I run my hand up his arm. “And maybe you aren’t as big a fan of reality as you claim to be.” His breath catches as I follow the line of his neck to the base of his ear and flick his earlobe. “You act like you’re empty inside, but you sure seem alive when you kiss me. I may be innocent but I’m not stupid. If you’re empty, then I don’t know what full is.”
He removes my hand gently, eyes confused and defensive. “Misty, I can’t be what you want.”
“You don’t know what I want. You don’t know my hopes and dreams. You don’t know that up until a few weeks ago I had zero hope of being with someone forever. At least you had a hope of it at one time. You lost it, so what? Move on.”
“Are you saying that because you want me to move on with you?” he asks, a sneer in his voice.
“No, I’m saying that because no one around you thinks you are as dead as you think you are. And if you listen to yourself, here…” I poke him gently in the chest, between his pecs. “Maybe you’d see the same.”
“It doesn’t change things. You don’t understand our world. Fated mates don’t happen twice.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and reach up on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Then maybe she wasn’t fated with you.” He jerks back as if hit, and I’m not sure what gave me the audacity to say that.
But I can’t stop thinking of him, and I can’t ignore the way his body responds to me when I touch him, the catches of breath, the tightening of muscle. The way he comes running like a bat out of hell when I’m in trouble.
The way he pushed me up against the wall in the library back when I barely knew him and told me I’d need him.
Maybe he just wanted me to need him.
“You don’t know anything about her. About us.”
“I could if you told me. But I think I should know, given that her fated mate has been tempted to take me multiple times.” I grin at him, feeling powerful in my truth. Nothing he says about me thinking things are too good to be true can change the fact that I know I’m right.
I know how he looked when he kissed me, on top of me, sheened with sweat, a cocky smile on his face, ready to go.
He lets out a low breath and finally gives me a smile, like he’s surrendering to the ridiculousness of the situation. “I’ll give you this, Misty. It’s a confusing situation, but I don’t intend to confuse either of us any longer. You’re an attractive female, I’m an unmated male, there’s nothing more to it than that.”
I frown and release his hand. “Really?”
“Really,” he says.
Then why have I been thinking about him since I first saw his picture? Why have I been unable to put him out of my mind even when I should hate him for hiding things from me.
But, with the wisdom of some sleep and a little distance, I can understand why he didn’t tell me. For one, he couldn’t. For two, he had to have me acting naturally or the perp might have known we were on to him.
It’s enough that he wanted to tell me the truth.
I still don’t know what to make of him not telling me what his pheromones do, but I do that he planned to protect me no matter what happened.
“So what now?” I ask. “We just stay away from each other?”
He gives me a quiet side glance. “I think that would be best.”
“Screw that,” I say, lunging forward and knocking him to the ground.
Chapter 8
Empty? He doesn’t know a thing about empty. He doesn’t know anything about being so alone that the only people you connect to are on the pages of books. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be so lonely that you have literally no one to call.
He doesn’t know what it’s like to have no family. No matter how emo he felt, he had people who cared. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be alone in the world.
And neither do I, ever since he came into mine and joined me there.
I straddle him as he looks up at me with anger and confusion warring in those golden yellow eyes. He makes like he’s going to sit up and push me off, but being a chubby girl has its benefits and I push him back down and cover his mouth with mine.
He growls, low in his throat, and his hand comes up to grab the back of my head as his tongue pushes into my mouth. Heat explodes between us, our searing physicality an intense contrast with the cold emotional feeling in the room.
But I don’t care right now. I have to try just one more time, to get him to be honest, to see what’s really there between us. Because I don’t know what this fated mates thing is, but if I had to guess, Lindon and I are it. Why else would he make me feel unlike anyone else? Why else would he smell so good?
Maybe we’re both just alphas with extra pheromones, but maybe there’s more to it. I kiss him intently, hands moving through his thick, wiry hair, down his firm chest, his long waist.
He pulls away from me with a groan and puts a hand up to keep me from coming closer. “Damnit, Misty. You’re making it impossible to be honorable.”
“Then don’t be,” I say.
He laughs and then his breath catches as I nip his ear lobe. His hand presses me back again. “Misty, stop. We can’t do this now. It’s just pheromones. We both have to control ourselves.”
“What if I don’t care if I get a mate? What if I’m willing to just have fun with you while helping you catch this murderer?” I ask, knowing that this will hurt my heart, but that I’d rather have a little bit of time with Lindon than no more at all.
“Can you really live with that? Have fun with me and then move on with your life? Are you sure you wouldn’t be devastated?”
“Ha,” I say, sitting up and looking at him with lust in my eyes. “I’m not in love with you, Lindon. But I like kissing you. I like kissing you more than I like kissing anyone else.”
“Kissing anyone else?” he asks, eyes darkening.
I nod, a small grin lighting my face. Maybe I’ve found my in. “Jealous?”
He opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it with an angry snap. “No.”
“Really? Because I can’t decide who was best, after you. Lock was good, nice and soft, but dominant. And Jack, he knows how to use his hands…”
Lindon lets out an angry growl and I gasp as I feel my balance thrown and find myself lying under an angry Lindon, who is now crawling over me with golden eyes. “I’ll kill them.” His eyes glitter as they scan over me.
