Page 44 of Altius
Folding my legs, I sandwiched the throw pillow between my knees and chest. I plucked at its decorative stitching. It was a mix of black leather and cobalt linen patches, an abysmal cuddle option by omega standards.
The only thing keeping me from grabbing a few superbly plump pillows from Beaufeather’s storeroom was the knowledge it would crush Alijah’s fledgling home decorator spirit.
“Are they going to want food—like real food, dinner portions?” Alijah asked in a tissue-thin voice, but his apparentlack of energy didn’t stop him from thinking out loud. “Not sure I’ve got it in me to cook. Would Thanksgiving leftovers be all right? No, wait, Joaquin took most of them for lunch. Don’t have enough for a proper meal for six people. Joaquin will be home soon. He always needs to eat after a dress rehearsal. And I meaneat. Let’s order something.”
He took his phone from the end table and opened a food delivery app. “What do you guys want?”
The poor man couldn’t have asked two more apathetic people if he tried. Wyatt shrugged.
“Whatever’s easiest,” I demurred.
Alijah blinked at us repeatedly, knitting his brows tighter together each time, then threw his hands up.
“Forget it.” He got off the couch and headed toward the kitchen. “I don’t know why I bothered asking. This is why I don’t like holidays. They screw with my meal planning.”
While I debated whether to follow Alijah and help—despite my negative culinary skill level—a hand settled on my knee.
Wyatt pressed against my side. “Don’t suppose you want to shareyourThanksgiving leftovers?”
Rather than try to dislodge him, I was tempted to jab my finger into the approximate location of his kidney. I could only tolerate so much boundary-pushing, even if my omega wished he’d be bolder, more foolish, more calculating—more, always wanting more when it came to Wyatt.
“Go scrounge in your pack’s kitchen,” I muttered, holding the pillow tighter.
“Not my pack.” The strength of Wyatt’s hold on my knee increased. Resting more of his body weight against me, his head dipped closer, causing a few strands of his hair to brush my shoulder. “At least, not yet.”
His blue eyes had taken on a misty, almost dreamlike quality—enchanted pools of desire.
The change wasn’t as noticeable as the molten gold that overtook Cal’s eyes when his alpha asserted itself, but it was equally enthralling.
I wanted to tell him to stop, to wait, not now, not here, that a truce didn’t involve making blatant overtures and acting on protective urges.
Only one useless word croaked out. “Wyatt…”
He leaned even closer and whispered, “Not without you.”
The brush of his cheek against mine was fleeting yet seared like a brand.
“There’s no pack for me without you.”
Ignoring the racing pulse clogging my throat, I tried to protest. “Why do you keep—”
Wyatt’s hand settled on the curve of my neck, thumb stroking the hinge of my jaw as he urged my head to tilt back and meet his gaze. “Because no one’s allowed to mistreat you. Or disrespect you. Not on my watch.”
My reflexive anger should have kicked in, letting me claw and seethe without guilt while I ground the resurgent presence of his overprotective alpha into the dirt. Allowing me to remain unaffected and comfortably numb within my well-medicated tower of spite.
But I was tapped out. Exhausted by my continual denial of our connection and confounded by the tentative possession of his touch.
Ten years is an inordinately long time to imagine your first kiss with someone.
Honestly, it was closer to twelve because I’d been drawn to Wyatt from the first time I saw him across a sports arena, warming up on the pommel horse.
Noting the direction of my gaze, Jacobi had leaned closer and whispered in my ear, telling meeverythingabout the new alpha heartthrob.
But Jacobi’s information about Wyatt couldn’t have been more wrong.
He didn’t collect phone numbers for fun. It was easier to accept them than refuse. Something about his scent could make interested parties rather pushy when rejected, and Wyatt went out of his way to avoid confrontations.
The near-constant headphones—big noise-canceling ones that were impossible to miss—ensured no one bothered him with small talk. And he wasn’t hyping himself up with diss tracks. He was usually just soaking in the silence or replaying the audiobook of his favorite Teddy Roosevelt biography for a fresh dose of courage.
