Chapter 17 - Lola
Lola couldn’t breathe.
Dane had her pinned.
Not roughly. Not with force. But with a slow, consuming inevitability that pressed his body into hers, his hands braced against the wall on either side of her head, their chests crushed together.
She could feel the heat rolling off him, the wild energy beneath his skin, caging her in like she was prey.
Her spine pressed hard into the wall, her breath caught between panic, fury, and something much more dangerous.
Lust.
It burned low in her belly, treacherous. She hated that her pulse fluttered like this. Hated that the nearness of him, the sharp scent of pine and storm clinging to his skin, made her knees feel unsteady.
Dane swallowed, reason ebbing back away as wildness reclaimed his eyes. His teeth bared, and she felt the insistent pull of submission deep in her gut at the overwhelming scent of him.
“You’re not leaving this house,” Dane growled, voice dark velvet, threaded with steel, “not until I know it’s safe out there.”
Lola shoved at his chest. He didn’t move.
“Get off me.”
“Not until you hear me.”
She tilted her chin, glaring up at him. “Oh, I’m listening. To you, acting like a caveman.”
“A caveman who just caught a rogue alpha’s scent too close to our border. A caveman who knows how easy it would be for someone like that to find you.” His voice dropped even lower, almost a snarl, “And you think I’m going to just let you walk into that danger? When you’re carrying my child?”
There it was again.
That word. That claim.
Her stomach twisted with a thousand emotions at once: fear, want, rage, need.
“I’m not a piece of glass, Dane,” she hissed, “I don’t need a damn curfew or bodyguards or a patrol of overbearing shifters sniffing around me every time I leave the apartment.”
“Yes,” he snapped, leaning in so close she could feel the heat of his breath against her jaw, “you do. Until this threat is handled. You don’t walk alone. You don’t go out at night. And if you think I won’t throw you over my shoulder and lock you in my bedroom, try me.”
Lola shoved him again, harder this time. Her voice cracked under the force of her fury, “You don’t get to own me, Dane! You can’t just switch it on like a light the second I become inconveniently precious to you!”
His jaw clenched, and his eyes went feral, “Precious?” He laughed once, low and dangerous. “You’ve always been precious. You think I stopped watching you? Thinking about you every second? You think it didn’t kill me every time I handed Sam over and you looked through me like I was nothing?”
“You made yourself nothing to me,” she spat, “you rejected me. You made me feel small.”
Something in him flinched. Just a flicker.
And still, he didn’t move. His body was close, too close, and her body was betraying her more by the second.
Every nerve ending was alive with awareness of him, with the memory of his hands on her skin, the way his mouth had tasted when he kissed her like she was the only thing tethering him to earth.
She hated how much she wanted him.
“Let me go,” she whispered, but her voice wasn’t strong enough.
He didn’t.
Instead, he pressed in just a breath closer, one palm flattening against the wall beside her ear.
“You think this is about possession?” he said, voice low and trembling with restraint.
“This is about protection. About the fact that I can’t sleep if I don’t know you’re safe.
That I can’t think when I’m not near you.
You think I’m proud of this? That I like how you get under my skin until I don’t even know who I am? ”
Her breath hitched.
“I don’t want you in a cage, Lola,” he said, “I want you alive. I want our child to be safe. And I want you to stop fighting me like I’m the enemy.”
Lola looked up at him, lips parted, heart thudding so loud it drowned everything else out.
His pupils were blown wide. His breathing was shallow. And he was looking at her mouth again, like he wanted to devour her.
And still, she couldn’t move.
Because the truth was, part of her did want to be possessed. Not caged…chosen.
But it wasn’t that simple.
And it never would be.
“You think growling and ordering me around is going to fix the damage you already did?” she whispered. “You can’t just storm back into my life, press me against a wall, and pretend it changes everything.”
His eyes locked with hers.
And for the first time since he’d arrived, something in him hesitated.
She could barely see him through the blur of rage.
Dane stood in her apartment like he belonged there, like his presence, his growled commands, his fists clenched at his sides, were some kind of comfort. As if just being here was enough to prove something.
It wasn’t.
It was insulting.
She shoved against him with all her might, and this time, he let her go, his eyes tracking her every movement.
