Chapter 55 #2
I stare at him blankly while he bites his lip, chest heaving with the effort to keep a straight face.
He breaks the second he turns off the water and meets my waiting gaze.
Doubling over, Aiden clutches his knees, laughing so hard I can’t help but smile beneath the small towel I plop over my wet head.
“I’m sorry,” he wheezes while I dry my hair. “I’m sorry, Jewels, but fuck—this just made my day.”
I don’t bother hiding my smile. “Glad I could be of service,” I mutter, turning towards the mirror, but Aiden pulls me to his instead. Shoving my hands away, he takes over, grin still in place.
It’s the first time he’s looked like himself in days. He’s smiling like he used to, and it makes him so damn handsome. No—gorgeous.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I just might think you’re obsessed with me, Jewels.”
I meet his eyes that practically sparkle with mischief.
I cock a brow. “And if I am?”
“Then, that’d be a little creepy,” he replies with total seriousness that makes me jerk forward with laughter. He chuckles with me. “Not that I mind.”
Our eyes meet for the short moment it takes me to pull him down by his neck. The second his lips touch mine, sparks cascade down my legs, all the way to my toes.
“I love you,” I whisper the moment we pull away.
The daze clears from his eyes slowly to make room for a warm glow. His lips curve into a wide, undaunted smile.
“I love you too, Jewels.” He pecks my lips again before straightening to survey my hair. “I think we got all the good-luck charm out.”
I swat him with the towel as I stand up and turn for my own perusal. True enough, all evidence of Goddess’s blessing is gone.
“And I just washed it this morning,” I mumble, annoyed all over again.
“Yes, the pain,” Aiden groans as he drapes himself over my shoulders, eyes on mine in the mirror. “I’ll put in your millions of products too, if you want.”
“There are three.”
“It’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no, I don’t appreciate my amazing mate’s offer’ question,” he retorts smartly.
I shake my head as I fall back against him. “In that case, yes.”
Kissing the slope of my neck, Aiden lets me go to pluck my three hair products out from under the sink. I perch on the counter, and he’s quick to step between my legs.
“This makes my job so much harder, you know,” he says with a pointed glance at our position.
“If you want me to move, just say that you don’t yearn to spend every waking moment with your amazing mate.”
Aiden’s lips find mine, cutting off my chuckles as he bites my lip. “You’re something.”
“I’m everything,” I correct, smiling against him.
“Everything,” he agrees, before he steps back and gets to work.
Without a word, he starts my hair-care routine as if it were his own, starting with my leave-in conditioner and working it in from the ends to the roots. He goes section by section, exactly as I do, leaving me to do nothing but stare at him, half in awe.
“I pay attention,” he says, answering my silent question as he lathers his hands with more. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
I duck my head. I didn’t.
I watch Aiden through it, relearning every little facet of his face while he concentrates on his task with intense focus, but he still smirks every time he looks at me and finds me already watching him.
“So,” he starts with an exhale, “I’m just going to ask now.”
I frown. “Ask what?”
“What did your dad want?” I groan, and he sighs again. “I know, I’m sorry. In my defence, I kept the good vibes going as long as I could.”
My lips twitch. “Yes, I guess,” I mumble, then sigh. “In a nutshell, we need kids.”
Aiden either chokes on air or the sudden bullet to his cranium, I’m not sure, but he coughs and almost drops my treasured leave-in.
“I’m sorry, what?” he sputters.
“Kids,” I repeat, sighing as the topic resettles itself at the forefront of my mind. “According to my father, some wolves in the pack are already asking what we plan to do about it. But I’m pretty sure that’s code for my parents are thinking about it, and if they are, they’re assuming others are.”
Aiden’s frown deepens as he sets his hands down and listens, shock being his primary reaction.
“We’re men, but we’re also the leaders of this pack,” I continue, echoing my father’s words. “We’ll need kids, and according to my father, the sooner we sort out how we’re going to do that, the better.”
Aiden stares dumbly at me. All jabs, flirtations, and future pursuits of becoming my personal hair stylist forgotten.
“We …” he rasps, blinking wildly. “We only just mated a few months ago. Isn’t this too soon?”
I can’t help but laugh, because yeah, it is, but—
“We both know it’s not.” I wish it were. I wish I could say this was more of my parents being crazy, but they weren’t wrong. This is our norm.
Werewolves paired up and procreated quickly; alphas and lunas, even faster. The only difference was that there was no luna between us. And after everything, it still felt like we were only just starting out.
