Chapter 3
Chapter three
Alex
I hold it together all day.
Through Tomlinson and his honest eyes and the thing he said about breathing.
Through Becky and her friendly questions and the smile with the agenda underneath it.
Through the stares in the main building and the gym and the dining hall, all those bodies clocking me wrong without knowing why, all that weight of being watched and not being able to say anything or do anything about it.
I hold it together through all of it.
Then Dalton opens the cottage door and the lamp is on and the room is exactly as we left it and I walk in and something just goes.
"I don't have any clothes," I say.
Dalton looks at me.
"I have what was in that bag." I look at the bag, still on the floor where I left it this morning.
"That's it. That's everything. And tomorrow I have to walk back into that building and everyone is going to stare at me again and I have nothing to wear that isn't—" I stop.
"I've been in red or grey for years and now there's no uniform and I have nothing and everyone was watching me all day like I'm a freak that got out of a cage and I don't—"
I stop.
Dalton hasn't moved. He's standing near the door with his jacket still on and his eyes on my face, not trying to stop me or redirect me, just watching, the way he watches things he's taking the full measure of.
"I want to go home," I say. Quiet. "I want Leo. I want Gray. I want Jake and Jim and I want—" My throat does the thing. "I want RJ to not be at rock bottom in a room I can't get to."
Dalton crosses to me.
He puts his hands on my face, tilts it up, looks at me — directly, no distance, just Dalton with his thumbs on my jaw and his eyes on mine.
"Feel me," he says. Low. Not a question.
I breathe.
"Right now," he says. "Feel me."
The bond runs warm where his hands touch my skin, the heat of it spreading up my jaw and into my chest, and I breathe again and feel him — solid weight, his scent close, the bond running certain and here.
"You don't get to fall apart without me," he says.
"I'm not falling apart," I say.
"Mmmhmm." His thumbs move slightly on my jaw. "And I'm right here."
I look at him. What's in his eyes isn't the careful professional thing — it's been building since the yard and the common room and all the nights since.
I close the distance.
He meets me before I get there.
His mouth is certain, no hesitation, his hands sliding from my jaw into my hair, and the bond blazes up my wrist immediately — heat and want and the relief of being kissed by someone who knows exactly what they want.
I grab the front of his jacket and pull and he makes a low sound against my mouth and walks me backward until my back meets the wall.
"Here," he says. Against my lips. "Not going anywhere."
"Yes," I say.
He pulls back just enough to look at me — checking, making sure I'm here and not in my head. I pull him back and he comes, his body against mine, his hands moving to my waist and sliding under the hem of my shirt, his palms flat against my skin.
"Cold," I manage.
"I'll fix that." Against my throat, his mouth moving down, the promise in it deliberate and specific.
He undresses me without rushing any of it.
His hands move over each piece of clothing before he removes it, like he's paying attention to what's underneath before he gets there — the curve of my waist, the line of my ribs, the soft skin at my hip that makes me pull in a breath when he traces it.
He registers each reaction and comes back to it.
The inside of my wrist. The spot where my neck meets my shoulder.
The place just below my ribs that makes my stomach pull tight every time.
He gets me down to nothing and steps back and looks at me.
I let him look.
"Come here," he says.
He lays me back on the bed and undresses.
He takes his time working down my body — his mouth at my collarbone, my sternum, the curve of my stomach.
His stubble drags across my skin and I feel it everywhere, a slow burn that builds with every inch he moves.
His hands hold my hips and he puts his mouth on the inside of my thigh and I grab the sheets.
"Dalton—"
"I've got you," he says. Against my skin. "I've got you."
His mouth moves to my center and I stop being coherent.
He's unhurried and absolutely precise, his tongue working in slow circles while his hands keep me exactly where he wants me, and every time I get close he reads it and adjusts — not backing off, just changing pressure, changing angle, keeping me right at the edge until I'm pulling his hair and saying his name like a warning.
"There," he says, when he finds the thing that makes my hips lift off the bed.
"Don't stop—" I grab his hair. "Don't stop—"
He doesn't stop.
I come apart under his mouth with my hand fisted in his hair and the bond blazing hot on my wrist, the mark pulsing with every wave of it.
His name breaks out of me and he stays with me through all of it, his hands steady on my hips, his mouth soft afterward, working back up my body while I'm still shaking.
He moves over me. I pull him up and he comes, settling his weight against me, his forehead dropping to mine.
"Alex," he says. Just that. My name.
"Yes," I say.
He pushes inside me slowly and we both go still.
The room is quiet. The lamp is on. His weight is against me and his forehead is on mine and I feel the wall he's built around this moment — just the two of us, just the bond running hot between us, nothing from the day getting in.
We move together. Unhurried, deliberate, his hands learning what they already know and taking their time with it anyway.
His mouth at my ear saying my name and things that aren't words, his thumb finding my clit and working slow circles that make my breath come in short pulls.
I dig my nails into his back and he makes a sound low in his chest that I feel more than hear.
"More," I say. Into his neck.
He gives me more.
I come the second time with my face pressed to his shoulder, his body driving into mine, the bond on my wrist blazing white, and he follows with my name in his throat and his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave bruises.
***
I don't move.
I don't want to move.
