ChapterTwenty-Four
He went backto the bathroom, probably to take a shower himself, and I almost fell asleep—almost, until I felt the weight of the bed shifting and felt his heat next to me again.
Alarms rang in my head. My body was exhausted, barely any energy left in my limbs, but I didn’t even care. I turned to him and crawled over his naked body, pushing off the towel in the process.
He was exhausted, too, could barely keep his eyes open, until I positioned myself on top of him, one leg on either side, and kissed him.
He was wide awake then, fingers digging into my ass as he brought his hips up, his cock starting to get hard again. We kissed like teenagers, drawing blood out of each other with every bite. It should have been impossible to burn with so much need again so soon, but Dominic Dane had never made much sense to anyone, I guess. I couldn’t get enough of him, and the way he held me, touched me, kissed me, said that he felt the same way.
I ran my fingers through his wet hair and pulled him to me as if I wanted him inside me completely, and the next time he thrust his hips up, his cock was rock hard and ready for me already. I reached down my hand to position him, the anticipation of what was coming taking the breath out of my lungs.
But Dominic grabbed my wrist.
“No.”
I leaned my head back to look at him, confused.
“Dominic,” I breathed, but he shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and then pulled me off him completely. I was suddenly sitting on the bed next to him, having no idea what had even happened. “Where are you going?” I asked when he sat up, too.
“I can’t do this, Teddy,” he said, and my poor heart that had been so full just seconds ago, deflated all the way.
“Are you joking?” He had to be, though it wasn’t funny at all.
He turned to me, already furious. “I’m a werewolf,” he spit. “And I’m seconds away from shifting.”
“I don’t care,” I said, and only after I said it, did I believe my own words. “I always knew what you are, Dominic.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head, rubbing his face raw with his hands. “If I shift, there will be no going back.”
“Going back? Who wants to go back?!” Was he out of his mind?
“Teddy, I could never do that to you.” He said it so softly, so gently, it turned my mind inside out.
“Dominic, we’ve already done it, remember? In the bathroom, minutes ago. It’s just sex!”
And maybe it wasn’t, but I would have said anything at all just to get him to come closer to me again. I missed his warmth already. I needed him close to me. I was so, so cold.
“Not for me. Not if I shift,” he said, dragging himself even farther away from me. “Werewolves mate once—that’s it. You know that.”
“Yes, I know that! But werewolves only mate when they’re in love.” I’d studied werewolves when preparing for the ODP acceptance exams. I knew how they worked, how they lived, all their primal needs. And I knew for a fact that when they mated, the beast inside them claimed the mate, too, not just the human. But to do that, the beast itself would have to be in love.
Dominic didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me. He moved so fast—stood up and kissed my forehead before I realized what he was doing.
He turned his back to me before he dropped the towel, giving me a perfect view of his ass. Then he grabbed the sweatpants from the floor to put them on.
Before he did, something fell from his pocket, something tiny that I barely heard, but saw rolling on the hardwood floor until it almost reached the door.
My stomach fell. A button.
The button—the button of my jacket that had fallen off my first day at Headquarters. The same one I’d traded him for a smile two years ago.
And he still had it.
I was shocked out of thoughts, and he had more than enough time to put his clothes on, grab the button from the floor and put it in his pocket again before I came to my senses.
“Go to sleep, Teddybear,” he said and closed the door of the room behind him, leaving me alone.
My mouth opened, his name at the tip of my tongue. He couldn’t do this, damn it! He couldn’t just leave me here like this, after everything. How dare he? Had he no idea what it felt like in my head, in my stomach, every inch of me? I was breaking to pieces. How could he not hear the sound of it?