Chapter 12
Layla
“I’m sorry, Layla. I can’t do this.” Sutton paces the width of our little studio apartment while I sit in frozen silence on the edge of the bed. “I know I said I’d be okay, but I’m not. I’m really fucking not.” He growls and plants a heavy fist in the wall, denting it.
Fear gripped me the second the door closed behind him, and he started pacing when he came back from the training comb. I was afraid to ask him what was wrong, feeling like the question would scare him off. Because it wasn’t a calming pace, it was a questioning pace. Should he stay or should he go?
“What can I do?” My voice is cloying, quiet to keep from spooking him. “I’ll do anything to make this right.”
“That’s just it, you didn’t do anything wrong.
I know you only did what you had to do, what I told you to do, but…
” He sits on a chair at the little dining table in the kitchen area, hunched over with his hands balled in his lap, his knuckles turning white.
I breathe a little easier. The threat of him running reduced, though he still hasn’t looked my way.
“I can’t stop seeing him when I look at you.
When we eat, he’s there. When we sleep, he’s there. When we fuck…”
I dare to stand and walk toward him. “We just need time. Distance. Maybe we should leave. Go home.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t leave the Center, Layla. Our bond isn’t strong enough.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t say it like that.” I hate the hit his confidence has taken since coming here. He used to be so self-assured, bordering on arrogant. He could do anything. Take on anyone. Survive any hardship.
We both should have known better than to think this wouldn’t do irreparable damage to our relationship.
“You know what I mean. It’s not the right kind of bond to keep you safe from other alphas wanting to take you away from me. I can’t protect you the way they can. The way Zayd could.”
“What are you saying, Sutton?” Rage boils in my chest. I think I know where this is going, and I won’t accept it. He survived so we can be together. We must stay together.
Sutton’s chest rises and falls with a heavy sigh. “I can’t stay. You can’t leave.”
“No,” I growl and stomp my foot. “Don’t you fucking dare say what I think you’re about to say.”
“Now that you’ve had him, you will never be fully satisfied with me because our bond—my scent can only go so far. But Zayd… He can give you the life and freedom you deserve.”
“The life I deserve is the one I promised to spend with you. Through good times and bad. We’re supposed to endure it all, together,” I shout through the tears streaming down my cheeks and coating my lips.
So calmly it pisses me off, Sutton explains, “That promise was made in a different time, for a different world. The world—we have changed in a way we never expected, but it’s our reality now, and we need to be realistic.”
“No. We can get through this. I know we can,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I can’t.”
“Sutton,” I sob.
Sutton stands and holds my face in his big, calloused hands, “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Layla. You and Zayd.”
“I won’t do it. I won’t bond with him. Even if you leave, nothing will change. So, you might as well stay.”
On a sad grin, he whispers, “Don’t be stubborn.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I yell.
Sutton wraps his arms around me, plants his lips on my forehead. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how I’m going to deal with seeing him, even when he’s not here. I thought that it would be okay when we were alone together, but it’s almost worse. The ghost of him haunts me.”
“We just need some time. You said it yourself. Just give it more time,” I remind him. And the shimmer in his eyes makes my chest swell with the hope I convinced him.
Sutton kisses my forehead, then trails kisses down the side of my face before burying his nose in the crook of my neck. He breathes audibly, smelling my skin before dragging his tongue up my pulse.
“I can still smell him on you,” he whispers against my skin.
“He didn’t touch me. I swear, he never laid a hand on me,” I say, desperately, hoping he doesn’t get mad and leave after all.
“What did he do? If he didn’t touch you. What did he do?” He nuzzles his nose under my ear and kisses my jaw.
I’m breathless when I answer, “Nothing. I told him not to, and he didn’t.”
Sutton grumbles and nips at my earlobe, making me gasp. “Tell me what you did with him.”
I swallow the lump growing in my throat. “Are you sure…?”
“Now, Layla,” he barks impatiently. Then, more controlled, he pleads, “I need to know.”
I gesture with my chin toward the bed and tell him, “He lay down…” I take a deep breath before admitting, “Naked.”
My heart pounds against my ribs. I’m sure I scared him away. But instead, Sutton lets go of me and walks to the bed. He strips naked and lies down. My jaw slacks seeing his erection standing stiff and thick between his hips.
“Then what?”
My mouth is dry, and my lips are stiff as I struggle to answer. “I didn’t want him looking at me. I felt like that would be worse somehow. Too intimate. So, I told him to close his eyes.” I lick my lips and gulp down air when Sutton closes his eyes.
What is going on? Why is he torturing himself like this? Won’t it just make it harder to look at me and not see Zayd when we have sex?
“Sutton, I don’t think…”
He opens his eyes and says, sternly, “I don’t want anyone to have experienced something with my wife that I haven’t. Now tell me, what did you do next?”
I nod, and he closes his eyes again.
But instead of telling him, I do exactly what I did with Zayd.
I crawl over him. Straddle his hips and sink onto his lap, letting his cock slip deep inside of me.
It’s hard not to lay my body flush against him, embrace and kiss him. He’s my husband. Nothing is off limits with him. But he wants to know how I did this with Zayd, so I keep my distance to give Sutton the same experience.
I ball my hands into tight fists and brace myself on his rippling abs as I ride him.
Sutton reaches for me.
“No. He never touched me, Sutton. If you want it to be the same, you can’t touch me.”
Sutton keeps his eyes closed and puts his hands at his sides again.
My pussy flutters when he grips the mattress the same way Zayd did. The only thing either of them could do to keep their hands off of me.
I roll my hips, working Sutton’s cock, and my clit against him.
Just like Zayd, Sutton grumbles, expressing his frustration with having to keep himself restrained. Just like with Zayd, it sets my body on fire. My channel clamps down on Sutton’s length with every pulse of my orgasm. In no time, Sutton comes with gritted teeth and stiff hips.
“Keep your eyes closed,” I say when we finish. “Zayd didn’t open his eyes until I told him to. Until after his knot…” I bite my lips together.
I don’t know what will be too much information. Does he really want to know everything? He said he wants to do everything Zayd did, but he can’t knot me. Already, his erection is softening.
“Go on,” he insists.
I take a deep breath and tell him, “His knot only lasted a few minutes, but I couldn’t move. I just sat here.” I flatten my hands on his stomach. “Until it was over.” I push myself off of Sutton’s lap and wrap the sheet around myself before telling him he can open his eyes.
“That was it. That’s all we did,” I say, gripping the sheet against my chest.
Sutton reaches out, grabs my arm, and pulls me back into bed.
He says nothing else.
When he starts snoring, I untangle myself from his arms to go get ready for bed.
Even though he’s still fast asleep when I come back, and he wraps his arms around me again when I crawl in next to him, my chest tightens, because I can’t be certain he will be here when I wake up.