Page 29 of Lost Touch

And I couldn’t.

I couldn’t help the sigh I let out, either.

“I’m sorry,” Drew mumbled into my hair. When had his head come to rest against mine? I was so wrapped up in him I could hardly tell where he ended and I began. “This is so fucked up. I know you said you wanted to do this. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel like I forced you. To avoid something worse, if nothing else.”

“You really, really didn’t. I wanted to.” I poked him in the chest to emphasize my point, and he let out an exaggeratedoofand hugged me even tighter, making me do it again. Right. Like a little poke had hurt a big bad alpha werewolf. “If I didn’t want to, I would’ve found some other way. I wouldn’t stay here and get you off out of obligation.”

Although I totally, totally would, and he probably knew it.

“Uh-huh.” He managed to pack a lot of skepticism into those two syllables. “Ash, you really believe you don’t have any other choice. And honestly, maybe you don’t.” He sounded utterly grim, and there went the mood.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I snuggled deeper into his chest, trying to show him without words that I didn’t mind if this was my only option.

“I could give you enough money to let you get pretty far away, find somewhere to start over, as long as you didn’t get spotted by law enforcement,” Drew said after a minute. “My family probably wouldn’t bother looking for you if I told them the mating bond had broken. As long as they didn’t think you were going to blackmail them. Shit. This is sounding worse and worse, isn’t it? Fuck.”

I couldn’t help laughing a little. “Yeah, that sounds great. Besides, I don’t want to leave. We’re in this together.”

“Except that you’re in danger as long as you—mmph!”

I sat up and slapped a hand over his mouth, staring him down. “Get this through your thick head, Drew. I. Don’t. Care. I want to stay. I want us to figure this out. Do you understand? Stop wallowing and start thinking!”

Drew’s lips moved against my palm, and then his tongue flicked out—and I yelped, jerking my hand away.

“Yes, sir,” he said with a sigh.

“See that you do.” I raised one eyebrow at him, as high as I could get it. “Now I’m hungry. And you probably need to get cleaned up. You know, aside from what we did. You have a lot of moss in your hair.”

With a grimace, Drew gently detached from me and set me on my feet. I missed his warmth instantly.

“I’ll meet you downstairs in a few,” he said, and left the bedroom, shutting himself into the bathroom across the hall.

For a long minute, I stared at the closed door, listening to the rattle of the shower door and the whoosh of the water.

He’d come in my hand. I rubbed my fingers together, making a face at the faint stickiness of Drew’s drying semen. He’d come in my hand, and he might be jerking off again in the shower right now, and I wanted to get in and do it for him. Especially if it meant he might hold me again.

My face and neck burning, I headed for my own bathroom to get cleaned up. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a needy, pathetic whiner once I’d brushed my teeth.

Or maybe I’d just be a needy, pathetic whiner with clean teeth. Well, better than pathetic and also smelly.

***

We had some breakfast, and we didn’t talk about it. More, anyway. I personally thought we’d talked about it more than enough already, but Drew’s frowns and abstracted air made me think he might be gearing up for another round.

But after breakfast, we still didn’t talk about it.

“I’ve been slacking on looking into your past for you,” he said abruptly as I settled down on the couch for a couple of hours of doing nothing. “I’ve been—my mind hasn’t been where it should’ve been. I’m going to work on that now.”

And without waiting for a reply, he went into his office and shut the door.

Okay, well, if I’d been hoping for a more open, communicative Drew, apparently I shouldn’t have been. He definitely seemed calmer, though. Subdued, even.

Had it been that crappy of a hand job?

That was probably my own insecurity talking.

I flopped back on the couch and opened up my borrowed laptop. I couldn’t drive myself crazy thinking about this anymore. Instead, I pulled up one of the movie streaming services Drew had installed for me and lost myself in mindless nonsense, putting in a pair of earbuds I’d found buried in the couch cushions.

I lost myself a lot more effectively than I’d expected, because when I looked up from—Christ, mysixthepisode of some faux-documentary-style show about snarky grocery store employees with improbably good hair—Drew stood before me on the other side of the coffee table with his eyebrows raised, and the sun had moved enough to be slanting in through the west-facing windows rather than coming from the east.

---