Chapter 38 #2
Rafe’s reaction to Aiden’s affinities made a lot more sense, now. He got nervous anytime Aiden’s arms glowed. He backed up any time Aiden ignited something.
He’d been the one to scream when Landon started the firestorm.
Wyatt had pulled him out of it right as Aiden jumped through the flames to fight at my side.
I ran my fingers down his arm again.
“It was a bad call. The mission was wrong from the start. At some point, Wyatt and I realized no one was behind us, but we went into the building, anyway.”
I squeezed his forearm.
“When we got inside, a door slammed, and the fire started.” He shook his head, his gaze going far away. “There were supposed to be children in there. A Telepath was trying to fuck with us, and it spooked Wyatt. They were so strong, I could only protect Wyatt and myself mentally, not physically.”
I took in a breath to speak, and Rafe squeezed my hand on his arm.
“Wyatt’s mind is more important than my skin, darling. I don’t regret what I did. I would do it over again in a heartbeat.”
I blinked back tears, imagining my two Links trapped in a burning building, the shadows trying to protect them while Wyatt’s sanity slipped away.
“Marion healed what she could, but…well, she’s ancient now, but she was still old then.” Rafe gave me a strained smile.
“Who was responsible?” I whispered.
“My father sent out the order,” Rafe swallowed, then dropped his gaze. “We can’t prove it one way or another.”
An anger like I’d never known washed through me. My spine went rigid, my hands flexed as my affinity seemed to vibrate like the rattle on a rattlesnake.
Aiden’s laugh cut off on the other side of the room, his concern for me immediate when he felt the anger inside me.
“Why is he still alive?” I gritted out.
“Because I was too scared to kill,” Wyatt said. I almost jumped. I hadn’t heard him approach us. His expression was grim as his gaze studied on Rafe’s tattoo. “But I’m not anymore.”
Wyatt and I sat on the couch together watching Willow, Mia, and Zephyr stumbling around a beer pong table.
Aiden wasn’t drinking, so any time Mia or Willow landed a ball, Zephyr would drink the cup for him.
Thankfully for Zephyr’s liver, Willow and Mia weren’t doing too well.
Aiden’s sobriety meant that he was sinking a lot of tosses, so the besties were getting pretty trashed.
The employees had already left, so now it was just me and Wyatt on the couch watching the other four while Rafe was glued to his phone near the apartment door.
Wyatt was grinding his teeth so hard, I could practically hear it over the music. The music wasn’t loud –it couldn’t be, given my situation– but I could still hear Wyatt. His jaw was set, his brows furrowed so deeply together, there were two lines between them.
Mia whispered something in Willow’s ear, and Willow cackled, almost stumbling but catching herself on the table. Aiden grabbed the table as the beer cups rattled, and I squeezed my fist to hold the table still while she regained her balance.
Aiden gave me a dimpled grin, then an air kiss.
I dropped my gaze, my cheeks heating because Aiden was just…ugh.
Wyatt huffed a laugh beside me, and I looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Problem?” I asked.
“Nope,” he replied.
I shook my head. “You’re so jealous of him still.”
“Of course I am,” Wyatt said, shocking me. “You looked at me like that once.”
“I still could, Wyatt.” I said quietly.
Wyatt sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Tell me a secret,” I said.
Wyatt scoffed. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you one, too. Your choice, tell me something no one knows.” I said.
Wyatt looked me over, chewing his lip before he spoke. “Willow hasn’t spoken to me since winter break.”
Fucking fuck. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised Wyatt would come right out with something heavy like that.
I cleared my throat, determined not to let the mood die. “Why?”
“No,” Wyatt said, flashing me a small grin. “That’s not how this works. You tell me a secret now.”
I couldn’t help but grin back. “Should I tell you something heavy, too?”
Wyatt gestured with his hands. “By all means.”
“Levi hates me.”
Wyatt coughed, having just taken a sip of his drink when I spoke.
Aiden looked over to us in concern again, but Willow and Mia seemed to be making every effort not to look at Wyatt at all, which was very obvious now that I knew Willow was mad at him.
Her suggestion to trash his office suddenly made a lot more sense.
