Chapter 17 #3
“…Thanks?” Was it getting hot in here? Elm went to step back, but the alpha’s arm banded around his waist, hauling him against him. The breath knocked out of him as he smacked into him, chest to chest, the tips of their noses practically bumping against each other’s.
Elm’s hands landed on Levi’s shoulders and he gave a push, but the alpha wouldn’t release him. “Stop.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” Levi said, and it was the last word of that statement that had Elm gulping. “Are you hard for me, omega, or is it for the Rabbit God?”
He was hard?!
Elm tried pulling away again, but was only allowed to move a couple of centimeters, enough to glance down and see he was sporting a semi.
It was impossible to miss in the thin material of the silk pants, and he groaned in mortification, and then dropped his forehead to Levi’s chest in a poor attempt to hide.
Why more contact felt safer than allowing the alpha to look at him was beyond Elm’s comprehension, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
“You’re speaking to me again,” Levi said then, the mood shifting into something softer.
Elm almost wished for the sexual charge to return instead. It was a lot easier to understand.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “You saved me from those assholes and stayed even though you were injured.” He licked his lips. “Are you okay?”
“All healed.”
“Cool.” Cool?! Good fucking Light.
Why was he acting like this? Was he really that easy? All a guy had to do was compliment his art, correctly guess that he was lonely, and that was it?
The whole reason Elm had needed rescuing in the first place was because Levi had locked him up. Yet he felt grateful. The alpha sticking around, helping him through his heat even while he was noticeably bleeding out…That scratched at an itch Elm felt like he’d had for years.
Gods help him. It made him feel special.
To be sure, Elm gave a tentative sniff, but while the alpha’s pheromones were present, he wasn’t giving off any targeted ones. Not even the soothing one Elm was used to receiving.
“Let go.” He needed to think. Needed space to do it.
This time, the alpha listened, dropping his arm. He watched Elm retreat, putting little more than six feet between them, and then slipped his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants. It called attention to the ripple of his abs.
Was this a lingering effect of his recent heat?
Unlikely.
Despite what Levi had guessed about the creator of the Rabbit God, Elm had always been in tune with his sexual desires.
Even as a beta, without the mating period as a drive, he’d enjoyed an active sex life.
He’d been the one to proposition Pike even, wearing him down until he’d finally given in and slept with him.
Elm could fuck anyone he even slightly fancied.
But he’d gotten the impression the alpha before him couldn’t say the same.
Levi seemed…particular. Like the type who had to get to know someone before trusting them in his bed.
Which, Elm supposed made a lot of sense considering his position in the mafia, and how that had to paint a massive target on his back.
It couldn’t be easy, trusting people, and sex itself was an act of vulnerability in the sense it left you completely exposed to the other person. Sometimes in more ways than one.
“Were you reading me?” It occurred to him then what the alpha had been up to all those nights he’d stared at him from the other side of the bars. He glanced back at the statue and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Were you picking me apart the same way—”
“Art is all the same,” Levi cut him off, “in the sense it provides clarity. It shines a light on fresh perspectives, opens the viewer up to emotional processing and self-reflection. Each piece tells a story, expresses who the artist is at a fundamental level. The things they believe in. The things they fret over. The things they love and hate, and hate to love.”
Elm shook his head. “I’m not a piece of art, Levi.”
“Aren’t you?”
He retreated another step.
“You’re afraid.” Levi tilted his head, eyeing him from head to toe.
“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” Elm admitted.
“Because I see you?”
“Because—” Wait. He frowned.
“Oh.” The corner of his mouth tipped upward. “There it is again.”
“What?”
“Something you hate to love. You like the idea of someone finally seeing you, but hate that it could be me.”
Elm didn’t know how to address that without digging himself into a hole. He still didn’t even know where he was. He’d dropped his guard thanks to the statue, nostalgia and curiosity getting the best of him for a moment there, but he came back to his senses.
“You don’t know me,” he insisted. “I don’t know what game you’re playing—”
“No game.” Levi held out a palm and beckoned him. “Come. Take it.”
“Hard pass.” Whatever this new tactic was, he wasn’t falling for it.
“You were out for two days. You’re starving, omega.” He wiggled his fingers. “Come. I’ll bring you to the kitchen and feed you.”
“I can find the kitchen on my own.” It was literally just across the room.
“Take my hand. Let me lead you.”
“Or what? Go hungry?” Elm growled when the alpha’s silence told him all he needed to know. “Fine.”
He slapped his palm over the alpha’s, glaring at their joined hands as soon as Levi had his back turned toward him.