This is the other Lindon. The one that licked whipped cream out of my mouth, who kissed me after nearly fainting. This Lindon is out to play, and judging from the animalistic gleam in those beautiful, long lashed eyes, his intentions are far from proper.
He yanks down the sleeve of my nightshirt and bites the skin there, grazing me with his teeth as his tongue laves me. He gently sucks, and I gasp, knowing that will make a mark.
“Lindon,” I say, shocked that he would do something that he said the others shouldn’t do. Leave a mark.
“I’ll mark you everywhere,” he growls in a low voice. “I’ll make sure they never touch you. Not ever again.” He kisses along my shoulders to my neck, bites again, sucks again, and then kisses over to my shoulder, leaves another hickey just beneath it and above my breast. “No one should see these, but if they do, they’ll think twice about who’s with you.”
I gasp, trying to slow my breathing as my body gets caught up in the heat and power of him, his hands moving under my shirt to graze my thighs, his lips searing mine as he takes them again and pressing his long body fully against mine.
Oh gosh, kissing Lindon. It’s sure to result in an argument later, and it’s definitely not what we should be doing, but boy does it feel more amazing than anything I’ve ever experienced.
And it’s amazing to see sweat beading on his beautiful, tanned skin, anger and concentration and heat in his features as he looks for the next way to convince me and himself that I’m his.
I’m tempted to remind him that he doesn’t want to be my mate, and as such, jealousy shouldn’t really set him off like that. But I guess it always h
as.
I dig my nails into his strong back as he goes deep in my mouth. The first time he kissed me, after that night where I kissed Jack and Lock. The second time after I’d kissed Bradley.
“Lindon,” I say breathlessly, pulling away with a gasp. He gives me an impatient glare and sits back on his knees. He’s so tall, even with that. I just wish this big man wasn’t so conflicted. “If you don’t want me as a mate, you can’t be upset if others do.”
His eyes shutter. “I know that.”
I reach up for his hair and stroke a lock to the side. “So it’s fine if we just have fun like this, but you can’t ruin things for me with other men.”
“The hell I can’t,” he says, nipping my ear. “I’ll tell you what my pheromones do, Misty.”
“What?” I gasp, as he bites down and sucks the sensitive lobe through his teeth.
“Repel other males.”
I try to sit up but he presses me back down easily with one hand. “Oh no, Misty. You’re the one who wanted this. You pushed me to the fucking ground. So now let me tell you exactly what you’re getting.” He inhales the air around him. “See that? The air changes. When I’m with you, I suppress your scent. For a certain amount of time after, I know no one will come on to you. And when they do, it won’t be as intense. It’s another reason Rowan sent me. One of my scent powers is that my scent can overpower almost any.”
He shakes his head. “I swore I wouldn’t use any, that I wouldn’t interfere. But every time I could…smell them on you…I went crazy. I couldn’t control myself. And just as I realize it’s unfair to you, am determined to pull back, you pull me in. So you got me.”
I gasp as his hand digs into my side, his thumb caressing my panty line.
“But you don’t get to say what happens as a result of that. So take me, but only if you don’t mind the fact that I want to keep every other man fucking off of you, even when I can’t have you for myself. I’m selfish, Misty. Selfish and awful.”
I blink up at him, stunned to silence. If he’s selfish and awful, then why did that whole rant turn me on?
Because he wants you, a small voice says inside me. And you want him.
His gold eyes glare down at me. “That’s right, do you hate me now? The truth is out. I want you, and I hate myself for it. Because I know it can only hurt both of us. And I kissed you, even knowing it would mark you. I knew you’d have to choose one of them, but I didn’t want you to.” He gives me a triumphant glare. “There, now you know my secrets.” He eyes something behind me. “Well, except one. I did write that stupid book. I wrote it when I was fifteen and Ava was sick and I was imagining a happy ending that we’d never have. I stayed in a fever dream, so romantic and overdramatic. And when she died, the romance in me died too.”
I simply look up at him sadly, heart breaking for him. I’ve read those scenes over and over, and knowing he is the heart behind them makes them that much more devastating.
And it makes me that much less willing to give up on him or walk away. It makes a lot of sense now, why he wouldn’t want to move on, whether he and Ava were fated or not. That’s so much to go through. After losing someone that way, I wouldn’t want to love again either.
He mistakes my expression for scorn. “So go ahead, hate me. Hate me for being weak, for betraying Ava, and for lying to you. Hate me for wanting to take you now when I know you can never be mine. Hate me for the truth.” He closes his eyes for a moment against the pain. “It’s better than being hated for a lie.”
His eyes open again, a wary vulnerability there now that he has shared so much.
I reach for him, and he flinches, but he leans forward and lets me stroke his hair. I feel like I’m soothing a wounded animal. I pull him forward, wrap my hands around his back and pull him onto me. I can feel the confusion and pain as I draw him down to my chest.
His body is heavy and huge over mine, but his pain is real and I can take it. I run a hand through his hair, trying to show him love. Trying to show him he’s not alone, the way I wish someone had for me when my parents died.
