He's sitting against the wall near the door. His mask is still on but it's shifted, riding up on one side, and I can see his jaw. The lower half of his face. A jaw I've looked at across Tate's living room and from the other end of a couch and one time across Tate's kitchen when he was standing at the counter shirtlessmaking coffee and I turned around and left before anyone noticed.
Sullivan.
Tate's best friend. Tate's best friend just knotted me. Twice. While I cried. While I begged. While I saidpleaseandI need your knotand made sounds I didn't know I could make, and he held me after and cleaned me up and told me I was perfect and heknew. He knew the entire time. He knew it was me from the second I walked onto the floor and he stayed and he touched me andhe knew.
"You're awake."
His voice. Without the heat roaring in my ears I can hear it clearly and it's him, it's so obviously him, and I don't know how I missed it except I do know. I wasn't thinking with my brain. I wasn't thinking at all.
I sit up. The blanket falls to my waist and the air is cold on my arms. I'm shaking but not from the temperature.
"Take off the mask."
He doesn't move for a second. Then his hand comes up and he pulls the mask off and it's Sully. Brown eyes, dark hair pushed back, the face I've seen a hundred times in Tate's apartment looking relaxed and easy and friendly. He doesn't look relaxed now. He looks like a man bracing for impact.
Good.
"You knew." My voice comes out flat and steady and I'm grateful for it because inside I'm falling apart. "On the floor. When I walked in. You recognized me."
"Yes."
"My scent."
"Yes."
"And you stayed."
He holds my eyes. "Yes."
"Did Tate—does Tate know about this place?"
"No." Something crosses his face. "Tate has nothing to do with this."
"Tate has everything to do with this." My voice is climbing and I force it back down. "He told you about me. That I don't deal with my heats. He worries about me, he talks to you about it because you're his best friend, and you took all of that and you used it."
I stop. I'm losing the thread and I had it a second ago. I had the whole argument laid out and now it's falling apart because his face is right there, Sully's actual face, and my brain keeps flashing between this face and the mask and the sounds I was making an hour ago and I can't hold it all at the same time.
"You knew I was scared." Slower now. Finding it again. "And you were gentle. And you knew I was proud, so you used praise instead of—you told me I wasperfect. You told me I was built for this. Do you understand how that—"
I press my hand over my mouth for a second. Breathe.
"I've never had anyone say that to me." I didn't mean to say that. It came out on its own and I can't take it back and the look on his face when I say it makes me want to throw something. "And it wasn't real. It was because you knew it would work."
"It was real."
"Don't."
"Wren—"
"Don't say my name." It comes out sharp enough to cut and I see him flinch. "You've been saying my name in your head this whole time, haven't you? Every time you touched me. Every time you told me I was good. You were thinkingWrenand I was thinkingstrangerand that's—"
My voice cracks. I clamp down on it.
"I thought a stranger saw me tonight. I thought I could fall apart and nobody would know." Quieter now. "You took that from me. You watched me break and you knew who I was and Ididn't know who you were and that's not what I agreed to when I walked in here."
He nods. Slow. "You're right."
I wasn't expecting agreement. I was ready for excuses, forlet me explain, for something I could tear apart. The agreement just sits there between us and I don't know what to do with it.