Milo flashes me a small smile and a little self-deprecating shrug.
“Give a girl some warning before you fire shots like that,” I huff.
“I think it’s an important thing to keep in mind," he murmurs.
“Well then what’s your answer?” I snap.
He pauses for a second, his arm finally coming up to wrap around my lower back. The movement is small, but I definitely notice.
I instantly regret the aggression in my tone.
“I think I’ve always been passionate about computers and technology," he says slowly. “But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t do it because it’s the one thing I feel like I’m actually good at. The one thing I know other people will need me for.”
Fuck. I really regret my tone now.
My brows draw down and I feel my throat grow tight.
“You—you’re more than what you can do, Milo.”
“It means a lot to hear that, especially coming from you, but it’s probably going to take time for me to actually believe that. Just like it’ll probably take you a long time to realize that you don’t have to do things for people to be worthy either.”
I let my head fall back to his chest, hiding my face from him. I feel so vulnerable right now, I don’t think I could handle seeing the warmth in his amber eyes that looks an awful lot like a four-letter emotion starting with the letter L that I don’t want to think about right now.
God, my mind is racing. It’s going a million miles a minute.
I’m thinking about things I’ve never really had the chance to think about before: my future. What I want frommylife.
And it’s making me confront the fact that I’m twenty-four fucking years old and this is the first time in my entire life that I’ve really given it some thought.
That makes me feel pathetic.
But at the same time, I feel like maybe it’s okay that my heart is pounding right now because it’s beating for me.
The close contact with Milo also contributes to my buzzing skin.
“I—I think I do want to help people,” I say slowly. “It just feels right when I say it, you know? But now that I have you and the rest of the pack… maybe I won’t feel like I have to bend over backwards to do so, you know?”
“You won’t be alone anymore,” Milo says, his other hand coming up to brush up against my shoulder. “Never again.”
My heart squeezes and a wave of exhaustion hits me.
“You’re the best, Milo,” I say, stifling a yawn.
“You want to try getting some rest now?”
I tilt my head back to smile up at him. “Yeah.”
Milo tugs up the comforter and tosses it over our bodies. I shift my weight a little bit, settling into a more comfortable position under the covers. Surrounded by his gunmetal scent, I fall asleep nearly instantly.
I wakeup from the nap slowly, like a cat lazily basking in the afternoon sun.
Normally, when I wake up, I jolt awake. It’s almost violent. Either because I’m setting a ridiculously annoying song on my phone as an alarm so I actually wake up or because I’m waking up from a nightmare.
Waking up in the arms of one of my scent matches? In the arms of one of the sweetest people, let alone alpha I’ve ever met?
A girl could get used to this.
I turn over in Milo’s arms, putting my back to his front. I can feel his hardness pressing against me through his sweats.