It’s clear he has been alone for too now.
He collapses into sobs against me, silent but heaving, and I hold him and fight back tears of my own. This isn’t about me. This is about a confused fifteen-year-old boy trying to make sense of losing everything.
And I don’t even know everything about mates in his world, so I don’t know just how devastating it was. He seems so sure that he can’t be with someone else that I almost believe him. But I can’t. He’s so vibrant, so wonderful, so stalwart. Heroic, almost, even beneath all that pain.
I can’t give up on him. Not when fate itself seems to have brought us together.
“Lindon,” I say quietly, resting my hand in his hair.
“Shut up,” he says in a low voice. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Hear what?” I ask, humor in my voice.
“That I’m a baby. Rafe and Hawes would never let me hear the end of it. Crying on a female.” He sits up, swiping at the tears, but I pull him forward again.
He pushes away and stands up. “Damnit, Misty, you’re just making this harder.”
“You have too much pain bottled up in there, Lindon, you need to let it out.”
He throws up his hands. “With you? How inappropriate is that? All I’ve done is hurt you.”
I wink at him. “And made me feel amazing.”
“I’m going to break your heart, Misty. I know you’re thinking you’ll fix me, and I’ll change my mind, and we’ll live happily ever after. But things don’t work like that.”
“Why can’t they? This whole thing has been like a fairytale, why can’t you be the prince?” I ask, knowing it’s stupid.
“Because there’s a murderer on the loose, and this is no fairytale. You need to find a mate, the race needs you to do that. And I need to protect you from the bad males and stop spreading pheromones on you that deter potential mates.”
“They aren’t um…that deterred,” I say with a nervous smile.
He frowns at that and then shakes his head. “That’s a good thing, damnit, as long as they don’t get out of hand. So why do I hate it?” He shakes his head again, more violently this time. “Look, Misty. You confuse me. That’s for damn sure. But from here on out I’m going to save us more pain by being distant.”
“Don’t do that, Lindon.” I stand and sit on the edge of the bed, feeling dejected that after everything I thought we’d accomplished, he’s back to wanting to disappear on me. “You’re the only one I trust.”
His eyes widen in disbelief. “You trust me? After all the lies I’ve told?”
“You told me they were lies. Thus they ceased to be lies.”
“Maybe you just want me because I’m safe,” he says, jabbing a finger at me. “Maybe you don’t actually want to commit to someone and so you’re just latching onto someone who doesn’t want to commit.”
I shrug. “It’s possible.”
“You’re impossible,” he says. Apparently he was expecting me to be offended at the accusation that I avoid commitment. He’s not wrong though. It’s quite likely I do. At the same time, it has nothing to do with me wanting to flatten my body against him.
I’m attracted and I just don’t believe he’s doomed to be as alone as he thinks he is.
“You aren’t going to fix me, Misty. I know that face. You aren’t going to fix me and get the happy ending.” His chest is still heaving mildly from making out, and I fold my arms and cross to the door to open it for him.
“We’ll see,” I say, gesturing for him to leave.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t play games with me, Misty. You won’t like it.”
I shrug and close the door behind him, then walk over to slump facedown on the bed. I let out a sigh, aware my body is still whining about the loss of Lindon’s touch, his presence.
But between the kissing, the talking, and his insistence that I can’t win this and I won’t like playing, I can’t hel
p smiling warily.
Getting closer to Lindon is going to be damn hard.
But at least that means it’s not too good to be true.
Chapter 9
“Thanks for being patient with my idiot brother,” Hawes says, putting an arm around my shoulder as we walk outside.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your mate soon?” I reply, grateful he’s stayed this long, but worried that I’m putting him out.
“I’ll head back tonight. First I had to organize the ultimate pile up of man flesh for you. You deserve it for all the shenanigans you’ve put up with.”
“Man flesh pile?” I ask curiously, as he leads me around the back side of the house. All he said when he came to my room after breakfast was to get in something athletic and meet him downstairs for an activity with the guys.
It’ll suck to have him gone, but Lindon does seem to be recovered enough to run things again soon. Now that he doesn’t have to deal with the weight of keeping a huge secret from me on top of protecting me from the guys, he seems to be doing better.
He was quiet and mulish at breakfast, glaring at me once in a while in a resentful way. I don’t know if it was because he’s embarrassed for being emotional in front of me last night or because he knows that I know his weakness now and have no intention of leaving him alone.
Either way, he eyed me like a cat eyes a hawk trying to steal its dead mouse.
I just smiled pleasantly back at him until he blushed and stood up abruptly to leave the table.
For better or worse, Lindon doesn’t seem to be able to hide behind his shell of cool distance anymore.
In my opinion, it’s for better.
“What happened between you guys this morning?” Hawes asks, as we walk across the lawn to a large field behind the house. It’s marked off like a football field, and the guys are standing around in athletic gear, flag belts around their waists.
“What’s this?” I ask, forgetting his question about Lindon entirely.
“Flag football. Thought it might be fun to just sit in the sun and enjoy watching the men get some of their aggression out.”
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