“Do you even want children?” Aiden asks, and the question stuns me.
I wasn’t expecting that.
“I never thought about it as ‘if I wanted them’,” I admit as I try to untangle my thoughts. “I’m an alpha. I have to.”
That makes Aiden frown deeper.
“Don’t tell me it’s our choice, because it’s really not. The pack expects certain things, and I—we—need to provide them. A child, their next alpha, is part of the deal.”
He studies me, his expression thoughtful, if not slightly mournful. He knows I’m right, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
“Honestly though,” I mumble as I look at him. “I’m not the best with kids.”
“Oh, I know,” he says with a cackle. “I watched you spend most of our childhood as a loner, and I’ve also seen how you react when kids in the pack try to talk to you. You look at them like they’re parasites.”
“That’s because they are!” I defend. “Pooping themselves, peeing their beds, and babies cry all the damn time! And they always want to play. Why can’t they just relax?”
“Because they’re kids,” Aiden says, eyes tracking mine with amusement. “You were one of them, ya know.”
“Yeah, I know, and it makes me cringe to imagine,” I mumble with a shudder.
He laughs as he slips his fingers into my hair. “If it helps, I don’t remember you wanting to play much.”
“All you ever wanted to do was play,” I groan, recalling our earlier days when our parents were still trying to force us to get along. “Mud lived between your teeth.”
“Now why are you trying to taint my image?”
“I’m not,” I chuckle as I lean into his palm. “I can’t help it if it’s already fucked up.” His eyes spark, and I savour the short-lived amusement. “What are we going to do, Aiden?”
“I don’t know,” he admits quietly, slumping. “I don’t know what they expect us to do.”
“Fix it,” I reply with a chuckle. “We’re alphas, so … we have to figure it out.”
Aiden hums, weary again, before his eyes light up. “I mean, you could always get pregnant.”
I hold his gaze for a stilted moment before I push his hand away and slap him everywhere my hands can reach.
“Ah, shit!” he howls while he tries to dodge my attack, but he’s laughing too hard for that.
“I was being serious, Aiden!”
“So, was I!” he grins. “You’d be a great mom.”
I kick him this time. He howls, but it’s hardly from the pain, so I rev up for another. But he catches my leg before it lands.
“Imagine what you’d look like with a kid in you,” he teases, reaching down to rub my stomach.
My face ignites. I slap his hand away, but he reaches for me again. This time I catch his wrist. Panting, we stare at each other, and while I’m annoyed in a million and one ways, Aiden looks like he’s just found gold.
“I’m teasing, Julian,” he whispers as his eyes slip down to my lips, “but … I’m not against us giving it our best shot.”
My heart jerks at the look in his eyes and the implication behind it. He steps closer, filling the space between my legs, hiking one around his waist.
Our breaths mingle as he hovers over me. “At least then we can say we covered every base.”
“Aiden,” I try, but his lips are already on mine. It pulls a moan from me—then another when his fingers dig into my thigh.
He kisses me with a sudden hunger that makes the world sway around me. I’m already falling, already giving in to the pull that strengthens every time Aiden’s in my orbit, only—
“Wait,” I whisper, drawing back.
He follows me, trying to find my lips again. “Why?”
“You know why.” I barely utter the words because they feel rude, like a curse, when I can feel how badly he wants this. “Aiden.”
He pants, eyes clamped shut, locking everything out.
“I don’t want you treating me differently—like I’m fragile,” he whispers, voice breaking as he does. “If I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping because I know,” I promise as I release his wrist to slide my hand around his neck. I trace my thumb across his nape as I hold him close. “I’m stopping because you told me—because you only just told me and … relived it all.” His lips tremble. “I’m giving you time.”
“I don’t need time,” he protests. “I just want things to be like they were.”
“They will,” I promise with a kiss to his cheek. “But it’s okay to give yourself a chance to pick up the pieces first, Aiden.”
He breathes quietly, his body so tense that I think he’s about to bolt or explode, but then he just unfurls. The tension bleeds out of him, relaxing his tightly wound muscles as he breathes in deeply, letting himself lean into me.
“The pack needs us to be their alphas, to be strong and perfect,” I say as I hold him close. “But I don’t need you to be perfect. I just need you to be okay.”
“… Okay,” he whispers as his hands slide around my waist, holding on tight. “Okay.”
“And then, maybe … we can try covering every base.”
Aiden shakes against me, a little jerk at first, before he’s laughing so hard it shakes me too. “Goddess, you’re the best.”
I smile into his hair and press a kiss to it. “I try.”