“Your father hates you,” Wyatt repeated. “Why do you think that?”
“One time when we were kids, Zephyr took my doll, and I chased him. My affinity had just started doing whatever it wanted, and I couldn’t control it anymore. I broke two of his fingers. I thought Levi was going to kill me.”
“What happened?” Wyatt murmured. His eyes were too intense on me, I felt like they were burning a hole in my face.
“My mom told him to fuck off, basically. That happened a lot, especially when she was having a bad day. She’d just sort of disassociate on the couch with an icepack to her chest. When she comforted me and Zephyr that day, I told them Levi hates me.”
I stared across the room, watching Zephyr, as carefree as I’d ever seen as he laughed with my two best friends. He’d never once been angry with me for my affinity. Never once judged me when I’d killed those men in the alley. Never once resented how our lives had turned out as we hid ourselves away.
I owed him so much. Even as my relationships with my Links evolved, I wasn’t sure how any of them could ever top what I shared with my brother.
“What did your mom say?” Wyatt asked softly.
“Nothing,” I replied. “No one said anything. No one disagreed with me.”
Wyatt’s finger trailed down my arm, and I barely held in a flinch. “That’s really sad, Skye.”
I shrugged, then turned sideways and rested my head on the back of the couch. Wyatt turned to face me, sitting the same.
“Will you tell me a fun secret?” I asked.
Wyatt’s eyes darted over my face, resting on my lips for a moment before he smiled softly.
“I only studied psychology to piss off my dad.”
I couldn’t bite my lip in time to stifle my laugh. I giggled, shaking my head.
“That’s stupid.”
Wyatt shrugged, but his returning smile was blinding.
I was so glad to be sitting. Wyatt’s smiles were enough to put me on my ass. They were so few and far between, I had to savor them when I could.
“Your turn,” he said. His finger traced down my forearm to my wrist, and I couldn’t hold in the shiver.
“I glued everything down in your office.” I said.
Wyatt’s finger stopped tracing on my wrist, and he breathed out slowly, then chuckled. Then, his chuckle turned into a laugh, and then he was laughing so hard, his head was thrown back and he was holding his stomach.
I giggled along with him, then looked at the beer pong table where Willow, Mia, Aiden, and Zephyr all stared at us in complete shock.
Wyatt and I only laughed harder.
“Skye, go to bed, I’ll clean in the morning.” Zephyr said, sounding exhausted.
I rolled my eyes. “I am going to bed, but this will take me like five minutes, don’t worry about it.”
Zephyr shrugged, then went back into the apartment where I could see Willow and Mia waiting in the doorway.
Aiden had gone back to get ready for bed, and Rafe had stepped outside to start barking orders down his phone.
Wyatt and I were alone.
He closed the blinds on the door and windows while I dimmed the lights, and then I used my affinity to send all the dishes into the dishwasher in the back. In the time it took Wyatt to sweep the floor, I’d already cleared all the dishes, trash, and placed the chairs upside down on the tables.
He watched me in awe, then shook himself out of it.
“I’m so tired,” I said through a yawn. “Let’s go. Zephyr better be happy.”
“Did you get him a gift?” Wyatt asked.
“We don’t do gifts,” I said. “We’re both impossible to shop for.”
Wyatt hummed, and then I paused before going through the apartment door.
“Thank you for the coat.” I said softly.
Wyatt’s cheeks turned pink. “Yeah, it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” I said softly, placing a hand on his arm. Wyatt stared at my hand in alarm, then blinked at me.
Just as he looked like he was ready to make a move, I slipped away, striding through the apartment door like nothing had happened. I could hear Wyatt’s shaky sigh behind me, and I chewed my bottom lip with some excitement.
We both came to a stop in front of my bedroom door, where I could feel Aiden awake on the other side. We stared at each other for a moment, both awkwardly looking anywhere but at each other, all my earlier bravery gone.
Wyatt fumbled with the hem of his shirt. “I feel like I’m overstaying my welcome.”
“You’re not,” I promised. “I invited you here, I’m not going to send you away. Besides, Rafe stays here whether or not I let him. He does it at the dorm too. He thinks I don’t know.”
