Chapter Thirty-Four
KIT
That was not the question I was expecting. I’d thought Lucas’s next words would have been What’s going on with your scent? or Do you think you’ll be able to stop that? Answering either of those would have been mortifying, but no more so than attempting to navigate the question he’d actually asked.
His scent was tinged with desire again, only I knew now it wasn’t. He’d made it clear the scent I associated with the casual interest of others didn’t mean he was feeling anything romantic.
‘Um.’ I cringed into his jumper, glad he wasn’t forcing me to have this conversation face-to-face.
As wonderful was it was to see him well after he’d been so ill in the mountains, I’d much rather talk into his warm chest. ‘I thought it was attraction, but I must have gotten it wrong. I’m not as new to being a wolf as you, but I’m still figuring out lots of things. ’
I thought I’d nailed down how people’s scent changed when they wanted me. From most people it was more like a cracking whip rather than the gentle regard that flowed from Lucas, but the essential components were the same.
Lucas breathed deep, the heat in his scent taunting me. ‘I’m not sure you were wrong.’
I frowned at his jumper. ‘What?’
He’d made it clear before that I had been very wrong.
I might have imagined the desire in his scent, but I couldn’t have mistaken the panic and fear that flooded the space between us after I’d asked to kiss him.
His heartbeat had been confusing when he’d said he wished he wanted to kiss me, but he certainly hadn’t desired me in the way I thought he did.
‘I don’t know if I’m attracted to you.’
I scrunched my nose. ‘How can you not know?’
Where Lucas’s scent since he crashed into his bedroom and startled me from a crying induced nap had been earthy and warm, at my question it soured. Shame, cloying and sharp, filled the air.
I shuffled upwards, resuming my spot opposite him on the pillow.
I might want to hide away until we moved on to less cringe-inducing topics, but it felt important to look at Lucas right now.
I didn’t want to embarrass him, but I wanted to be able to reassure him about whatever was causing him shame while looking him straight in the eye.
Then he’d know without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t lying.
‘Lucas?’ I waited until his gaze met mine. ‘What do you mean, that you’re not sure if you’re attracted to me?’
The most likely scenario was that he was fighting internalised homophobia. I couldn’t see how that had snuck into his brain while growing up alongside Aster. He would root out and destroy any such self-destructive thoughts if he ever got a whiff of them, but maybe Lucas had buried it deep.
‘I’ve never felt like this before.’ His scent remained unpleasantly curdled.
‘For a man?’
Lucas’s mouth pulled down, his forehead crinkling. ‘I haven’t talked about this with anyone before.’
I reached for his hands. They’d fallen into the space between us. At my touch, he gripped my fingers.
‘I promise I won’t be judgemental about anything you say.’ I kept my voice low and even. ‘And I promise I won’t share it with anyone else.’
Lucas twisted his lips to one side, like he was forcibly holding back the words threatening to spill off his tongue. I loved it when he let loose. I hoped he wouldn’t let his swirling fear stop him.
He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never been attracted to anyone before.’
I couldn’t help the frown that sprung to my face. ‘But you’ve had sex?’
‘Yeah. A few times.’ Lucas wrinkled his nose. ‘I guess I thought that was what people did, so I should do it too. It was only when it didn’t feel amazing that I realised there was something missing, something special everyone else seemed to be feeling.’
I squeezed his hands. I had no idea how Lucas had managed to keep this secret from Aster, when they seemed to tell each other every thought that popped into their heads.
He’d carried this lonely shame around for years.
It must have been so confusing as a teen to realise there was something missing from his interactions with people who showed an interest in him.
It didn’t seem to have become any less confusing as he’d gotten older.
My heart clutched in my chest. ‘You did consent to having sex with those people, right? You didn’t just do it because they wanted to?’
Lucas was truly horrendous at saying no. Others might not have been as perceptive as I was, might have been so overcome by their own lust that they didn’t register his disinterest.
‘No. Yes. I mean.’ Lucas frowned. ‘I absolutely consented. I just maybe didn’t want to have sex for the same reasons other people do.
I didn’t feel this huge urge to touch those women or feel much of anything when we got naked.
’ His cheeks burned red. ‘I mainly orgasmed because of the stimulation, not because of who I was with.’ Despite his embarrassment, he looked me in the eye.
‘But I wasn’t forced to do anything I didn’t want to do.
I guess I didn’t want sex like other people do. ’
I rubbed my thumb across his knuckles. ‘But you think you want it now?’
‘That’s what my scent is saying, right?’
‘Maybe,’ I hedged. I’d thought that was what was happening each time his scent had deepened when we hugged for longer than normal or he made me laugh or my feet played with his under the dining table, but I wasn’t going to barge across him like those other people had.
He might have consented to sex with them, but he hadn’t enjoyed it beyond the physical sensations.
It would break me if he endured that with me just because we both thought his scent meant he was interested.
Lucas huffed, the air around him sparking with annoyance.
‘I wish I knew. Like, I know I like you more than anyone else. I know I want to be around you and touch you all the time and hear everything you have to say. I know you’re brilliant and kind.
’ He slumped into the bed. ‘But I don’t know if all that means I’m attracted to you. ’
It sounded like that was what it meant, but I wasn’t going to tell Lucas how he felt. He needed to figure this out for himself.
‘There’s no pressure. No rush.’ I squeezed his hands. ‘I’m not going anywhere if it takes you twenty years to figure out if you want to kiss me, and I’m sticking around if you decide tomorrow that all you’ll ever want to be is friends.’
I smiled at him, relieved my heartbeat had stayed steady. I thought I would want to be around Lucas even if all we could ever have was friendship, but now I knew for sure.
His eyes flicked to my lips. My smile dipped, my mouth opening on a gasp when his scent bloomed with tingling heat.
‘I’ve never wanted to kiss someone before,’ he said slowly, his gaze skipping up to my eyes. ‘But I think I’d like to kiss you. I want to try. I can’t promise it will be good. It never has been before. But I hope that it could be better with you.’
I took a deep breath, attempting to calm myself. Part of me wanted to leap into Lucas’s arms and grab what he was offering before he could think about it too deeply, but a much larger part of me was unsure.
‘Before, you said you wished you wanted to kiss me. Your heart did a weird thing then. Not like you were lying outright, but maybe that what you had said wasn’t quite true.’
Lucas’s eyes widened. ‘Maybe I was feeling it even then. It was a half lie, because I didn’t know that wanting to be close to you like it was as important as breathing was because of more than friendship.’
The hope rising in my chest as Lucas said more wonderful things was becoming harder to ignore.
Only the memory of Lucas’s rejection before stopped me from edging closer across the pillow until our breaths became shared.
I’d been crushed when he’d recoiled from me, but I’d be even more so if we kissed and he told me it had been as unsatisfying as the others.
Lucas’s fingers tightening around mine pulled me from my spiralling thoughts. His eyes were wide, his scent clear and bright.
‘Please, Kit,’ he whispered. ‘Can I kiss you? Can I please try?’