Chapter 10 Erik #2
Stop staring at his mouth.
I look down at my plate and push pasta around with my fork, appetite gone. The silence stretches. Every nerve in my body is vibrating with awareness. I can smell him, even over the food. That devastating omega scent that makes my body light up with want want want.
“The check-in ping could come anytime after six,” he says. “Random times.”
“I read the instructions.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
Same page. Right. We’re on completely different pages. Different books. Different libraries.
“About this morning—” I start.
“What about it?”
The question is mild. Curious. Like I might be about to discuss the weather or the traffic or anything other than the fact that I had my face between his thighs four hours ago.
“Nothing,” I finish lamely. “Never mind.”
“Okay.”
He returns to his pasta. I stare at my plate and wonder if it’s possible to die from frustration.
We finish eating. I wait for Nolan to stand, to clear the plates, to do what omegas do. My mother always handled the domestic side of things. Every omega I’ve ever known has done the same. It’s simply how things work.
Nolan pushes back from the table, stretches—his shirt rides up, just a flash of skin above his waistband, and I catch a glimpse of bruised hip before he tugs it down—and says: “Dishes are yours. I cooked.”
I stare at him. “Excuse me?”
“Dishes.” He gestures at the kitchen. “Standard division of labor. One person cooks, the other cleans. That’s fair, right?”
Fair. He’s framing it as fair. As logic rather than defiance. As simple practicality rather than a deliberate challenge to everything I expect.
“I—” I stop myself before I say something I’ll regret. But not fast enough. Nolan’s eyebrow lifts slightly.
“Problem?”
“No,” I grit out. “No problem.”
“Great.” He smiles—small, bland, infuriating—and collects his water glass. “I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”
He walks past me toward the couch. I catch a hint of his scent as he passes—clean soap and that omega undertone that makes my teeth ache—and my hands curl into fists at my sides.
I watch him settle onto the couch, tuck his feet up, pull out his phone. He looks completely at ease.
I know what his game is now. He’s going to be the ‘reasonable’ one. He’s going to rile me up by forcing me into doing things he knows I don’t want to do.
It’s only dishes, but it isn’t. He played it perfectly. I’d admire it if I wasn’t so annoyed, but it is a reminder of who he is. He’s a man who makes a living through charm and manipulation.
For a moment, I wonder if he planned that scene this morning knowing I’d not be able to resist him half naked. I don’t know how. I did tell him I was coming at noon, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t work it out somehow.
I turn to face the kitchen. There’s a pan on the stove, a cutting board with vegetable scraps, two plates, two forks, two knives, two water glasses
I’ve never washed a dish in my life.
I mean, I must have at some point. University, probably. I used to get takeout when I lived here. Everything came in containers with disposable cutlery.
But I genuinely cannot remember the last time I stood at a sink and cleaned something with my own hands. At home I have a housekeeper who comes daily. At the penthouse, same thing. The dishwasher is loaded by someone else, run by someone else, emptied by someone else.
I turn on the faucet. Hot water. Soap. How hard can it be?
Twenty minutes later, I’m done and feeling fairly pleased with myself. I didn’t get water all over the floor or break anything. It was easy: omega’s work.
As I dry, I hear Nolan chuckle at something he’s looking at on his phone. He hasn’t offered to help. He hasn’t even looked up.
I grit my teeth and pack everything away in the places that I think that they go.
My father would be horrified. An alpha of my standing, doing dishes like some omega. I finish eventually. The kitchen is more or less clean, though I’ve got water on my shirt. I dry my hands on a towel and stand there for a moment, unsure what to do next.
The living room is small. Nolan is on the couch—my couch, my bed for the next two weeks—scrolling through his phone. There’s nowhere else to sit except the armchair in the corner, the one that was here when I moved in eight years ago and I never bothered to replace.
I lower myself into it. The springs creak. Nolan glances up.
“All done?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” He returns to his phone.
I should go to sleep. Should claim the couch, set up the bedding, establish the routine. But it’s barely eight o’clock and the idea of lying down while he’s still awake feels wrong somehow. Vulnerable.
So I sit there watching him not watch me. Counting the seconds until the compliance ping gives us something to do besides marinate in this unbearable tension.
The silence stretches. I can hear the city outside—traffic, distant sirens, the white noise of eight million people living their lives. Inside, nothing but the sound of our breathing and the soft tap of Nolan’s thumb on his phone screen.
