Chapter 18 #2
In the kitchen, he was in black jeans and a flannel shirt.
He reclined in his seat at the dining table, thighs wide apart, watching me bake pies for the diner.
With a hint of a smile softening his hard mouth, he looked relaxed, as if he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
I was almost disappointed when he’d finally drained the coffee it had taken him over an hour to finish and pushed himself to his feet, saying he had a project to get back to in his workshop.
Between then and now, he undressed.
His black sweatpants are low-waisted. Like… way low, giving me a tantalizing hint of dark hair beneath washboard abs.
With my mind positively in the gutter, and every chance of it sinking even lower, I blurt out, “Sorry for bothering you,” and whirl around to leave.
I cry out when I bounce off a wall and thud to the floor, landing heavily on my ass.
Here I am, back to freezing in times of stress or running without looking where I’m running to. Clearly that important life lesson from Elias’s computer game didn’t stick, though I have at least graduated from pounding on the controller to using the buttons the way the creators intended.
My vision is still blurry when hard, but at the same time, surprisingly gentle fingers clasp my chin and angle my head up as I furiously rub my pounding temple.
“Shit. Are you okay?” Wyatt asks.
When my vision clears, he’s crouching in front of the workshop door that I must not have pushed all the way open as I thought. Hard, tanned muscles inches from my face make it impossible to focus. “I ran into the side of your door.”
Hard lips soften as tawny brown eyes warm. With gentle fingers, he brushes his fingers across my aching temple. “I caught that. You okay, darlin’?”
I’m a goldfish in this workshop. Every thought I have ends three to four seconds later, and my eyes become glued to his body as my thoughts turn to liquid nothing.
“Maisie?”
“I want you to bite me,” I blurt out.
His eyebrows shoot up.
“Uh, that isn’t what I wanted to say.” I take a deep breath. “I meant that I need you to fuck me.”
Shit.
His face turns blank and he takes his hand off my face, deliberately putting inches between us.
Blushing, I scramble to my feet and duck around him. “I have to go. To my room. To… do something. I-I wanted to say something about suppressants and my bag and… and the other stuff came out instead.”
He stood much slower than I did, turning his body to always keep me within sight as I scooted around him.
At no point have I seen him blink since I blurted out things I wanted the second I pushed open the doors to his workroom and my mind filled with lust.
“Suppressants?” His confusion melts away, understanding taking its place as he puts all the pieces together and forms the picture of what has reduced me to a blithering idiot. “Your heat is coming.”
I tuck a strand of blonde hair behind my ear and bite my lip. When his eyes dart to my mouth and turn hungry, I make myself stop.
Things are bad enough in here with this heat, his hot body, and my raging needs. Not to mention all my brain cells swiftly diving off a cliff like lemmings, one by one.
I nod and take a small step back. “Yeah, but I’m not sure when.
I, uh, started taking suppressants when I was eighteen since Derek is a beta, so I’m not sure when things will, uh…
happen.” I wince. Idiot. “So I should probably go and not bother you with things like…” I consider whether I want to risk repeating myself and decide it’s not a good idea.
Forget you said anything and go before you humiliate yourself anymore. “Well, you heard. I should go.”
I’m turning to leave when he says, “Those things you said, did you not want them from me because you’re scared of me?”
I was ready to run back to the house before he spoke. A question like that deserves an honest, face-to-face response.
“No, I’m not afraid of you, Wyatt. I haven’t been in…
well, weeks really. Not since my first week in the diner and you started leaving me too many tips, which, I know it’s not the time to get into that right now, but you tip me too much money.
I’m not that good a waitress, especially after I nearly poured hot coffee onto your crotch. ”
His eyes sparkle with amusement, there and gone again in a flash. “So why don’t you want those things with me?” His voice is husky, thick with lust when he adds, “The biting and the fucking.”
I take another small step out into the cool air. If I don’t keep backing up, I’ll start sprinting forward. “Well, I can’t because—”
And that’s where I stop. Physically and mentally.
I stop and stare at him as my mind struggles to find reasons why it would be a bad idea to let Wyatt help me through my heat.
We’ve already admitted feelings for each other.
There’s been no sign of Derek, so he must have left once he figured out that he would have to go through four alphas to get to me.
Derek is a big guy. He was a quarterback in high school, and sure, he might want revenge, but he’s not stupid enough to think he can go toe to toe with four alphas and hope to come out on top.
“Maisie?” Wyatt asks quietly. “Would it be so bad for us to do those things?”
I don’t have an answer for him because there isn't one.
I look at him, and I just know sex would be amazing. Bites are fine, and as long as he sticks to nips and not a full-on claiming bite, there wouldn’t be a permanent bond tying us together. But even if he gave me a claiming bite, would that be such a bad thing?
Haven’t I wanted Wyatt since the first time he walked into the diner?
Would it be the worst thing in the world to be tied to a man who has taken care of me and protected me better than anyone ever has?
I could continue taking heat suppressant pills, but there’s no need to.
No reason to back away from Wyatt and every reason to walk forward instead.