Chapter 14
When JJ had told her there was an office in the mess hall, she hadn’t expected a utility closet with a slab of wood on top of stacked milk crates at the back and two file cabinets at the front.
With the door closed, despite with the light from the unshaded single bulb dangling from the ceiling, the room was dim.
The ancient computer that sat on the makeshift desktop groaned loudly as she connected to the internet, spitting and complaining as she logged into her Voyours account, a process that took the better part of ten minutes.
JJ had been right. There was no way she could stream.
Hell, even uploading a video would take so long that all of her clients would die of old age waiting.
She made a quick text post about needing to “take a break” for a “family emergency.” She knew that half of her subscribers would take that at face value while the other half would probably assume it was code for rehab.
She didn’t care about that. After all, she didn’t owe them anything more than what they paid for.
It wasn’t about the money anyway. She made enough to live off of from her day job.
The cam girl gig was to eat. Literally. Back at home, with high-speed internet, streaming two or three nights a week was enough to sustain her, even if it wasn’t enough to fulfill her.
Her stomach growled, reminding her aloud of the very real predicament in which she found herself.
The full moon was in just under two weeks.
If Robbie didn’t shift before then, they would have to explain to the pack why they didn’t want to make it official.
That would be the worst-case scenario. But if he shifted before then, she could leave immediately after and return to civilization, to the life she’d carved out for herself.
A life where she was always at least a little bit hungry.
A knock on the closet door startled her.
“Come in,” she said, swiveling on the squeaky desk chair.
JJ stood in the doorway, leaning on the jam with his hands in his jeans pockets.
“How goes it?” he said, nodding his head at the computer.
“Shit,” she said. He smiled, his canines glinting in the yellow fluorescent light. “How do you get anything done without internet?”
He shrugged. “Internet would make certain things easier. But it might make other things more of a liability. Plenty of people here like that they can’t be reached.”
She felt chastised—just a little—and sighed.
“You okay?” he asked.
She looked at his worn jeans, lighter over where his thighs expanded the denim.
At his forearms, thick with muscle and a juicy vein that ran from his elbow to his wrist. The open flannel shirt that revealed a faded old band T-shirt that was stretched across his chest. His hair was loose, a little bit damp, and he smirked. He knew she was checking him out.
“I’m hungry,” she said, holding eye contact with him.
“You need more food at your cabin?” JJ asked, even though she knew he was playing dumb.
“No. We’ve got food. But I’m hungry.”
He looked at her and she looked back.
“You always took such good care of me,” she whispered.
And he had. JJ had been the kind of lover who paid attention.
He asked questions if he wasn’t sure, and he listened to the answers.
He was the type to learn his partner’s body like a map, memorizing all the dips and turns, the oases, the places that held hazards and the places that held gold.
He was, in fact, the only man she’d ever been comfortable being touched by like that.
She’d never been in love with him. He’d never been in love with her.
He was waiting for his mate. But they’d bided some time together, passing one another when the hunger grew too great for her, when the loneliness and waiting grew too much for him.
It had been the purest act of service and love one could have committed.
She’d been so full during those years, for the first time in her entire existence. Full of him, sure, but full. Satisfied. Brimming with strength and energy. Those were the years she’d taken up running.
“Nadj,” JJ said, rubbing the back of his neck the way he did when he was about to share bad news, the way he’d done when he told her that Agatha had shown up at his door with her infant twin girls, that he would be taking them north, that he’d visit when he could but that she was always welcome to come with them.
But that was the thing. She would have been welcome to come with them, to build this pack.
But it wouldn’t have been her life. It would have been her following him to his, waiting on the sidelines and hoping he never found his mate.
Not because she loved him, but because she was afraid of the tap turning off.
And so she’d stayed in World’s End and grown increasingly accustomed to the hunger.
She’d stopped running because she couldn’t afford the use of extra energy.
She couldn’t afford to use any extra energy on anything.
“We can’t,” he said gently.
“I know,” she said. “I just—”
“You’re hungry.”
Hot tears scalded at the corners of her eyes, and not for the first time, Nadja marveled about how much hotter tears felt when they were desperate than they felt when they were sad.
“I’m so hungry. I’ve been so hungry.”
“You have a mate.”
“He’s—” Not my mate, she’d been about to say, but JJ shook his head. Barely a shake. A twitch. But it was enough. He was right. Robbie’s safety depended upon this mating of convenience, this lie.
“He would help you,” JJ said.
“You know I can’t do that,” she said.
“No, I don’t. Why?”
“Because it would be me taking advantage of him. He’s vulnerable.”
“You’re vulnerable.”
“It’s different. I don’t want him to feel obligated. And he’s just so… so…”
“Robbie,” JJ said with a soft smile.
“Yeah,” she answered. Because it was true.
She had only known him two days, but it was glaringly obvious that Robbie was one of the good ones, one of the best ones.
He was tattooed and worldly and yet had the soul of a golden retriever.
He was chipper and helpful and quick with a joke and generous with his time and his stories. He was good.
And if she told him what she needed, he would give it to her in a heartbeat. But she would always wonder if he was giving it to her because he just wanted to help her or help himself to her. The uncertainty would eat her alive.
JJ sighed again. “Think about it.”
“I will,” she said, even though they both knew she wouldn’t.
She had a few days before she would be truly desperate.
It would be easy to drive to the nearest town with a motel, check in, connect to the wireless, feed, and come back before Robbie even realized she’d gone.
The idea of feeding was always unpleasant, but for some reason, the thought of logging onto Voyours and degrading Geoff felt so awful, so wrong.
Hopefully Robbie would shift soon and it wouldn’t matter. Maybe today, if she was truly lucky. And then she could go back to her life, and he could decide what he wanted to do with his.
And if the thought of leaving made her feel hollower than the hunger had already made her, she could learn to live with it, too.