“Can you move without anything hurting?”
It’s such a weirdly practical question that I just blink. Not 'are you okay emotionally' or 'do you regret this.' Just, are you hurt? Can you move? Like he’s checking my vitals.
I do a quick check. Sore, yeah. My hips and thighs ache, and there’s this deep tenderness inside that’s going to stick around for a few days. My jaw hurts from clenching. My throat’s raw from noises I don’t even want to think about. There are bruises on my hips where his hands were. I can see the edges, purple and green, and my brain is nice enough to remind me exactly when each one happened. I’ve given people tattoos that hurt less than these bruises. I’ll be looking at them every time I shower for a week.
But nothing’s actually broken. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just used up in a way I didn’t know was possible. Like someone took me apart and put me back together, but didn’t get all the pieces back in the right spots.
“Yeah,” I say. “I can move.”
“Good.”
We just lie there. The bass from the floor is gone. The club’s either closed or almost there, because now it’s just building noises. A pipe somewhere. The hum of the vents. The distant clang of someone stacking chairs or moving shit around. The real, unsexy side of a sex club at six in the morning.
His thumb moves on my hip, tracing a small circle. Same move the leather mask alpha used to do on my lower back, which I really don’t want to think about, but my brain goes there anyway. Two different touches. Two different alphas. One I picked, one who picked me. The one I picked is gone. The one who picked me is here, drawing circles on my hip, waiting for me to decide what happens next.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I say. Not looking at him. Looking at the wall.
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What?”
“'I know.' You keep saying 'I know' like you’ve got it all figured out and I’m just slow.”
He’s quiet for a second. Then: “I don’t have any answers. I just know what you’re feeling because I’m feeling it too.”
I roll onto my back and look at him for the first time since I woke up. Matte black mask. Bare chest—his shirt’s out on the floor too. He’s broad, solid, takes up space even lying down. I can see a small smattering of chest hair, a scar on his collarbone, the line of his shoulders. None of it tells me who he is. Just what he looks like from the neck down.
He’s on his side, facing me, one arm under his head. In the gray light leaking through the door, he looks different from the alpha who pinned me to a platform last night. Quieter. The intensity’s still there, but it’s dialed down. His body’s still, his breathing even. There’s a scratch on his forearm—I’m pretty sure I did that—and looking at it makes my stomach twist up.
His eyes through the mask are tired and steady, looking at me like he’s scared to lose me, which is nuts because he never had me. We don’t even know each other’s names.
But his hand’s on my hip and my body’s leaning toward him like gravity. I can smell him under all the sex and sweat—the real scent, smoke and iron and something warmer I missed last night. Something that only shows up when the rut fades and the actual person is there. It’s a good scent. Not the wall that knocked me flat on the floor. Something I could get used to.
“In three months, my heat is going to come back,” I say. “And my body is going to want you.”
He doesn’t say anything. His thumb stops moving on my hip.
“That’s not a compliment. That’s a problem. Because I don’t know you. I don’t know your name, what you look like, or what you do, and my body doesn’t care about any of that. It’s already decided.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Mine too.”
I look up at the ceiling. Concrete, like the rest of this place. Stained, cracked, industrial. About as far from romantic as you can get. Not exactly the backdrop for the conversation we’re about to have—or not have—or just avoid by getting dressed and pretending biology isn’t going to drag us both back here in twelve weeks.
“I had a good thing,” I say. “With the other alpha. It was easy. It was manageable. I knew what I was getting.”
“I know.”
I cut my eyes at him. He holds up a hand.
“Sorry. Habit.”
Something in my chest cracks, small and weird. Not pain. More like a laugh that doesn’t quite make it out. I see the corner of his eye crinkle behind the mask—he’s almost smiling. I think I might be almost smiling too, which is terrifying, because twelve hours ago I was a guy with a plan and now I’m lying in a wrecked bed with a stranger whose face I’ve never seen, and my body’s already reaching for him again. Not heat, just the pull of a scent I can’t shake and don’t want to.
I look at him. He looks at me. Masks on, names unknown, the smell of us filling the room.
“So,” I say. “Now what?”