Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Jez
I WOKE UP WITH AN ACHING head and clogged sinuses. Something was vibrating behind my back—a low, rumbling sound that unwound all the tight muscles in my neck and shoulders.
My mate was purring as he watched over my sleep. Gage... was purring.
The stuffy nose left over from my crying jag wasn’t enough to keep his homey scent from clinging to the back of my throat. It surrounded me every bit as warmly as the soft comforter I was tucked beneath.
The sound of the storm was gone, already fading into a distant, dreamlike memory.
I made a congested humming noise, unable to stop myself from rubbing my cheek against the pillow cover my head was resting on.
The cool cotton felt divine, and I had to get my scent all over it so Gage would smell it every time he laid down on the bed.
The purring intensified as I curled sinuously against the bedding, catlike.
Then it faded away. The mattress shifted behind me—a large form sitting upright.
Rough fingers stroked my sweat-dried hair back from my temple.
My skin sang beneath the simple sensation, sending lovely tingles skittering down my spine.
Were we still pretending?
I thought we must be, or Gage wouldn’t be petting me like this... the gentle touch waking feelings inside me that threatened to crack me right down the middle.
“Feeling better now, kitten?” he asked. “The storm’s over.”
A strange, pleasurable squirming feeling took up residence in my stomach in reaction to the unexpected pet name. We were still pretending.
Did I dare live in this make-believe world for a little bit longer?
I rolled onto my back, looking up at the square-jawed alpha.
A wedge of yellow light from the hallway streamed through the open bedroom door, illuminating his face.
His perpetual five-o’clock shadow had graduated into full-blown stubble, and a furrow of concern cut small lines between his heavy brows.
No matter how badly I’d provoked him, Gage hadn’t hurt me. He’d fed me and wrapped tiny bandages over my torn fingernails, and held me while I got tears and snot all over his shirt.
That sounds nice, he’d said, when I’d told him I wanted to pretend for a while that all of this was normal.
“Yes,” I told him. “I feel better.”
“That’s good,” he said, like it was something he actually meant. “I’m glad. This whole thing really blows. For you, and for us.”
But I didn’t want to talk about that.
“Can I... have a shower and brush my teeth?” I asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, of course,” he said. The hand that had been stroking my hair rested over my forehead for a moment, as though checking for a fever. “You’ve really gotta eat something afterward, though. And keep it down.”
Hunger was an old friend, but there was little question that it was contributing to the swimmy sense of unreality floating around me like a cloud. On cue, my stomach cramped, letting out a gurgling noise that echoed around the quiet bedroom.
“Okay,” I said meekly.
I let him show me to the en suite. He rummaged around in a drawer beneath the vanity and came up with a new toothbrush still in its plastic packaging. Then he pulled out towels, and a fresh soap bar, and a clean washcloth—placing them on the counter next to the sink like offerings at an altar.
Once he’d gone, closing the door behind him with a soft click, I stared at my face in the mirror. I looked like a zombie—gaunt and pale and red-eyed. It was worse when I pulled off the silken pajamas Tony had brought me. My bones jutted beneath translucent skin, sharp edged and dangerous.
How could he possibly want something like you? The snide little voice whispered its poisoned words inside my mind. Broken and bitter and worthless...
I’d put Gage’s pack leader in the hospital. I’d wished Matthew Knockley dead with every fiber of my being. And even now, underneath it all, the scent-match sung its quiet melody of belonging to both of us.
But I didn’t have to think about that yet. We were pretending... and it was so much better than any part of reality had been since I was a tiny child.
I brushed the sour taste of vomit out of my mouth with a clean new toothbrush and minty toothpaste.
I ignored the brand-new bar of soap still wrapped in its waxy paper, instead turning the shower on as hot as I could stand it and scrubbing my body with Gage’s body wash.
I lathered Gage’s shampoo through my straggling platinum-blond hair and rinsed it out, feeling the hot needles of water pepper my nerves.
He didn’t use conditioner on his close-cropped buzz cut, but it wasn’t like I did either, most of the time. For me, it was usually a quick shower in a gym locker room, using whatever soap I could afford. This was luxury.
When I eventually got out and dried myself off with a soft, fluffy towel so big it practically swallowed me, there was a white button-down shirt hanging from the doorknob.
Steam billowed in the enclosed room—but my sinuses were clear now, and I could smell the yeasty fresh-bread scent coming off it, cut through with that sharp hint of citrus.
I froze, looking at the barely worn pajamas lying in a crumpled pile on the vanity... and back at the shirt. Gage was a towering mountain of an alpha. His shirt would practically be a knee-length dress on my five-foot, three-inch frame. I rolled my lower lip between my teeth, torn.
We’re pretending, I reminded myself, and grabbed the shirt.
