Chapter 17 #2
“Not dancing.” He sends me a sly smile. “Honestly? I think you’re going to like this reveal. Noah, I get off on watching porn where guys who are a hell of a lot smaller than me hook up with guys my size.”
For a long minute, all I can do is stare at him. “No way,” I finally say, or maybe croak. “You really are the alpha to my omega, aren’t you?”
Milo bursts out laughing. “If you’re into wolf shifter romances, I guess.”
I can’t quite look him in the eye. “I, um, maybe started downloading some of those on my e-reader recently. Maybe.”
“Well,” Milo says, and now his voice is low and deep.
“You should probably know I enjoy the hell out of those books. Maybe it’s time we started reading some of them together.
” He arches an eyebrow. “I’ve got one where there’s this alpha wolf, but he’s the only unmated one in his pack, and he can’t seem to find his omega mate.
Then this human who doesn’t realize he’s half wolf comes along, and they are not the same size, but there’s this instant connection… ”
I grab for his shirt, then his neck, pulling him against me in a long, hard kiss. The idea of Milo and me reading a scene together from a book like that? I’m so turned on now, and all I want is—
Bear suddenly yips, just loudly enough to distract me.
“Fine,” I tell her. “I’ll behave.” Milo laughs, and Bear reaches her muzzle toward me for scritches.
“Me too,” he tells her. He gives me a last peck on the lips.
“Damn, Noah. Now we’ve both got to drive the rest of the way to Montpelier with balls like blueberries.
” He moves to switch the car back on. “Oh, wait.” He pushes the ignition button again and turns back to me.
“I meant to ask you. Everything still okay with your dad? That phone call you got from him last weekend seemed to get to you.”
Shoot. I had a feeling he’d ask me about that again.
I haven’t been keeping the flower thing from him, not exactly.
I just haven’t wanted to talk about it. But I also don’t want secrets like that between me and Milo.
I sigh. “Yeah, something weird is going on. Someone sent my dad flowers, supposedly from me, saying how excited ‘I’ am to see him running for office. Only I never sent them.”
Milo sits up in his seat; I can practically watch his hackles go up. Full-on alpha mode has been activated. “Ezra,” he hisses.
“That’s what I think.” I shrug. “But he insists he didn’t send them.”
Milo’s eyes are fully narrowed now. He shakes his head. “Noah,” he says. “This isn’t good. What did your dad say when you told him?”
I drop my gaze to my lap. “I, um, haven’t told him.”
“Noah.” Milo’s voice is sharper now.
“I know, I know! I should tell him.” I sigh.
“But you didn’t hear him, Milo, going on about those flowers.
They made him so happy. He wants to run, Milo.
I could hear it in his voice. Or at least he wants to keep considering it.
And the card with the flowers wasn’t dangerous, or scary.
It was just a really nice card. Exactly the kind I might send him! ”
“Yeah,” Milo says. “That’s what worries me.” He takes my face in his hands. “Noah, please look at me.”
I force my gaze back up toward his.
“Noah,” he says, his voice soft and serious.
“We can make all the jokes we want about alphas and omegas, but the truth is, I’m not your boyfriend.
Not officially. I’m also not a Dom or a Top in some kind of power-exchange relationship with you, or any kind of person who has the authority to tell you what to do.
But I am someone who’s been manipulated by politicians who are more worried about their own power than doing what’s right for the people they serve. ”
“I know,” I whisper.
“I know you do,” he says. “And Noah, please believe me. I would rather walk over a bed of hot nails than watch you go through what I did. I would do anything in my power to keep you from that kind of pain. So please, Noah, I’m begging you: talk to your father. Tell him the truth. All of the truth.”
I open my mouth to promise him I will. Because I know he’s right. I know, logically, that I should do exactly what he’s saying.
But I just can’t quite get the words out.
Milo frowns as he lets go of my face. “Can you tell me?” he asks. “Can you tell me what’s terrifying you most about taking all of these secrets to your father? This BS with Ezra, and the way he treats you? This?” He adds, as he gestures back and forth between the two of us.
I lean my head back against the seat. The words wash against and across each other in my head, splashing back and forth in muddles of sound.
“I’m not strong enough.” I finally croak the syllables out, and I’ve done enough shame work with therapists in the past—I wasn’t good enough to save my mother, I wasn’t strong enough to stop her from taking her life, I can’t walk into crowded rooms alone—to hear the shame in my voice.
But that shame is what I’m feeling now, and my real feelings are what Milo asked for, and there’s no real part of me I haven’t been able to show to him yet.
“I’m not strong enough to lose him. He’s all I have left in this world.
If he fires Ezra, and that spells the end of everything he’s worked so hard to do, all for me and the memory of my mother…
if he decides not to run and ends up resenting me for it…
” I choke on the words. I can’t even let myself imagine that scene: seeing disappointment on Uncle Stan’s face, watching him turn away from me.
The thought alone has me grabbing my arms around my shoulders, pulling my knees up onto the seat, and wrapping myself up into a ball.
“I understand.” Milo’s words are exactly what I expected and never could have expected at the same time. I whip my head around to look at him.
“How?” I blurt the word out. “How do you always understand? How is it that nothing I show you ever surprises you?”
Milo raises an eyebrow. “Sparks on a live wire, maybe,” he finally murmurs.
I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but he keeps talking before I can ask.
“Chucks,” he says. “I know you’ve spent a lot of years of your life feeling like everyone around you thinks you’re weak.
” He shakes his head. “But you, Noah Hardaway, are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.
You’ve survived things, seen things, that would harden so many other humans.
I know you think you’re still stuck in that wall, Noah. But you’re not.”
I gulp back the lump in my throat and blink at the tears forming around the corners of my eyes.
“You came out of that wall someone who’s determined to make the world better.
Do you know how many hurt people I’ve seen turn around and hurt other people?
” Milo lets out a harsh laugh, and I wince as I think of the grieving father who came for him and his career.
“But you, Noah. You came out of that wall bright. Ready to help, not hurt. And you’re never going to have to worry about being alone again.
” He sends me a small smile. “You came to Devon Falls, remember? Gabe and the rest of the crew? They’re going to make sure you have a family here for life. ”
But what about you? I want to ask. Do I get you for life too?
Too bad I’ll probably never be as strong as Milo seems to think I am. I can’t get those words out, and when Milo starts the car again, they’re still sitting at the back of my throat.