Page 26 of Twisted Mates

Xander tilts his head side to side, his neck cracking. With a sigh, he sits on the edge of the bed and runs his hand up and down my upper arm.

“Maybe he’s not rejecting you. He didn’t formally?—”

“No more maybes. No more excuses for him. His actions are speaking loud and clear. He rejected me. Even if he didn’t make it official yet. The sentiment is there, and I get the message.”

“What can I do to help make this easier for you?”

Touch me and?—

I blink and avert my gaze from him, grateful that he can’t read my mind. Where did that even come from? That’s so inappropriate.

Isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like he’s my mate’s brother anymore. I don’t have a mate.

I take a deep breath and say something that may or may not get me into a bigger mess than I’m already in, but I’m at a loss of what to do next.

“Will you let me come into your room? And maybe stay with me? I really don’t want to be alone with my thoughts, and being in here feels weird.”

Xander stands and slips his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Of course. Whatever you need.”

“That’s all,” I mutter, getting to my feet.

I follow him out of the room and down the hallway. He opens his door for me, revealing his room exactly how I left it. I didn’t expect to be back in here, and I feel a little embarrassed that I didn’t do a better job of making the bed before I left. Xander comes across as the type of person who always has his shit together.

“Do you need me to get anything for you?” he asks, closing the door.

I shake my head and sit on the end of the bed, pulling my legs crisscross under my ass. “No, this is perfect. I just want to be somewhere quiet and safe.”

Xander smiles and sits in his desk chair at the end of his bed, turning to face me, our knees inches apart. “Well, you know you’re safe with me. And if you want to just sit here in silence, we can.”

I chew on my lip and glance at my lap before meeting his icy gaze. It pierces me all the way to my core, and I realize that never once did Kai make me feel like this.

“Can I ask for one thing, actually?” I say, taking a chance on being rejected by both princes of the pack twice in one day.

“What’s that?”

“Can we lay here in silence instead?” I ask, picking at the skin around my nails, a nervous habit that I have tried my whole life to stop. His jaw clenches like he’s annoyed. Or maybe like he’s desperately trying to cling to some shred of control. I think it’s the latter. I adjust my position on the bed so I can squeeze my thighs together. “Emphasis on thewe.” I don’t know why I say it. It’s inappropriate. But I’ve already determined that me being in here at all and seeking solace from Xander is probably not exactly proper, yet here we are. So I might as well keep it up.

“I got you.” He moves to the bed and lays down, holding his arm out to me.

I slide in beside him and rest my head on his chest. Immediately, every muscle in my body relaxes. Before the past couple days, it had been years since I held any kind of conversation with Xander, and the gap in our age meant that we were never physical with one another. But there is something so comforting about the steady beat of his heart under my ear and the innocent graze of his fingers along my arm. I’ve only felt asemblance of this feeling once since I entered this house—last night when I slept beside him.

“Are you all right?” he asks, stretching his neck so he can see my face. “I’m questioning if you’re even breathing.”

“Yes,” I whisper, snuggling into him. “I’m more than okay.”

I feel his chest expand and contract with a sharp breath. “Oh? Just a few minutes ago I thought you were going to have a meltdown,” he teases, and I can’t help but crack a smile.

“Something about being close to you like this makes me feel...” I pause and close my eyes, trying to think of the words. “At peace.”

“I get that a lot,” he says with a chuckle.

“Really?”

“No. Not ever. I think it’s hard for a lot of people to feel at peace with a bunch of needles pushing ink into their skin—especially when I get to the white highlights. You’d think their souls were leaving their bodies.”

“You’re a tattoo artist?” I ask, wondering how I never knew this about him. “I thought you like, worked in corporate real estate or something.”

“Well, that’s my full-time job now. But real estate is pretty damn boring a lot of the time. I keep a spot at a local shop so I can tattoo a few people on the weekends. To tell you the truth, I’d rather just do that full-time again like I did in my twenties,” he says, and he sounds wistful.

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