Chapter 18
Jensen
The thing is, I’m a terrible sleeper, and I like stretching my legs at night. It clears my head, and not only that, a nice little midnight snack helps me fall asleep. My insomnia has been worse than ever lately, so it seems unwise to skip the snack.
I know I decided not to wander around the house at night anymore, and I do agree with the logic I used in reaching that decision, so I’m only going to go to the kitchen tonight.
Just there and back. I won’t veer off course at all, so I doubt the lord will even hear me.
And of course that’s exactly what I want.
I want to get a good night’s sleep, and I want him to do the same.
We’re friends now, and friends want good things for each other.
I mean, yes, technically, I am the kind of friend who has spent every waking moment thinking about the way he looked when he said he’d happily blow me. But what of it? It was a very interesting conversation. Who wouldn’t replay it in their mind a time or two?
I open my bedroom door as quietly as possible, peeking my head around the corner to make sure the coast is clear. To be extra cautious, I shuck off my slippers and tiptoe down the passage barefoot.
It’s a dark and blustery night, with sheets of rain drumming against fogged-up panes of glass. The sounds of the night have crept into the house, slithering under the doors, blowing cool breezes into unlit places.
My heart beats a little more urgently than usual as I make my way to the entrance hall. It’s a big space, innocuous in the day, but on a night like tonight, it morphs into a gauntlet to be crossed while trying not to cause a floorboard to creak.
I’m halfway there, halfway across the gauntlet, when I hear it: a rumble that shakes the foundation of the building. The lowest, slowest, most paralyzing sound a human being can possibly produce.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end and my spine turns to solid ice. I don’t move a muscle as the sound of a catastrophic alpha growl rolls through me.
It rolls and rolls, reverberating until all the breath in the lord’s lungs has been expended.
Then he does it again.
The second time, I expect it. I breathe it in, and when I do, the sound echoes in my brain. In my bones. In my marrow. It alights everything it touches, shaking it firmly but gently until my entire body is vibrating.
He doesn’t tell me to run this time. I do it without his direction. Without his persuasion. Though I’m painfully aware that it will embarrass me later, this time, I do it because I want to. Because the lord was right. Last night was fun.
And because tag was my favorite game when I was a boy too.
The mood is different this time. It’s different being indoors, more contained and controlled. Still wild, but less so. The fear is different too. It’s there, both real and unreal, like it was last night, but tonight it’s laced with something undeniably playful.
I bolt down the hall toward the kitchen as fast as I can. Doorways flit by me as my feet hit the ground, shadows growing long and trying to ensnare me as I go. As I run, my ragged breaths are punctuated by high-pitched, hysterical laughter.
The lord’s footsteps are louder indoors, his feet beating solidly on timber, as the most devastating growl imaginable fades and changes, bubbling into a slow, throaty cackle.
I make it to the kitchen without being caught, and tear to the far side of the room to the counter where the cookies are kept. Once I get there, I’m not sure what to do next. The door from the scullery to the kitchen garden is locked. There’s no way out but the way I came in.
“Mm,” chuckles the lord, eyeing the cookie jars behind me. “It seems the little mouse has a homing instinct.”
I keep moving, parrying at the far end of the kitchen table, waiting to see which way he’ll approach so I have some hope of escape.
He veers right. So do I. We race clockwise around the table twice before he becomes so helpless with laughter that he has to brace himself on one of the kitchen chairs.
“What’s wrong, old man?” I tease. “Too slow?”
His face creases with humor he tries to hide. “Old man? You little mite! How very dare you.”
I dash left, changing direction when he least expects it, and I sprint back around the table, heading for the door.
It seems I misjudged the lord though. Either that, or calling him old has left him with something to prove because this time, he doesn’t follow my path.
He takes a kitchen chair by the top rail and sends it skidding out of his way as if it’s weightless.
That one and another. And then another one.
The sudden movement and subsequent crashes when the chairs land make me pause, freezing my limbs briefly as I assess the danger.
The lord uses my hesitation to his advantage, throwing himself clear across the table, kicking the chairs on this side of the table out of his way as he slides on tilted hip across the table top.
