Page 25 of Lost Touch

And I couldn’t stop thinking about what Drew’s knot would look like. If he knotted his own hand when he jerked off “more since we got out of there than most of his life.” Or if he saved that for when he was inside someone…

I let out a little whimper and covered my face with my hands.

That had almost been me, a couple of hours ago.

That might still be me if he couldn’t keep his enhanced alpha-ness under control. If he came back from his run all naked and sweaty and feral, eyes glowing and cock rock-hard…

I had to think of something.

Hiring an escort? If I could even figure out how to do that without ending up getting arrested. And anyway, it wasn’t like Drew would need to hire someone. People would throw themselves at him if he gave them the tiniest bit of encouragement. Like walking into the room.

But he couldn’t go pick someone up, could he? His family thought he had a mate. If he got caught with someone else, there went—well, me. He seemed to honestly think they’d kill me if we weren’t mated. At best, I’d be out on my ass with nowhere to go but the nearest police station, followed by a one-way trip to prison. And as much as I’d tried to look on the bright side of normal human jails earlier, I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think I’d survive. I doubted I’d even want to. The thought of concrete walls around me, closing in, trapping me again…I’d started to hyperventilate, and I curled up in a ball, hugging one of the pillows and squeezing my eyes shut.

No, I couldn’t go there, literally or figuratively.

Think about something else. Anything else.

Of course, the looming specter of Drew’s knot was the first thing to pop into my head.

That image provoked a hot, tense sensation in my belly. Arousal? I couldn’t remember what arousal felt like. I couldn’t get hard. And it could just as easily be embarrassment.

I wished more than ever that I could remember my sexual history. Sexual orientation ought to be innate, I thought, at least most of the time…although of course there were exceptions to everything. So shouldn’t I simplyknowwhat turned me on? Without having to think about it?

All right. I could mentally experiment. I could also turn the laptop back on and look at some porn, but that might give me another panic attack.

Start simple. Naked women. Breasts. Hmm. Yeah, those sounded nice. Legs. Okay. Curves in general…no erection popping up at the thought, obviously, but I could see the aesthetic appeal. Men: broad shoulders, muscular arms, long strong legs, and a dick.

Maybe with a knot.

My belly clenched again.

Drew’s knot, with Drew’s strong hand wrapped around it, stroking it…

I flipped onto my back, hyperventilating and wide-eyed again, only this time not from panic but from something more akin to delirium.

I forced myself to stare up at the ceiling, watching the faint shadows of the branches outside cast up onto it by the bright light Drew had over the back porch waver and flicker as the wind swept by.

It calmed me down enough for my brain to start functioning at a higher level than “Oh fuck, his dick gets even bigger!”

We had three options.

One: Go on as we had been, with Drew constantly fighting his own instincts and his own magic, tense and wound-up and ready to explode at any moment. He’d keep running for hours, trying to burn off some of his excess energy, and then getting himself off whenever that didn’t work. Was it weirder that he’d been doing that and I hadn’t known about it, or would it be even weirder now that Ididknow and I’d be awkwardly listening even though I was trying not to, involuntarily alert for a gasp or a groan or the sound of a hand sliding over a hard cock?

Weird or not, it wouldn’t be tenable. I had to focus on the practicality of it rather than getting…sidetracked.

Eventually he’d snap. And yeah, after contemplating it for a while, I knew I could and would forgive him when he did. He’d saved my life. I couldn’t be hurt, literally, and that conversation about the gun had really clarified how not-very-far I’d be willing to go to defend myself against him.

But Drew would never forgive himself, even if he hadn’t done anything to deserve what those fucked-up warlocks had done to him.

Option two: Find another shaman, one with no connection to his family. But for that we’d need to leave Idaho, probably, and would his family freak out if we tried to go somewhere? Would it be safe for us to go somewhere else?

Which left me with option three: Try to treat his symptoms and see if maybe he’d get better on his own.

And since I’d already decided that him picking up or hiring a sexual partner were both out, that left—me.

That didn’t disturb and upset me as much as I might have thought it would. The idea of Drew forcing me violently disturbed and upset me a whole hell of a lot—but not because he’d be touching me, or even having sex with me. Being near him didn’t bother me. The opposite, even. It felt so natural to sleep next to him, for example, curling up in the less-than-half of the bed that he left for me with his big, muscular sprawl, basking in his supernatural warmth.

And looking at the possibility of having sex with him from another angle—and oh, God, I was really considering this—it didn’t matter that I had no idea if I was gay or straight or somewhere in between, because I wouldn’t enjoyanyphysical touch, no matter who I got in bed with.

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