Page 66 of The Alpha Experiment
You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.
A bar didn’t sound half bad, actually, except for the other people. And the music. And the having to interact with the bartender.
Never mind.
It’d looked like rain a couple of hours before, and when I stepped out of the building that promise had starting fulfilling itself. A few drops burrowed into my hair and chilled my scalp as soon as I got out from under the portico.
I turned the corner of the building to the parking lot, and my heart sank. Colin’s car was parked right next to mine—and Colin stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning against my hood.
I stopped a few feet from him, close enough to see the lines around his mouth and the unhappy gleam of his eyes in the orangey glare of the streetlight overhead. But not close enough to touch. Definitely not that.
“Your phone’s on the coffee table, in case you were wondering,” he said, pushing off the car and taking a step forward.
I patted my pockets automatically, even though he’d just told me where it was. “Shit. I guess I was…distracted.”
The implication that he’d tried to call me before tracking me down made me feel a little better—but no, he was the one who’d walked out first. Never mind that I’d been psychically begging him to leave me alone, and had run out myself a few minutes later.
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “I guess so.”
Silence fell, along with a few more drops of rain, pattering on the asphalt and peppering me with little points of chill.
“Look, Newt—”
“Colin, I—”
We both stopped, eyeing each other awkwardly.
“You first,” he said at last.
I drew a deep breath, cool and refreshing and not nearly enough to brace me for this.
What I’d almost said—a direct apology—wouldn’t do at all, and I was glad I’d gotten interrupted. I needed a way out of this for both of us, a way that hopefully might lead to us not being estranged. I couldn’t face losing Colin completely, having him erased from my life, the horrible vacuum that’d leave behind. If we talked directly about what I’d done, about what I’d felt when I did it…we’d never go back from that. Colin might be able to move on from a week of bizarrely intense sex, but he’d never look at me the same way again if he knew how much I’d wanted that kiss. How much I still ached for that kiss, even though I didn’t understand it any more than he would.
I could try to laugh it off, but he wouldn’t believe me. Not after the way I’d behaved when he shot me down. I could plead an excess of induced sex hormones, the effects of his alpha semen on my system, and he might believe that—and it was probably even true.
But he’d still never quite feel the same about me, never quite be at his ease with me.
So the last thing we needed was to freaking talk about it, especially since that conversation would end—or possibly even start, gods help me, if he got within two feet of me—with me trying to kiss him again.
And then I really would lose him for good.
“Meredith and I thought of a way to get rid of Greenwald.” That was as good a lead-in as any. “We’re going to make it look like I accidentally—”
“Good, I’m really glad,” he cut in. “You two are so fucking smart, he won’t know what hit him.” I was left gaping at him, my next words still trying to get out. Had I pushed him away so much that he didn’t even care about it anymore? “Anyway, you don’t need me for that part, right? I mean, I’m here. If you need me. But it doesn’t sound like your plan involves beating the shit out of anyone, right? If you’re in any danger, I’m not fucking going anywhere, but—”
“Pretty sure we have it handled.”
That came out a lot brusquer than I’d meant it to, and Colin rocked back on his heels. “No doubt,” he said, his voice flat. “Okay. So I think I should head back home, since you really don’t need me for anything.” A faint question in his voice, there. I clenched my fists with the effort of shaking my head slightly. Colin’s frown deepened. “The council’s hounding me about being gone so long. I can’t hold them off much longer. Your experiment’s over, isn’t it.”
He didn’t need to makethata question. That almost-kiss had ended it dead in its tracks.
“Yeah. It is.” Fuck, shit,dammit. He’d helped me. He’d done all of thisfor me. What would he think if I didn’t even show any gratitude, any acknowledgment? “Thank you. I couldn’t have done this without—”
“You could’ve found an alpha on the internet like you wanted to from the start,” he said harshly, his voice like a whipcrack in the hush of the rain. “You should have. Don’t fucking thank me!”
I flinched, all the blood rushing out of my head and leaving me dizzy and reeling.
Colin wished I’d found some stranger to fuck me, hunt me, knot me…anyone but him. When he’d been the one to tell me what a stupid idea that was, because it was too dangerous. And he regretted being with me so much that he wished I’d done it anyway.