Lola paced a tight line across the room, her heart hammering in her throat. She couldn’t sit down. Couldn’t breathe. She was too hot, too wired. Her skin prickled with adrenaline, her stomach was a mess of nausea and fire, and her mind wouldn’t stop screaming.
“You really think you get to decide now?” she snapped, spinning to face him, “You get to reject me, then march in here the second you get a whiff of responsibility, and what? Play house?”
Dane flinched, barely, but it was enough.
“Lola—”
“No. Don’t ‘Lola’ me like you’re being reasonable. You told me we couldn’t be anything. That it was a mistake. That you didn’t do relationships.” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t care. “You made me feel like a fucking idiot for wanting you.”
“I never—”
“Bullshit!” she yelled, “You might not have said those words, but I heard them. Every single time you looked at me like I was a complication. Every time you left without saying goodbye. Every time I walked into a room, and you looked through me.”
He moved toward her, slow and deliberate, but she stepped back like his presence was a slap.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,” he said. “You don’t know how much I—”
“I know exactly how much!” she snapped. “It was written all over your face when you decided one night with me was enough to get it out of your system!”
He froze.
And then, with her voice ice-sharp, she said, “You don’t want me. You want the idea of me now that I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
Dane stood like he’d been sucker-punched, his hands flexing uselessly at his sides, his jaw working around words he couldn’t seem to form.
She hadn’t meant to say it. Not like that. Not so cruelly. But it was out now, sharp and ugly and true in the worst way.
He exhaled, shaky, ragged, and rubbed a hand across his jaw. His voice came quiet, a rasp, “That’s not why I’m here.”
“No?” she shot back. “Because that’s damn convenient timing, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know how to be with you,” he said, “I didn’t know how to…want something and keep it. I told myself it was better if I let it go, because I couldn’t handle the idea of screwing it up.”
“Congratulations,” she hissed, “you did it anyway.”
“I know I did.”
He looked stricken, like he wanted to grab her, hold her still, shake sense into her or himself.
But she was already spiraling, emotions tearing through her chest like claws, “You broke my heart, and I let you. I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, you meant it when you looked at me like I was more than just a damn mistake.”
His mouth opened. Closed.
She laughed, sharp, ugly, shaking, “You didn’t mean it, Dane? You didn’t mean the rejection? You didn’t mean pushing me away like I was some embarrassing secret?”
“I meant—” he stopped, fists clenched. “I meant I was scared. And I didn’t know how to handle something that real.”
“Scared?” she echoed, “You think I wasn’t scared? You think I wasn’t terrified the whole time that this was too good to be true? That I was going to get hurt? But I still let you in. I let myself feel something—”
“I did too!”
“Then you should’ve acted like it!” she screamed.
Sam wailed in his cot.
Her whole body was trembling now, her chest tight with the force of it, her throat raw from yelling. “You don’t get to be the victim here. You left me alone with this. You made me feel like I wasn’t enough for you to stay.”
Dane stared at her like she’d ripped something out of him. But she didn’t care.
Not now.
Because she was exhausted from holding all of it in. From pretending she was fine. From hiding behind her stupid pride and dry sarcasm and acting like he hadn’t ruined her.
“I would’ve given you everything, Dane,” she said, voice trembling, tears welling in her eyes, “and you threw it in my face.”
His chest heaved. “I didn’t know what to do with everything I felt.”
“I thought we were building something,” she cried, “and maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I’m the idiot for… for assuming there was more to this than just… just sex. And I thought you felt the same way, too.”
That word hit him like a blow.
Good.
“You want me to fall back into your arms now because I’m carrying your baby?” she asked, voice rising. “You want to swoop in and play the hero? Patch over the rejection with your alpha instincts and protectiveness, like it’s supposed to make everything okay?”
“I just want to fix it.”
“It can’t be fixed,” she shouted, tears spilling out now, “can’t you see that?
How am I ever supposed to know that you actually want me, and this isn’t just some stupid alpha thing?
You had your chance to choose me, and you hid behind your responsibilities.
Now that I’m one of them, you’ll finally open up to me?
Like I’m some… some… burden for you to bear? ”
He moved then, slowly, one hand reaching out, tentative.
She slapped it away.
“You only want me because you’re scared to lose me now. That’s not love. That’s desperation.”
“I do love you.”
It was the first time he’d said it.
And it made her flinch.