Chapter 12 Erik #2
I can’t speak. I can barely think. That scent is everywhere, filling my lungs, coating the back of my throat, making it impossible to focus on anything except the omega in front of me and the primitive part of my brain that wants to pin him down and—
“Thai food,” I manage. “I ordered.”
“Thanks.” He moves past me toward the kitchen. Too close. His shoulder brushes my chest and the contact sends electricity sparking down my spine. “I’m starving.”
I follow him, keeping distance between us, trying to remember how to behave like a civilized person. He settles at the table and starts serving himself, movements slightly uncoordinated, like his body isn’t quite responding the way he expects it to.
I sit across from him and watch him eat. Watch his mouth close around the fork, watch his throat move when he swallows. The scent is stronger now, filling the small kitchen, impossible to escape.
“This is good,” he says. “Better than my pasta?”
“Different. Equally good.”
He laughs—a soft, slightly breathless sound—and something in my chest clenches.
“Very diplomatic.” He takes another bite, chews slowly. His eyes flutter half-closed in appreciation. “I could eat this every day for a week.”
I could eat you every day for a week, my brain supplies unhelpfully. I shove a forkful of pad thai in my mouth to keep from saying it out loud.
We eat in silence for a while. Not the heavy silence from the car—this is different. It’s loaded with something else. Nolan keeps shifting in his seat, restless, like he can’t get comfortable. His cheeks stay flushed. His breathing seems faster than it should be.
And that scent. That impossible, intoxicating scent that’s getting stronger by the minute.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask carefully.
“Fine.” But his voice wavers on the word. “Just... warm.”
He sets down his fork, presses the back of his hand to his cheek. His skin is damp, glistening slightly in the kitchen light.
“You’re flushed,” I say.
“I noticed.” He laughs again, but there’s an edge to it now. A hint of something that might be panic. “I’m fine. It’s just—the apartment’s stuffy. We should open a window.”
I get up, cross to the window, wrench it open. Cool evening air floods in, carrying the sounds of the city—traffic, voices, the distant wail of a siren. It helps clear my head a little, dilutes Nolan’s scent enough that I can think.
When I turn back, he’s staring at me.
His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. His lips are parted, chest rising and falling too quickly. He looks like he did this morning, right before I kissed him in the woods—except more. Needier. Like he’s barely holding himself together.
“Erik,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. “I think—”
He stops. Swallows hard.
“Nolan?”
“I think I’m going into heat.”
The words hang in the air between us. I stop breathing.
Heat. Of course. The sweetness underneath his scent, the flush, the restlessness. All the signs were there and I was too distracted by wanting him to recognize them.
“When?” My voice comes out rough. “How long?”
“I don’t know. Tomorrow, maybe. Maybe tonight.” He’s gripping the edge of the table, knuckles white. “It came on fast. Faster than usual. It must be—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he’s thinking. The match. The pheromone compatibility. Being in close quarters with a highly compatible alpha can trigger early heats, accelerate the timeline.
This is my fault.
“What do you need?” I ask. “Whatever you need, I’ll get it.”
“I need—” He laughs, sharp and bitter. “I need you to stay away from me. Can you do that?”
No, I think. No, I absolutely cannot do that. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to go to him, to hold him, to give him what he needs. The alpha instinct is overwhelming, drowning out everything else.
But I can see the conflict in his face. The want and the fear and the desperate need to maintain control. He didn’t choose this. He didn’t ask for a heat triggered by proximity to me. And whatever’s happening between us, I won’t take advantage of it.
“Yes,” I say. “I can do that.”
His gaze meets mine, then he says, “I should go back to the bedroom.” He stands, sways slightly. I take a step toward him and he holds up a hand. “Don’t. Please. If you touch me right now, I don’t—I can’t—”
He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.
“Go,” I tell him. “I’ll stay out here.”
He nods once, jerkily, and moves toward the bedroom. At the door he pauses, looking back at me with those dark, desperate eyes.
“Thank you,” he says. “For not—”
“Go, Nolan.”
He goes. The door closes behind him.
I stand alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the wreckage of dinner and the lingering sweetness of his scent, and try to remember how to breathe.
The compliance ping comes at 9:23.
I knock on the bedroom door, keep my eyes averted when he opens it. We take the photo quickly, efficiently, not touching. He’s worse than before—skin damp with sweat, scent so thick I can taste it—but he manages to hold himself together long enough to get the verification done.
“Goodnight,” he says when it’s over.
“Goodnight.”
The door closes. I lie down on the couch and stare at the ceiling, listening to him move around the bedroom, listening to the small sounds that filter through the wall.
I don’t sleep.
I can’t sleep. Not with his scent wrapped around me, not with the knowledge of what’s happening on the other side of that door. Every instinct I have is clawing at me, demanding that I go to him, that I take care of him the way an alpha is supposed to take care of an omega in heat.
But he asked me to stay away. So I will.
Even if it kills me.
The night stretches on, endless and excruciating. I lie in the dark and listen to Nolan’s restless movements, his occasional soft sounds of distress, and I think about the woods. About the kiss. About the way he looked at me like I was the answer to a question he didn’t want to ask.
Two weeks of cohabitation. Two weeks of forced proximity. And now this.
Somewhere around 3am, the sounds from the bedroom change. Become more urgent. More desperate.
I press my palms against my eyes and try to think about anything else.
It doesn’t work.