Page 50 of Adoring Fletcher
“You smell nice,” I whispered.
“Yeah?” Adam whispered back.
“Yeah. I like it.”
The world fell silent around us. My head was filled with thoughts, questions and uncertainties I didn’t dare speak aloud, for fear they might come true.
Adam’s breaths were calm on the back of my neck, tickling the hairs at my nape. I knew he was still awake, thinking just as loudly as I was.
Finally, after a long period of nothingness, I spoke, my voice very soft, “Is it bad that I’m glad your date flopped?”
Adam chuckled, a low exhale, before he kissed my neck. “No, baby. It’s not bad,” he told me. “I feel like shit, putting you through this.”
“I understand, though. You know that, right?” Shifting my weight so I could turn around in his arms, I gazed up at him in the darkness. “Maybe I’m just selfish, but… Happiness never lasts for me. It never has, and I’m scared.”
“Scared?” It was his turn to frown. “Of what?”
My heart ached, beating so erratically that I thought it might twist in on itself. “Of…being forgotten,” I whispered. “Of being just another fling. Of this meaning nothing.” I hated the way my voice trembled with the very real possibility of tears, but emotion choked me.
“Oh, baby.” Adam cupped my face in both hands and kissed me—my forehead, over both of my closed eyes, my nose, and then my lips. “You are not a fling, Fletcher. You mean everything to me,” he murmured. “You’ve so quickly become the most stable thing in my life. I only wish my father could understand that.”
But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. That was what Adam didn’t say.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Let’s just…try and go to sleep. Goodnight, Adam.”
Adam sighed softly. “Night, baby.”
But even after his breathing evened out into whispery snores, his dark lashes fanning his cheeks and his expression lax in slumber, sleep never found me and I felt like a lost sheep without its shepherd for the first time in a long time.
31
ADAM
Over the nextcouple of weeks, I went on four more failed dates. Dates that I actively tried to be present for, but god, I hated it so much.
Of course, Jennifer had gone crying to her “daddy” who had then blown up my father’s phone bitching about my “poor behavior” so I’d gotten an earful and a half—and now I was trying to make up for it.
My heart wasn’t in it, though. I just wasn’t into these women, no matter how beautiful or charming they were. All my life, I never once questioned my sexuality. I was always comfortably bi, but now that I’d found Fletcher?
Women just didn’t do it for me anymore.
Fletcher was soft and feminine enough, as most Omegas were, yet still maintained that touch of masculinity. He ticked all of my boxes, and goddamnit! Why couldn’t Father see that?
Except I knew what Father would do if I told him the truth. There was a reason I’d hidden my sexuality from my family in the first place.
He would go nuclear.
“Father has demanded my presence,” I muttered, leaning down to kiss Fletcher goodbye. “I’ll be back before dinner.”
“Okay, babe,” my Omega replied with a smile tailor-made just for me. “Drive safe.”
“Always.”
I pulled on my heavier coat, because fall was giving way to winter’s icy grasp, and got in my BMW. I drove the short distance to the mansion I’d grown up in, with its manicured, square-hedged gardens and tall, black wrought-iron fencing.
At the security gate, I buzzed myself in and waved at the camera. Immediately, the gate began to slide open, allowing me to drive my car into the estate and up the asphalt drive, where I parked.
I found Father in the study, of course, sitting at his desk going through a stack of papers. I knocked lightly on the door before letting myself in. When he saw me, he sat back in his leather chair and laced his fingers together atop his desk.
