Page 90 of Clean Finish

And I was too scared to let myself really think about what it might mean. Or not mean.

Larkin pressed one more sweet kiss to my chin before settling back down with his cheek on my chest, letting out a deep sigh. His fingertips traced an idle pattern over my stomach as I felt his mouth curve into a smile.

“We’re gonna be so tired at work tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I croaked. I’d already decided to skip the gym in the morning. No way in hell was I going to wake up early and kick Larkin out just so I could go lift weights, when instead, I could have this for a little bit longer.

Maybe I could even cook him breakfast. I could let myself play pretend for one morning—pretend this was real, pretend this was what I could have every day. Pretend he was really mine.

“Are you cold?” I asked, my heavy eyelids drooping already, my body still thrumming with pleasure.

He shook his head and snuggled deeper into me. “No. You’re really warm.”

Wrapping my arms around him to pin him to me, I kissed the top of his head and settled back. I forced myself to stay awake until I sensed him fall asleep, his body growing lax and heavy on top of me, his breaths evening out and getting deeper.

That restless, almost panicked energy was back. I wanted to beg anyone who was listening to let me have this—let me have him. I wasn’t even a religious person. Some werewolf packs worshipped the moon or a god associated with it, but my parents were too down-to-earth to have enforced anything like that in their own pack.

Still, I found myself squeezing my eyes shut and pleading.

Please just let me have this. I don’t want anything else.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Fairchild Family Outing

Larkin

I got too nervous to take Holt’s advice and talk to Seb about… stuff.

Partly because I was still confused. I didn’t know if I was getting all twisted up because what I was doing with Seb was new and exciting and different. Not just the sex, but the other stuff too. The hanging out together and talking about such intimate things and… and now, the cuddling and kissing and stuff. Which, yeah, I’d instigated. And I didn’t regret it.

But I was worried that I was, like… latching onto him. Onto the first person I’d had sex with. People did that, right? Conflated their feelings because of hormones or something. Got all infatuated because it was their first time experiencing all these new things with another person.

I didn’t want to mess him around. What if I told him I wanted to be with him, then in a few weeks or months, I realised actually, no, I’d just been caught up in it all? I’d feel so unbelievably guilty. I didn’t want to hurt Seb in any way. And besides, that was assuming he’d want to be with me, and I didn’t think he did.

But the main reason I didn’t take Holt’s advice and talk to Seb was because things seemed to go back to normal, and I was too scared to rock the boat again. We’d woken up the morning I’d stayed over still tangled together on the couch, and Seb had seemed like his usual self as he smiled at me and asked if I wanted breakfast.

He’d made us scrambled eggs. It had been so nice sitting with him at the island, just talking and eating. I hadn’t wanted to go home to get ready for work, but I’d had to. And everything had been fine at the office—he’d helped me move the rest of the boxes to the storage room, and we’d joked around and teased each other while doing it. He’d watched the wrestling with us in the private box again, except we hadn’t actually watched it. Like last time, we’d sat at the back and done another crossword while Taylor and Holt had watched the show from the other couch.

Friday had been the same. Everything was back to being easy between us, and I didn’t want to risk ruining it. Kit obviously hadn’t told any of the other wrestlers that Seb and I were “dating,” because when I went to collect Cora each night while Corey got ready, none of them made any comments about it. They just asked me to hang out with them soon, because I hadn’t been around much lately.

Which made me feel super guilty. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be bothered to spend time with them now that I’d realised I didn’t actually want to fuck any of them. It was nerves over how I’d act if one of them started flirting with me. And… to be honest, it was mainly because I didn’t want Seb to think I was desperate to go and flirt with them instead of being with him.

And right now, I only wanted to be with him. I wanted to spend all my time with him. I wasn’t used to that. I usually liked being around lots of people and socialising in a group.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I lounged in bed for a while on my phone, checking social media and texting Hans, but I kept wondering what Seb was doing. Was he at the gym? I doubted he’d still be asleep—he seemed like an early riser. Was he visiting his family before work today?

Nibbling my lip, I opened up my messages with him and hovered my thumbs over the keyboard. I wanted to text him but couldn’t think of anything to say. We hadn’t made plans for our next lesson yet, but I didn’t really want to text him about that.

With a sigh, I got up and dragged my feet to the bathroom to take a shower. At least Nolan usually slept in until, like, one p.m. at the weekends, so I didn’t have him hammering on the door the whole time. Seeing as I’d be getting changed into a suit later, I put on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt my mom had made for me—faint purple tie-dye with a stalk of pink-and-purple sweetpea embroidered on the front. I didn’t plan on going anywhere before work—I’d probably just spend the morning gaming with my buddies online.

“Good morning, my flower,” Mom said from the dining table when I shuffled into the kitchen. She and Dad were sipping from cups with a steaming pot of herbal tea between them on the table.

“Morning.” I tugged open the fridge to grab some juice. Seeing a jar of Dad’s homemade apricot preserves, I grabbed that too to have with toast for breakfast.

I wondered whether Seb had finished that loaf of bread yet. Maybe I could text him and ask when he wanted me to go over and make more with him.

“You won’t be needing that, Son,” Dad said cheerfully as I set the jar down to get a glass. “We’re going out for breakfast.”