CHAPTER 29 JARED #2
I pull my baseball cap down over my eyes, go inside, and notice that the reception desk is on one side of the room, while on the other there’s a glass entrance to what looks like a room full of gaming machines, where several people are hanging out…
An older, heavyset alpha is sitting at the reception desk, smoking foul-smelling cigarettes.
I immediately get a bad vibe, but I walk up and ask, "How much is a room?"
The alpha raises his bushy eyebrows and looks me over.
Then he points with one thick finger toward the wall, where someone has written a price list on a piece of paper with a marker.
His gaze lingers on me with a strange mixture of ‘wow’ and some kind of contempt.
He pulls the cigarette from the corner of his mouth and crushes it into an ashtray overflowing with butts.
No, this really isn’t a good place for me.
"Thanks for the info," I say and turn to leave the reception area, but then two alphas come out of the room with the gaming machines, cigarettes in their hands, apparently planning to smoke outside.
I pass them, feeling the tension in my body.
Their eyes are on me, their eyebrows raised, and that all-too-familiar interest is very much there, the kind I always seem to provoke wherever I go, especially in little backwater places.
"Hey, babe, what’s up?"
I say nothing and simply quicken my pace, but I hear their footsteps behind me.
"Hey, wait. We never get people like you around here. Where are you from? Wait!"
I reach my car and pull out my keys, but they’re already right beside me.
Cursing under my breath, I remember my gun is tucked away in the glove compartment. I was one second too late…
One of the alphas positions himself so that I can’t open the door.
"Babe, we just want to talk. Can’t you spare us a few seconds? We know you from somewhere. Are you some kind of celebrity? I recognize those lips…"
The other one says, "I think I know him. He has an Instagram, JarringMe!"
"Leave me alone," I spit through clenched teeth.
"Hey, hey, what’s with the bad attitude? We’re just your fans."
I’m standing with my back to the parking lot, but I hear the sound of tires as a car pulls in and stops nearby.
"Wait, maybe we can get an autograph…"
"Leave me alone!"
"But what’s the problem? We’re decent guys, we just wanted to talk…"
"But I don’t want to. Do you understand that?"
I try to slide the key into the door lock again, cursing Storm in the back of my mind because his set of keys doesn’t have a battery for remote unlocking.
But then the other alpha grabs my hand, and the keys fall to the ground.
Growling angrily, I crouch down to pick them up, and at that moment I hear some kind of loud thud behind them.
One of the alphas crashes to the ground, and a second later, the other one does too…
I spring to my feet and turn around, only to find myself standing face-to-face with…
Mauro.
Oh, wow!
My first instinct is to throw myself into his arms. But I fight it down.
I have to remember Tommy!
"No!" I blurt out, feeling an unexpected wave of anger, in some ways even stronger than what I feel toward the two idiots groaning now on the gravel parking lot.
"Are you following me?" I throw at him, my voice full of hurt. "How dare you? What do you want?!" I snap stupidly, then start backing away, circling around the car.
Mauro follows me step for step, his eyes dark as he watches me from beneath narrowed lids.
"Leave me alone. You’ve been lying to me from the very beginning!
One secret after another, and I don’t even know how many there were anymore.
You should have started with the truth back there, in the forest!
You should have told me who you really are, who your fucking brother is, that rapist—" My voice is breaking.
"How could you, how could you toy with me like that, pretending to be someone else…!" I’m sobbing now, feeling a searing pain in my heart because I know I’m not being entirely fair, but the hurt and bitterness are too strong.
Mauro says nothing, of course, staring at me so intensely that it’s as if I’m the only object in existence in the entire universe. There’s something tragic, pleading, obsessive, and pained in his gaze…
He’s wearing a black jacket over a black T-shirt and black leather pants, and he looks fucking amazing. My eyes randomly drop toward his flat stomach, and lower, but I quickly lift my gaze again, mentally slapping myself for it.