He lands easily, the balls of his feet bearing the brunt of his weight.
He lowers his chin and opens his arms and hands at his sides as he approaches me.
I don’t move because I can’t remember how to.
“Got you,” he says, wrapping a heavy arm around my waist and lifting me easily off my feet.
I struggle, not with escape in mind, but rather a dim, ill-formed hope of a more heavy-handed embrace. He subdues me with ease, without really trying. He catches the hand I press against his chest and sweeps it in a gentle arc behind my back, holding me still.
He’s growling again. At least I think he is.
I can’t tell for sure because my eyes are closed.
I think he must be, though, because my entire body is vibrating.
He sets me down on my feet and cups my chin, raising it slightly.
I keep my eyes shut so he can’t read the myriad of inappropriate cravings that lurk there.
He doesn’t talk or move for so long that the heat in my body becomes too much to bear.
“You don’t have to show me, little mouse,” he murmurs softly. “Your thoughts are your own.”
I blink my eyes open in relief and crash straight into a black molten gaze. A glossy, coffee-black pair of irises bore into me. I don’t look away, though I’m pretty sure I should. I can’t because there are so many good things flickering in the shadows, whispering quiet secrets and inviting me in.
“Besides.” The lord’s face cracks into a cocky grin that makes light bounce off his teeth. “You don’t need to. I saw what you want at breakfast this morning.”
The heat in my body turns pink and then red, flushing my skin from head to toe.
Dark orbs flood with concern. “Am I making you uncomfortable, little mouse? Because that isn’t my intentio—”
“No! God no. Of course not.” There’s no way I can allow a man this handsome to know he’s unnerved me.
There’s no way at all. It goes against the very grain of who I am.
I need to set him at ease, and fast. “I know what you’re suggesting is purely for sport, and frankly, I love that for me.
I’m horny as hell. And that’s not specific to you, by the way.
It’s specific to me. I’ve spent most of my life trying to get that side of myself under wraps, so it’s a bit of an adjustment getting used to being offered whatever I want, no strings.
That’s all it is. You know what life’s like, things are much better for omegas now that we have our suppressants and all that, but there’s still the old lingering shame and mistrust of casual sex. I just need a moment to work through…”
He eyes me dubiously, concern drawing a line between his brows. “Perhaps you should go to bed,” he suggests.
“Absolutely not.”
I can’t back down now, not after everything I’ve said.
Funnily enough, I actually do mean most of what I said.
I think it’s shitty that some people have to live in shame and permanently hide the things they want because of their designation, when others get to revel in their exploits.
It’s unfair. It’s an inequality, and I can’t stand it.
I won’t have it, and until I can find a way to change the world, I’ll have to settle for not being part of the problem.
The lord releases me and takes a couple of steps back, giving me a different vantage of him.
He’s wearing pajama pants and no shirt, and despite that, he looks like a nice person from here.
A good man with a good sense of humor. A friend who likes to feel useful.
A friend who looks distinctly like a man who sucks cock like a fiend.
There’s a quake in my bones, but when I speak, my voice rings true and clear. “On your knees, Casanova.”
The way the man kneels should be studied for science.
There’s nothing, and I really do mean nothing submissive about it.
He keeps his hands at his sides and sinks down, bearing his own weight in a slow, controlled way until his knees touch the ground.
He rocks back, resting on his heels, causing unspeakable things to happen to his abs.
I’ve been plagued by a low level of arousal all day, and being chased definitely didn’t help things, but what happens in my body at the sight of this man, this alpha, on his knees in front of me is hard to describe.
Torrents of arousal crash into me, knocking things like self-consciousness and embarrassment clean out of me.
What’s left without those things is a naked soul.
A pulse. An ache. A rock-solid rod of meat. A hard, tight shaft flooded with blood.
It’s me at my core, with all of my bullshit stripped away.
I attempt to unfasten the drawstring of my pants, but my hands are shaking so much that the lord bats them away, taking over for me. He tugs at the string firmly, hard enough to make my waistband pinch my skin. The slight roughness of the action makes lust roar through my veins.