Chapter 24 #2
“Atlas—”
“Don’t. I don’t deserve that from you. Not when—when—”
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll still lo—”
“DON’T!” he shouted, cutting me off before I said the thing that irrevocably changed us. I held my breath in the quiet that stretched. Then, quieter, he continued, “Don’t promise me that. I wouldn’t survive it if you took it back. You don’t even know who I am.”
“Then show me!” I yelled back. “Take that stupid mask off and let me in! Let me know you. I want you. I choose you.”
He looked at me with the eyes of a broken man and merely shook his head.
Our food sat cold and forgotten, the kitchen in a state of abandoned disarray.
Just like us.
I couldn’t look at him anymore. Throwing my napkin onto the counter, I stormed into the bedroom, hand over my mouth to stifle my sobs.
How had this spiraled so horribly? I knew he cared for me. I knew it in my bones. Maybe he didn’t feel for me as strongly as I felt for him yet, but that could change. We could grow, with time.
The rest didn’t matter. Whatever he told me, we’d work through it, because we were… we were…
We were mates.
It was real. We’d found each other despite every horrible thing life threw at us, and he wanted to hide from it? Why?
My belly cramped, and I shivered, cold without his touch. The symptoms that first brought me fear and trepidation morphed into joy beneath his hands, sculpted into pleasure and safety.
And now, emptiness. My last wave was here.
I sat on the bed, sobbing so hard my body shuddered.
“Sweetheart…” Atlas stood in the doorway, gripping the wooden frame. His voice was thick with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t—I should’ve—”
Another wave of need rolled through me. “I don’t care what you should’ve done,” I croaked, holding my hand out for him. “Or what you regret. Everything hurts without you. It always hurts without you, Atlas.”
He saved me the embarrassment of begging and came to me immediately.
Night had descended while we fell apart. My bedroom was dark, with only the faint light of the moon filtering in over the lake.
“I’ll make it better,” he whispered, kissing the tears from my cheeks. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you. Even when you don’t see me.”
Lying me back against the bed, he worshipped my body from head to toe. His lips glided over my skin, sucking at my sensitive nipples until they peaked, before trailing down to my belly.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. “So perfect.”
The darkness made me bold. Without seeing him, I could pretend he wasn’t wearing a mask at all, and this wasn’t an ending, but a beginning.
Fresh tears tracked down my cheeks. “Make love to me? Please? Even if you don’t mean it, I want to know what it feels like to be with you when you love me. Just once.”
His hot breath fanned against my stomach with a broken moan. “Roll over.”
Oh, God, I’d gone too far. He didn’t even want to face me after that—
“Max.” He kissed my belly, hand stroking my cock. “My love. Roll over.”
I wasn’t prepared for how true the lie would sound on his lips. I obeyed, unable to do anything but.
Propped up on my elbows, I hugged the pillow he slept on and shivered as his kisses trailed up my body. His hard cock tagged my thighs and ass when he settled over me.
“I love you,” he whispered when he pushed inside me.
I gasped. After days and days of heat, he tunneled right into the heart of me, slick and hot.
“I love you,” he said again, arms wrapped around my shoulders and chest to hold me still. “I love you so much it drives me mad.”
Over and over, with each thrust, he unraveled me. He spoke life and death into me. Maybe it was his peaking rut or my omega pheromones overwhelming him.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was real—and he wanted the rejection anyway.
It wasn’t until he made me come the first time and I reached over my shoulder to pull his mouth to mine that I realized… there was no itchy mask in the way.
Only stubble and soft, pillowy lips.
With a gasp, I ran my fingers through his tangled hair. “Atlas!” I couldn’t see him in the dark, but it didn’t matter. I’d know his scent and the feel of him against my skin blind.
“Max,” he groaned, knocking our sweaty foreheads against each other. “Just give me one more night. One more with you, when you want me. Please?”
“I’ll always want you,” I promised, gripping his hair between my fingers. “Always.”
He groaned, a broken sound bitten off by the punch of his cockhead into my breeding gland.
He made love to me like that, bringing us to the edge with steady, forceful thrusts into that magic button.
He’d pull out just before it contracted and sucked the cum from him, and then do it all over again.
The heat in my veins grew to a fever pitch, but I didn’t want it to end.
I reached down so I could feel him moving inside me.
“I’ll never let another in here,” I said, drunk on him. “Only you.”
He snarled, teeth ghosting on my neck. “Just me?”
“Just you,” I whimpered, hoping he’d forget this awful night and bite me. “You’re my m-mate. Make me yours.”
He didn’t.
We shuddered together one last time, his knot snug inside, and I felt the heat leave my body like the last dregs of a sickness finally purged. He held me tight, chest pressed against my back.
Secretly, selfishly, a tiny part of me hoped he was right—that the bond would dissolve, and my love for him would go along with it.
But of course, it didn’t. Because along the way he’d latched onto my heart, wrapping those tentacles around and around, and this thing between us wasn’t about a bond at all anymore.
It was love. Love that he wouldn’t accept.
I cried again when his knot softened, much faster than before, and he pulled out. I’d never been as empty as I was right then.
Anxiety rolled off him. Usually his scent after sex lulled me into sleep, but now the copper was sharp, and the ozone tasted like stress. Did he regret what he’d said already?
I didn’t want to face it tonight. I didn’t want this to end.
“Don’t leave me,” I begged, turning in his arms to face him. The outline of his features was visible, but the details still hid from me, leaving only his shining, tear-filled eyes glinting in the dark. “Promise me, you’ll be here in the morning. Whatever it is, we’ll face it in the morning.”
He kissed the tip of my nose, and then my forehead, and pulled me into his chest with a shaky exhale. “I promise.”