boots claims, I must be sick—just not the way he thinks. To give so much so willingly to a man who insists there’s nothing more between us than sex and a delivery deadline that’s all but blown?
Something is definitely wrong with me.
At first, my body only allows him to take four hours of sleep before the need rolls back through me, but things gradually change, and there’s a calm that steadies and maintains me. Four hours without needing Boots to drop my temperature becomes six, then eight, and Boots becomes well rested. If he moved smoothly and with animal grace before, that sensual grace is only magnified now. Every sense of strength and capability that marked him before is only accentuated.
The man I share a bed with is more than magnificent, he is unreal. Otherworldly.
At first we fall asleep with my hands on him as if I’m always reaching for something I know I shouldn’t have. A neat space—our demilitarized zone—remains between us, but gradually, something changes between us, and although I don’t know why or precisely when, one night I wake to find the weight of his arm draped across me, his body snug against me, and realize that’s been the way of things for a while now. The distance between us closes, literally, and and in some ways figuratively.
“I need to check in,” he whispers into my ear as he leaves our bed. I lie there in the dark and quiet, listening as he speaks softly. “Petey, what’s my window looking like on this delivery?”
“Closing quickly. If I were you, I’d either circle back to base quickly now or push through to DCC. You need either proof of life or proof of kill; leadership will want to see proof. And soon.”
“Got it.”
I can’t help myself—I try to figure him out, try to get to know this man who’s become so good at knowing me. He’s evasive at best. Comments like, “that’s above your paygrade,” “best stay in your lane,” and “classified,” are said with such casual authority they shut me down quickly, leaving me quietly curious.
Every time he avoids a question, it only serves to further illustrate that ‘evasive maneuvers’ are more than a driving technique to Boots, they’re a way to keep me at a distance. A method by which he keeps himself safe.
I ask, he avoids. He never gives away too much of himself. Never risks being too open.
When I ask him during foreplay what’s his rank, he tells me all that matters is he outranks me in the bedroom as he tosses me on the bed like I weigh nothing, finds my clit like he’s a compass and it’s true north, and has me coming in under three minutes.
Military efficiency.
When I ask him for his real name, he answers, “No.”
Each fucking time.
I try to brush it off, try to laugh at his pitiful reluctance to share something so simple and true with me, but it stings, and I wonder if he can’t feel the tremor running along the strands which craft our bond, or if he chooses to ignore them.
I’m lying there, my head on his chest as he strokes my hair. “You, princess, are the sweetest thing ever. I’m starting to understand this obsession my kind has with yours. I’ve never interacted with an omega, but if every one has even a glimmer of the magic that’s in you… I get it. There’s something dangerous in your particular kind of beauty.”
I lift my head to look at him. “Omega?” I wrinkle my nose at term. Although I overheard the word used when he’s spoken to Petey, it’s never been defined for me. “Like alpha and omega? Beginning and the end?”
“Maybe,” he says almost wistfully. “Maybe. In a manner of speaking.”
“So, let me guess.” I drag one finger down his chest. “That makes you the alpha?”
