Page 101 of Pin My Alpha
I’m on my feet before I’ve made a decision to stand. The towel slips to the floor. My phone lands silently on the rug. I just stare at my bedroom door, waiting for an instruction manual that doesn’t exist.
A quiet knock, right on the wood in front of me.
Not the front door this time. My door.
“Shay?”
His voice cracks right through me.
I cross the room, trip over the strap of my duffel bag, and pull the door open.
Declan fills the hallway. He looks like hell. Not bad—the man could never look bad—but he’s exhausted. There are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there before, and his beard is less neat, more worried-at. He looks like he’s been dragging his hands through his hair for days. His scent washes over me, and my body sags with a relief so total it’s dizzying.
Home, some traitorous part of my brain whispers.
His eyes find my face, then drop to the mark just visible over the collar of my shirt. His jaw tightens.
“Hey,” he says. Just that.
My throat is useless. “Hey,” I manage.
We stand there, staring. Over his shoulder, the rest of the squad is pretending not to be a tactical surveillance unit at the bottom of the stairs. Jude has Rhys pulled against his side. Milo is covering Soren’s mouth, probably to muffle a sympathetic sob. Benji is just leaning against the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, face a perfect mask of indifference.
“You all need hobbies,” I say, my voice raw.
Benji’s mouth twitches. “This is my hobby.”
“Shay,” Declan says, soft and low, and my attention snaps back to him. Everything in me just… orients toward him. I hate how easy it is.
He’s holding a slim black folder. Not flowers, not a grand gesture. A folder. The sight of it is so practical, so Declan, that it almost makes me want to cry.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
I nod, stepping back. He moves past me into the room, careful, as if he’s worried he might not be allowed to take up space here. He is too much for this room. Too broad, too solid. His presence makes my neat, sterile space feel small. His eyes land on the open duffel bag, then on the green bar towel lying next to it on the floor.
I snatch the towel up before he can say a word, clutching it in my fist. He doesn’t comment. Thank God.
I sit on the edge of my bed because my knees feel like they might give out. Declan takes my desk chair, looks at it for a second, then sets the folder on the small table between us instead of sitting down. He stands there, his hands resting on his thighs, and I have the wildly unhelpful thought that I couldclimb him like a tree and bury my face in his neck until this whole week rewinds itself.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,” he says quietly.
I look down at the towel. “I was trying to text you.”
His head comes up. “Yeah?” There’s a crack in his voice, hope or maybe just exhaustion.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re looking at me like I just confessed a deep emotional vulnerability.”
A tiny, exhausted smile touches his mouth. “You kind of did.”
My answering laugh is a broken, watery sound. Great. Now I’m crying. Fantastic. I scrub at my eye with the heel of my hand. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He finally sits, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I came here because I needed to say things where you could see my face. And to give you this.” He slides the folder across the table.
