Page 48 of Pin My Alpha
Heat rushes up my neck. “That’s creepy.”
He considers this for a second. “Yeah. It might be.”
I should put the towel down. I should make a joke about brand research or some other bullshit my brain is usually so good at producing. But I just stand there, holding it.
I turn and walk back into the bedroom, the towel still in my hand. Declan follows, his presence a heavy weight in the doorway. He doesn’t say anything.
I put the towel on the bed. Right in the middle of the rumpled blankets, next to the Henley I stripped off him last night. My hands hover over it for a second, then smooth the worn cotton, adjusting the edge so the green embroidery faces up.
Oh, no.
The shirt. The pillow. The towel. It’s not tidying.
I’m nesting.
My lungs seize. For years, I’ve watched the others do this. Milo buried under a mountain of Callum’s hoodies. Jude arranging Rhys’s button-downs like a museum exhibit. I always thought it was pathetic. A biological trap I was smart enough to avoid.
And here I am, in Declan Byrne’s bedroom, arranging his things into a soft, stupid pile like my body has been waiting its whole life to betray me.
The panic I’m braced for never hits. Instead, a wave of sheer, bone-deep relief washes through me, so total my knees almost give out. I’m just so tired. So tired of being the one who never needs anything.
The bed smells like him, the apartment is warm, and for the first time in my life, someone made me breakfast without making it feel like a debt.
My throat burns.
Declan takes a quiet step into the room. The space shrinks. He’s four feet away, maybe less, and my body is wired with the exact distance. Every muscle is screaming to close it, to turn and press my face into the solid warmth of his chest and just… stop.
“Shay.”
“Don’t.” My voice is sharp.
He stops.
“I’m not—” I swallow hard. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I know.”
That fucking gentle voice again. It guts me every time.
I finally look at him, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment.
He’s leaning in the doorframe, huge and solid, just watching me. His eyes are on the bed, on the stupid pile I made, and then they’re on me. His scent is thick in the air, that cedar and smoke that’s already started to feel like mine. There’s no demand in it. It’s just a fact of the room, like the walls or the floor.
And the look on his face is the thing that undoes me. It’s quiet. Patient. No one has ever looked at me like I’m something worth having without also looking like they’re calculating the cost.
My hands curl into fists. My whole body feels like a pulled string, humming with the need to close the space between us. To walk right up to him, press my face into the solid wall of his chest, and just for a second, not have to hold myself up. I imagine his mouth on mine, not rough like before, but slow, deliberate. His hands finding the bare skin under my shirt, mapping every bone like he’s learning a new language.
I stare at the towel because I can’t look at him. “The first night was an accident,” I say, my voice rough. “Last night was a negotiation.”
I finally lift my head, meet his steady green eyes.
“I want to know what this is when we both choose it.”
Declan
Ican’t seem to make my body move.
Shay is just standing there by the bed, a folded bar towel in his hand. My old Henley hangs off one of his shoulders, exposing the healed bite mark at the base of his neck. His curls are a mess from sleep.
