Chapter 97: This again?

I stood at the kitchen sink, the sound of the running water was the only sound filling the silence of the penthouse.

The guys were long gone, but the echo of their teasing still bounced off the walls, making my chest tighten. We already had dinner and it was about time to sleep but I still needed to finish up with these plates so I can sleep in when the morning comes.

My hand suddenly stopped at the thought of that. The mornings spent sleeping in Reid’s arms was just... something else. An entirely different kind of peace he’s never experienced before.

I continued to scrub the plate but with more unnecessary force, my mind behind racing a mile a minute.

​One more day.

​That was the plan I had finally hammered out while Vance’s warnings were still ringing in my ears. If I packed my bags and fled tonight, it would look like a retreat.

Reid was an Alpha, and more than that, he was hyper-perceptive; a sudden escape all of a sudden would scream that something was wrong.

He’d feel the sudden biological snap of the separation, his dependency would spike, and he’d start investigating. And if Reid McCoy started looking into why his Omega ran away, it wouldn’t take him long to unearth the truth.

​I couldn’t let him find out. If he realized how deeply he, as an Alpha, has influenced me, he would use it against me. He’d have another ultimate leverage to pull at my neck.

​So, I had to play it cool. I’d stay through tomorrow—Sunday. By Monday, his leg would be healed enough for him to hop around without me playing nurse, and even if he placed pressure on it, it would still be fine.

I could leave under the perfectly logical excuse of returning to my own routine for the work week. It would look normal. It would look like a captain simply finishing his duty.

​I turned off the faucet, the water dying down to a final, heavy drip. I leaned forward, my damp hands resting heavily on the marble edge of the sink as I let my head hang forward. A soft, weary sigh escaped my lips.

​Things had gotten so damn complicated. But keeping my distance tonight was the first step. I was absolutely not sleeping in his bed. Even if it looked slightly weird after three days of constant proximity, I needed to re-establish a boundary, or my resolve would completely crumble before Sunday even ended.

​I dried my hands, poured a fresh glass of water, and walked down the dark hallway toward his bedroom. My plan was simple: drop off the water, wish him a cold goodnight, and retreat to the safety of the guest room.

In the bedroom, Reid was sitting on the edge of the mattress, his body shifting as I approached.

​"Here," I said quietly, extending the glass toward him.

​Reid reached out, but he didn’t take the glass. Instead, his hand caught my wrist and I frowned.

This again?

​He didn’t grab me with the violent, bruising force he usually used when he wanted to assert his dominance.

His grip was remarkably loose, almost hesitant, but the heat of his palm burned straight through my skin. Slowly, his thumb brushed against the sensitive pulse point on the inside of my wrist, tracing small, deliberate circles.

​"Stay," Reid murmured. His voice was a low, gravelly vibration in the dark, stripped of all its usual cocky bravado. "Just for a minute, Cap."

​My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, the pulse beneath his thumb betraying my panic. What are you doing, Reid? I wanted to demand, my mind reeling. Just why the hell was he acting like this? Where was the arrogance? The sharp-tongued rookie? This quiet, heavy gravity was entirely too dangerous.

I think if he acted that way, I’d feel way more assured than this softness he was displaying.

​"Why are you trying to scrub my scent off you all of a sudden?" Reid asked, his dark eyes fixed on me, entirely unblinking. "And why are you planning to go sleep in the other room?"

​I swallowed hard, my throat tight.

​"I saw your stuff in the guest room," he continued, his voice dropping an octave, laced with a strange, heavy undercurrent. "I didn’t say anything before now because I thought you’d explain it to me. But there’s been no explanation."

​The trap was closing, but I had already spawned the lie to get me through it. I forced a steady breath into my lungs, letting my captain persona smooth over the cracks in my composure.

​"Tomorrow is Sunday, and I have practice on Monday," I said, my voice steady, sounding entirely rational. "You might be sitting on the benches since you’re not fully healed, but I can’t. And the guys will smell me because they’re Alphas. They didn’t say anything today, but I’m sure they’ve already got plenty to say about the fact that I’m heavily covered in your pheromones. I’m just being careful so I don’t get caught."

​Reid didn’t let go of my wrist. If anything, his thumb stopped its circles, pressing firmly against my pulse. "Just carrying my scent won’t make them suspect you’re an Omega."

​"McCoy—"

​"But they will know I’m quite the possessive Alpha," he cut in smoothly, his gaze burning through the shadows. "And they’ll understand I’m just trying to be near you."

​A cold sweat broke out across my shoulders. He was pushing too close to the truth of what he wanted.

​"Well, that’s even worse," I muttered, trying desperately to inject a dry, sarcastic edge into my tone. "Because you’d have turned a 180-degree from how they remembered you, and they’d start wondering if I successfully nursed your personality into something acceptable as well."

​I was trying to be funny. I was trying to deflect with the usual locker-room banter, but my heart was lodged firmly in my throat.

​Reid was way too smart. He could clearly sense that something major was shifting between us on these dependency levels, but he didn’t have a definitive name for it yet.

I’m sure he doesn’t know what’s going on, that’s why he’s keeping his mouth shut. But then again, it feels so much like he’s testing my boundaries to see where I’d break.