Gage’s scent surrounded me in a comforting haze as I shrugged into it and did up the buttons. It immediately quieted my thoughts, dropping me into a sea of soft serenity that made me feel almost drugged.
He was waiting when I opened the bathroom door and walked out. A pleased expression brightened his heavy features when he saw me wearing his clothing, and a low, possessive rumble rose from his chest.
I shivered, unused to the feeling that was rushing through my veins like warm honey.
With a deep breath, Gage seemed to master himself. “Hungry now?” he asked.
Hunger? Was that what this strange, wanting feeling in my belly was?
“Yes,” I said. Outside the window, the sky was pitch black. I gestured vaguely in that direction. “But it’s the middle of the night.”
Gage shrugged. “Kitchen still works at night. C’mon. You like pancakes and bacon?”
“I like anything,” I said, as my stomach gave another loud grumble.
I sat on a stool as Gage heated skillets and poured ingredients into a huge bowl.
Food started appearing on a plate set before me—crispy bacon that melted in my mouth when I bit down on it, and fluffy pancakes topped with an obscene amount of syrup and fresh fruit and whipped cream from an aerosol can.
My stomach felt like a black hole, but I slowed down after the second plate. I knew from bitter experience that dumping too much food on it after days of barely eating wouldn’t end well.
“Are you full?” Gage asked. “Here, have some more orange juice. You need to replenish your fluids.”
I drank most of the glass of tangy juice he pressed on me, trying not to wonder if it tasted like Gage’s skin.
“I’m full,” I assured him. “Really full.”
“Good,” he said. “There’s always plenty of food here, Jez. When you’re hungry, I want you to say so, okay?”
The perfect illusion wavered like heat haze.
“After you stick me back in the attic, you mean?” I asked, the words slipping free without my permission.
Abruptly, I saw exhaustion on Gage’s face that mirrored my own. His control slipped, and his entire body seemed to sag for a moment before he straightened his shoulders again.
“We need to do this different, Jez,” he said. “It can’t be like it was before. Heath ain’t gonna like it, but he’s wrong. But the thing is—if it’s going to be different, it’s got to be different on your end, too. You understand what I’m saying?”
I did, but it didn’t stop the shiver of cold that trickled through me.
“What if Knox dies?” I whispered.
“Knox won’t die.” Gage said it like he could shape reality to his own desires by force of will alone. “He’s gonna get better, and then all of us together can figure out what we’re supposed to do.”
“Knox won’t die,” I repeated unsteadily. “Knox won’t die.”
“Damn right he won’t,” Gage agreed. “Now, like you said—it’s the middle of the night. Come back to bed. I looked at the weather radar; there won’t be any more storms tonight.”
With a sudden, desperate longing, I remembered what it felt like to fall asleep with Gage’s arm tucking me close and safe against his big body.
We’d stopped pretending for a few minutes, but maybe we could start again.
Gage didn’t want me to be locked in the attic.
He wanted me to stay with them of my own free will.
I wanted to stay with him tonight. I wanted to be safe in my alpha’s arms, knowing that I could sleep and nothing would hurt me while my guard was down.
“Okay.” My voice was a rasp.
Gage quickly cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, putting pots and pans in the dishwasher and efficiently wiping down the countertop. I let him herd me back to his bedroom, to the soft blankets and the pillow that smelled like both of us together.
This time, he stripped down to a white tank top and climbed beneath the covers with me, still wearing his tailored pants. My stomach was full, and my body was warm and contented. I fell asleep once more with our bodies fitting together like spoons nestled safely in a drawer.
When I woke the next time, it was still dark... but the darkness held that hint of gray that said it was closer to dawn than not. Somehow, I’d wriggled around while I was asleep, and I was now sprawled half across Gage’s large body with my leg thrown between his.
My brain felt like slow molasses, with my nose pressed to the juncture of his neck and shoulder where his scent was the strongest. The crease of his trousers pressed between my legs, at the sensitive apex of my thighs.
Without a single thought in my head, I rolled my hips to rub myself against that small point of friction, moaning softly as the movement set off fireworks behind my closed eyelids.
Gage, still fully asleep, let out an answering moan as his hips curled, rubbing his huge, hard length against my hip.
A longing I’d never felt before trembled through my body, centering low in my belly with heavy, liquid heat.
My tongue darted out, licking a stripe up the side of my alpha’s neck—tasting that tangy spark of citrus I’d wondered about earlier.
A deeper groan spilled from Gage’s lips and he shuddered awake. As though his return to consciousness had somehow rebooted my own brain, I froze abruptly, realizing what I was doing.
He went still as well, his breath catching.
“Jez?” he asked, his voice so low and deep that it sent shivers through me.