“I’m well aware that you’re aware that I stay here,” Rafe’s voice called out, slightly muffled since he was in the kitchen.
I shook my head, fighting a smile. “You can stay, Wyatt.”
Wyatt rubbed his hands together in a nervous move while his eyes darted around. “I don’t want to pull you away from Aiden.”
“You’re not,” I said, slightly exasperated. “Aiden won’t care, Wyatt. You’re the one who gets jealous.”
Wyatt swallowed hard. I watched his throat bob, and was struck with a sudden realization.
He didn’t think he belonged here.
Even as he was invited, and Zephyr hadn’t threatened his life today, he didn’t think he belonged. He’d gotten along with Aiden just fine back at the dorm, but now he was using him as an excuse to keep himself away from me.
Wyatt was stuck in his head, and I had no way to pull him out.
“You can go if you want,” I said quietly.
It was a little manipulative of me. I knew Wyatt didn’t want to leave. I wanted him to stay, but he was still holding back, and I wasn’t sure why.
Wyatt crushing me to his chest was not what I thought would be happening next.
I squeaked as my face pressed against his hard chest, my hands trapped between us, my fingers twisting in his t-shirt. He smelled so good, I almost moaned.
“I don’t want to. But I just…” Wyatt’s deep voice rumbled straight through my body from where he was pressed against me. “I’m sorry, Skye. I’m trying.”
“I believe you,” I whispered.
We stayed that way for several seconds. Whatever tension Wyatt had been holding slowly melted away as he breathed me in.
Slowly, his hands shifted from my back, a little further down to my hips.
He re-tightened his hold on me, and shifted so that he leaned over me more, resting his cheek against mine.
My skin ignited.
Wyatt and I hadn’t been this close since we jumped on each other in his office.
It felt…right. So right. How could he have been fighting this insane attraction?
“Skye,” he whispered against my ear, his breathing suddenly ragged.
I pulled back just enough to snake my arms around his neck. His lips were parted, his face following mine as I moved. “I know.”
One of Wyatt’s hands snaked back up to rest on the back of my neck, and then he angled my head toward him and kissed me. I gasped, partly in shock, but then I completely melted against him.
Wyatt’s arms completely engulfed me. I was trapped against him, but I didn’t want to leave. I was hyper-aware of every point of contact between our bodies, including where his hips pressed against my stomach.
And he was hard.
I’d never actually felt his size before, even though we’d ended up tangled together like this several times. But now, it pushed against me, hard and warm and not easy to ignore.
I’d tried to imagine how Wyatt would be as a lover so many times. After that first time meeting him in the café, before he’d stood me up, I’d daydreamed he’d be gentle, praising me while moving full of passion.
But our next encounter in his office proved me wrong on several of those points. One, he was definitely passionate, but in the opposite direction.
Wyatt would be brutal. I could just tell.
And now that I knew he liked a little pain?
I moaned into the next kiss, his soft lips coaxing mine open. Our first two encounters were rushed. Passionate and hungry, but hurried. The way he was kissing me now was different. Slow. Completely open and unguarded. This was who Wyatt really was.
Maybe part of me liked the push and pull between us.
I definitely liked knowing that I drove him insane.
I wanted to see where that fire led us. I wanted him to stumble after me into my room, where we could fall into bed together and he could completely devastate me the way I’d always known he would.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, he pulled back, resting his forehead against mine.
“You okay?” I asked, my voice embarrassingly breathy. If he ran away from me again…
Wyatt breathed a laugh. “No.”
“Wyatt…” I whispered, my heart pounding. “Come to bed.”
Wyatt was silent for several seconds, and that was an answer on its own. My heart sank. I thought we’d made progress tonight, but maybe we hadn’t. Maybe I was pushing too hard, and he wasn’t ready. I did slap him several times during our last conversation, maybe sex or a hookup wasn’t on the table.
Ugh. Of course it wasn’t on the table. I was pushing this way too fast after he’d asked for things to be slow, and–
“Not tonight,” Wyatt replied, grinding my thoughts to a halt.
I smiled.
Not tonight. That didn’t mean never.