“Why?”
Ren let out a dry laugh that scraped his throat.
“Why? Are you seriously asking me why?”
Brody stepped away from the desk. One step toward Ren that Ren countered with a step back.
“You said yes to me. You asked me to fuck you. Those were your exact words.”
Every syllable landed on Ren’s chest like a punch more accurate than the one he’d thrown at the gym.
“I was in heat.”
“And you said yes to me.”
“I said yes to sleeping with you.” Ren pointed at himself with the box of suppressors still in his hand as if it were legal evidence. “To fucking, Kovac. Not to move into your room as if we were a damn newlywed couple.”
Brody’s gray eyes darkened. The red rims of his eyelids flared in a way that sent a chill down Ren’s spine from top to bottom.
“It’s the same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It is to me.”
“Well, not for me.”
Brody took another step. Ren bumped into the back of the leather chair in front of the desk, and the chair rolled to the side with a pathetic squeak.
“You gave me your consent. You accepted the bond with your body. What else do you need to understand that we’re together?”
The words burned. Because they were true, and because they were a lie at the same time.
“I didn’t accept any bond. I accepted your help with the heat because the pain was killing me. That’s not the same as saying ‘I do’ Brody, let’s move in together and share a closet.”
“I’m not talking about sharing a closet.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you being my mate.” His voice trembled as he said it. Just for a moment. A tiny crack in that concrete facade. “And that the night we spent together wasn’t just sex.”
Ren felt the pull. He felt it in his gut, in his ribs, at the base of his skull where Brody’s pheromones pooled like thick honey. His whole body leaned toward the alpha like a compass needle toward the north.
And that was precisely why he stepped back.
“I don’t know how to do this, Brody.”
“Do what?”
“This.” He gestured toward the space between them with a sharp flick of his hand. “Whatever you think this is. I don’t know about relationships. I don’t know about mates. I don’t know about sleeping with someone based on my desire, instead of being sold, given away, or traded as a bargaining chip.
The silence that followed was thick. Brody absorbed it with his jaw clenched and his knuckles white against the edge of the desk.
“This isn’t the same.”
“How do you know? How doIknow?” Ren backed up to the door. The box of suppressors crinkled between his fingers. “I’vebeen the omega my father rents out to the highest bidder for too long. I don’t have the faintest idea what it means for someone to want to sleep with me without expecting something in return. So no, I’m not moving my stuff into your room just because you fucked an omega in heat and now you think that gives you some rights.”
“I’m not talking about rights.”