Him on his back. Me against his side, his arm around me, his heartbeat under my palm. The lamp still on. The window showing nothing but dark trees and Alaskan night.
His heartbeat steady under my hand, his arm warm and certain around me, the bond running its quiet hum — that I'm not ready to break. The day sits outside this moment and I'm keeping it there for a little longer.
My other bonds find me when I go still enough to feel them.
Leo has stopped moving — I can tell by the frequency of him, the difference between Leo burning something off and Leo finally putting it down. Gray is what Gray always is, low and constant, the hold of someone who doesn't spike and doesn't drop. Jake tight. Jim reaching.
And RJ.
Patient. Heavy. I press my thumb against my wrist and feel him — alive, present — and under it his howl still lodged behind my sternum where it's been since the van.
I know, RJ. I miss you too.
Dalton's heartbeat is steady under my palm. I focus on it.
"I need clothes," I say.
A beat. "I'll handle it."
I look at him.
"Tomorrow." His arm tightens slightly. "Tonight you don't need any."
I lie there for a moment longer.
Then I sit up.
He lets me go.
The cold air of the room hits my skin and I reach for the sheet and pull it around my shoulders and sit on the edge of the bed and look at the bag on the floor. The map still folded on the table. The empty bookshelves.
"I don't—" I stop. The sheet is soft under my fingers and I focus on that for a second. Start again. "I don't know what I need."
Silence. He doesn't fill it.
My hands twist together under the sheet. "I don't know what I like. I don't know what size I am in anything that isn't issued and I don't—"
My throat tightens. I get through it.
"Since I was fourteen," I say. "Since that night.
" My voice comes out even. "Every day someone has told me what to wear.
Juvenile programs. Feral Academy." The even starts to crack at the edges.
I feel it going and hold it back. "Here is your uniform.
Here is your schedule. Here is where you go.
When you eat. What you're allowed to have. "
My hands have stopped twisting. They're just open in my lap now, palms up, and I look at them.
"And now I'm here and there's no uniform and people are looking at me like I'm supposed to just—" The crack gets wider.
I breathe through it and get myself back.
"Choose. I'm supposed to just choose. And I don't know how because I've never—" I stop.
Breathe. "I don't know who I am when nobody's telling me. "
The room goes still around it.
Then the bed shifts behind me. Dalton moves closer. He doesn't touch me yet — just sits there, solid, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him without being closed in.
He lets it exist.
Then, quiet —
"Okay."
Not I know. Not you're fine. Not it gets easier.
Just that.
My shoulders drop a fraction.
"We don't start with everything," he says. "We start small."
I glance at him.
He's watching me the way he watches things — fully, without pressure, like I'm something worth figuring out and he has the time.
"What colors do you like," he asks.
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because I don't know. I've never been asked. I've been handed things and told to wear them and the things were always grey or red and red is—
"Not red," I say.
Something in his face acknowledges that without making it a thing. "Not red," he says. "What else."
I look toward the window. Dark outside. Just the treeline against the Alaskan sky, the color that isn't grey and isn't blue, somewhere between them with no name.
"The forest," he says, following my gaze. "That deep green. Yes or no."
I think about the trees outside. Dense and dark and solid, the kind of green that doesn't apologize for itself.
"Yes," I say.
"The sky." He tips his chin toward the window. "That color on a clear, sunny day. Brilliant blue."
"Yes."
He nods. Takes it in. Moves on.
"What do you want to feel like when you're wearing it."
That one takes longer.
I think about Becky moving through that building like she owned it. The trainer in the gym who held my gaze a second too long. The table that went quiet.
"Like people think twice," I say.
His mouth shifts. "You already do that."
"I want to do it on purpose."
Something settles in his expression — not quite satisfaction, just the look of a man who has the information he needs and knows what to do with it.
"Strong," he says. "Not restricted."
"Yes."
"Comfortable enough you don't think about it. Not soft in a way that makes you smaller."
"Yes."
"Yours," he finishes.
That one hits somewhere I wasn't ready for. I breathe in.
"Yes," I say. "That."
A beat.
"I'll get you a few things to start," he says. "You try them. Keep what feels right. Toss what doesn't."
I look at him.
"You don't have to decide everything now," he says. "You just have to decide yes or no when you see it."
The sheet is soft under my fingers. My hands are still in my lap.
The lamp is throwing its warm light and outside the window the trees are dark and the bonds are running west and somewhere in this cottage Dalton has a room with a bed and a bag and nothing personal and he is sitting on the edge of mine talking about colors like it's the most important conversation he's had today.
Maybe it is.
"I get to choose," I say.
His gaze holds mine. "Yeah," he says. "You do."
Something settles.
"Okay," I say.
He doesn't move right away. He stays there on the edge of the bed in the low light and I stay there with the sheet around my shoulders and we let the quiet be what it is — not empty, not charged, just the specific quiet of two people who have said the thing that needed saying and don't need to add to it.
Then he lays back down. Come here.
"Get some sleep," he says. Low. Even.
He settles me against him and I pull the blanket up. The window faces the trees. Outside, the dark holds everything I'm not allowed to touch yet — the pack, the distance, RJ somewhere in it.
I close my eyes and let his heartbeat and the bond lull me until sleep takes me.