"I can’t think about all of this! Just leave me alone! As long as you’re around me, Tommy and I will never be safe, do you understand?" I throw straight at his face, and I see that my words have an effect on him.
His full lips twitch slightly, and he takes another step toward me, but I jump backward.
"Leave me alone, don’t you understand?!"
But he isn’t going to. He takes another step, reaching out to grab me, but I turn around and… completely idiotically, start running.
It’s not that I believe I can outrun him.
But I’m being pulled apart by such powerful emotions that I simply can’t deal with them right now, and I think I need to release them in some kind of violent burst of physical effort.
The motel is right next to the forest, so I plunge between the trees, wanting to get as far away from him as possible in the hope that he’ll finally leave me alone and let me think things through in peace. Or maybe hoping he will follow? You never know with me…
And Mauro clearly has no intention of keeping away. I hear his footsteps behind me on the forest floor.
"Leave me alone, leave me alone!" I shout in a wave of anger.
"You liar!" I scream, still running and running. I know I’m throwing this word at him unfairly.
Mauro has never lied to me outright, he also said he will explain everything after my recovery, but it just comes pouring out of me.
Mostly because I'm devastated. I know he isn't the only one at fault here.
The one to blame is fucking Fate, for creating this impossible obstacle:
Mauro’s past… and my past.
Making whimpering sounds, I push forward, but… I’m not entirely sure I want to run very far. It’ll be getting dark very soon, and venturing deeper into the dark forest isn’t exactly appealing to me. Also I’m not going to escape a young alpha anyway, duh.
I stop beside a tree and press my back against the trunk, looking at Mauro as he follows me at an unhurried, effortless jog…
He stops directly in front of me.
We stare at each other.
"What do you want? What can you give me, Mauro? Uncertainty? Having to hide from that motherfucker for the rest of my life, living in secrecy? I think you knew that perfectly well, because you weren’t the one who came to me.
You knew well that the life you could offer me wasn’t meant for someone with a child. "
A pained grimace appears on Mauro’s face.
He looks away for a moment, then reaches for his phone, but I take a quick step toward him and slap my palm against the surface of his phone, knocking it out of his hand and onto the ground. I stare at him defiantly, my eyes blazing.
"No!" I growl irrationally, but as a result of my movement, my hand is now resting on his hand instead of the phone, and I feel such an intense, pleasant rush that I become completely still, simply surrendering to it.
Fuck.
I can’t fight it, I can’t, so I close my eyes.
His energy is intoxicating.
I can’t get enough of it.
My hand remains clasped against his palm, but then slowly, his fingers move until they intertwine with mine…
It’s like he’s a massive planet with a powerful gravitational pull, and I, like an asteroid, am drawn helplessly toward him.
And so I lean into him, my forehead resting against his chest. I breathe deeply, all that effort, all those nerves, finally finding an outlet in this sudden rush of sensations, in emotions so completely opposite to what I should have in a situation like this.
"I like you, so fucking much…" I suddenly mumble.
Maybe I should hate him, push him away… but I’m drowning in him instead.
Before I even realize what I'm doing, I find myself wrapping my arms around Mauro, and I don't remember telling my hands to do it.
I can hear his heart pounding loudly.
What's astonishing is that Mauro smells different now. Something is breaking through his usual mix of scents from his grooming products, something powerful, alluring, utterly irresistible to me. I take a deep breath, and my head starts spinning.
I feel his hand slide over my back and then over my head, tenderly, so tenderly that it almost kills me… tearing through me with pain.
His thumb brushes against my ear, that strange, pointed ear I've hidden beneath strands of hair.
The touch tickles me, excites me, sends me soaring on a wave of pink bubbles.
Instinctively, almost playfully, I raise my hands and, responding to his gesture, slip them beneath his thick curls, placing them over his ears, and then…
in a split second, I feel them changing, becoming more like mine, pointed.