Page 36 of Broken Pregnant Mate
I pulse into her, each wave another shock of release, like my body has been saving it all these years, waiting to have her. Together, we’re a total mess, the dripping of my spend and her slick coming together, but it doesn’t matter. It has never mattered less.
I go still, and we lie there together, my knot still pulsing inside her, still releasing yet more and more. She takes it, head back, eyes closed, that honey-blonde hair spread out over the pillow.
Her hands are in my hair, her breath against my forehead, and when she presses her lips to my temple, I feel the atoms of myself scattering, widening out, making me less man and more idea.
The words are right there, on my tongue. I think them and think them and make sure not to say,I love you.
Chapter 16 - Emaline
I wake up surrounded by Aidan.
He and I have slept together before—that is, we’ve gone to sleep together, cuddled up in the same bed. Back when he was hiding out in the barn outside my parents’ house, I’d sneak out there most nights, slot my body next to his.
Days in the desert are notoriously hot, but what many people don’t realize is that the nights are frigidly cold, with nothing around to hold on to the heat. I worried about him out there and knew that he would never complain about being cold.
So I’d go out there and cuddle into him.
Nothing ever happened between us—I assumed it had something to do with me being underage still, and Aidan’s commitment to always doing the right thing. It wasn’t until he was leaving, later, that I learned about his mate.
Rolling slightly, so his arm slips off of me, I squeeze my eyes shut.
His mate.
The other woman was waiting for him somewhere. The proof that we’re not fated, like I thought—that this thing is one-sided. That Aidan wasn’t holding anything back last night; he was just acting how he would with any woman who wasn’t his mate.
Biting my lip hard enough to draw blood, I slip out of the bed, already feeling my hands start to shake with the reality of what happened between us last night.
Whatfinallyhappened.
The moment I realize I’ve been waiting for since I first saw him as a little girl, from that first time he pulled me into a closet and told me he would protect me. I believed him, and I fell in love with him.
“Stupid,” I whisper under my breath, only realizing when I get to the bathroom that my heat has broken, just like a fever, leaving me feeling weak-kneed and fragile. Sinking down onto the edge of the bathtub, I let my face fall into my hands.
How in the world did I let myself go through with this?
Was everything I said to him true? That even in the heat, I still made my own decisions?
Yes. But I’m not ready to face what that might mean about me—the fact that I would let him do something like that, even knowing he has a mate. That I would make him feel like he had to do that for me when he clearly didn’t want to.
Everything is a mess.
Pretending to be with him in front of the others, wanting to be with him in private, and knowing it’s something I’m never going to really get. Is it worth it to pretend for a little while, knowing it will never be the real thing?
A knock sounds at the door, making me jump.
“Emaline?” Aidan’s voice comes muffled through the door. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I call, and when he tries the handle, he finds the door locked. It makes my heart jump, the idea that if I hadn’t locked the door, he’d be walking in right now, his body near mine once more.
“Okay,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he believes me. “Hey, uh—can we talk?”
My heart sinks again. We need to talk about my expectations, about how I shouldn’t look too much into this, think too much about what this means. We’re not together just because we slept together during my heat.
The embarrassment of it almost makes me sick.
“Yeah,” I finally manage to choke out, trying my best to keep my voice even. I run my hand over my hair, smoothing it back from my face, unable to stop the memory of Aidan’s fingers wrapped around it instead.
“We can talk.”