I study him without meaning to. The way the lamplight catches his hair. The line of his jaw, the curve of his ear, the slope of his shoulders under that soft grey henley. His lips are slightly parted as he reads, pink and full and—
He looks up. Catches me staring.
Our eyes lock. Something electric passes between us, the same current that’s been humming under my skin all day. His breath catches—I see it, the slight hitch in his chest—and his tongue darts out to wet his lower lip.
I track the movement. Can’t help it. My whole body remembers what that mouth felt like under mine.
For a long, charged moment, neither of us moves.
Then Nolan clears his throat and looks back at his phone. “There’s a documentary about penguins if you want to watch something.”
“Penguins.”
“I like nature documentaries.” His voice is too casual. Too light.
“Fine,” I hear myself say. “Penguins.”
TV is probably a good idea. It’ll give us something to occupy us.
He pulls up the documentary. The TV is small, mounted on the wall opposite the couch. There’s no way to watch it from the armchair without craning my neck at an awkward angle.
“You can sit here,” Nolan says, shifting to make room. “Better viewing angle.”
Now what is he playing at?
It’s a test. It has to be. He’s seeing how much I can take before I break.
I shake my head. There’s no way I’m sitting that close to him. I drag the armchair, moving it onto the far side of the couch. It completely messes up the layout of the room.
He watches me with a curl to his lip like I’m doing something he finds funny. I want to tell him to fuck off but I’m not giving into this. It’s what he wants.
He turns the TV on and we watch in silence. The emperor penguins on screen might as well be static for all the attention I’m paying.
The compliance ping shatters the moment.
We both jump, reaching for our phones. The app notification blinks on both screens: VERIFICATION REQUIRED. 15 MINUTES TO COMPLY.
“Hallway,” Nolan says, already standing. “Better lighting.”
We move to the narrow space between bedroom and bathroom—the same hallway where this morning happened—and try to figure out the logistics. Both faces visible. Both phones. GPS verified.
We end up close, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body. We’re close enough that his scent wraps around me.
He holds up his phone. I do the same.
Our eyes meet through the screen, and for one moment the mask slips. I see it—the same want I’m choking on, the same furious attraction neither of us asked for. His lips part slightly. His breath catches.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
I watch his mouth form the words. Watch him swallow. Watch the pulse jump in his throat.
The camera clicks.
“Got it,” he says, but he doesn’t step back immediately. We stand there, phones lowered, inches apart in the dim hallway.
“Nolan—”
“Don’t.” His voice is quiet but firm. “Whatever you’re going to say. Just don’t.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t care.” He turns his back on me and the bedroom door closes between us.
I set up on the couch with a blanket from the hall closet. I lived here for almost three years. Built my company from this kitchen table. First place I ever owned.
It’s never felt less like mine. Everything smells like him.
The 3am ping drags me from a half-doze.
I stumble to the bedroom door, knock twice. Nolan emerges rumpled and bleary-eyed, hair a mess, shirt twisted and riding up on one side.
I see the bruise.
It’s on his hip. Finger-shaped. Purple and livid against his skin.
I put that there. I grabbed him hard enough to bruise while I was shoving him against the wall, while I was taking him apart with my mouth, while I was—
Nolan catches me looking. His hand moves to tug his shirt down, but it’s too late. I’ve seen the evidence of what I did, marked into his skin.
I’ve never left bruises on anyone before. I have more control than that. It’s not who I am.
“Sorry about that,” I say, nodding. “It wasn’t intentional.”
“Okay.” He says it the same way, neutral, agreeable. “Can we take the photo now? I’m tired.”
He holds up his phone. After a moment, I do the same.
The flash goes off
“Goodnight,” he says when it’s done.
“Nolan, wait.”
He pauses, hand on the doorframe. “I—” I don’t know what I want to say. Apologize again? Explain? Beg him to yell at me so I can stop feeling like I’m losing my mind? “This is going to be a long two weeks.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile, but not quite.
“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
The door closes. I’m alone.
I lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling and listen to Nolan breathe through the wall, and I think about the bruise on his hip, the shape of my fingers pressed into his skin.
I called it a mistake. But I marked him like he was mine.
I said I don’t lose control, but here I am at 3am, hard and aching, thinking about doing it again.