Page 61 of Mate
“Why?”
“Because it looked like a fucking chair.” I laugh, and it makes his mouth twitch upward in a curve that is so . . . so charming, Ineedto trace it. But then he continues, “Alpha is all I’ve ever been, and all I’ll ever be.”
“What about after?”
“There might not be an after. But if there is . . . I guess I’ll find a hobby.”
“What hobby?”
“No clue. I’ll have to figure it out.”
A sudden, stupid idea pops into my head. I hold out my fists and say, “Pick one.”
“Not this fucking game again.”
“Pick one,” I insist, more forcefully. He sighs like I’m forcing him to muck a stable and points to my right hand— thank God. I don’t know what his reaction to me gifting him an online architecture class would have been. “I’ll teach you how to play the piano.”
His brow furrows. “You can play?”
“Of course. The Collateral and her companion are well-rounded young ladies. Honestly, Misery was so terrible at it, I felt bad for our tutor.” I pretend to shudder. “I’ll give you lessons, and you’ll have a hobby that’s not, you know, just standing there and being tall and imposing andAlpha.”
“Can’t you just play something for me?”
“But that won’t make you a well-rounded young lady.” His laughter is a groan. “Plus, I need to earn my keep, and it’s not like I can defrost your freezer. Come on, I can teach you a chord every day.” I hop down from the counter, wrap my hand around two of Koen’s fingers, and pull him toward his bedroom. We get a couple of curious looks on our way, but I ignore them, and so does he. It’s not like I’m planning to ravish him in the closet, anyway. I just want to . . .
“Sit,” I order once we’re in front of the piano, and despite his usual overburdened sigh, he obeys. The door remains wide open. Chatter and laughter seep in from all around us.
Back at the Collateral mansion, the piano came with a little bench that could house two. Koen’s just has a round stool that is not wide enough for the both of us. “Hang on.” I glance around. This is going to be a problem, considering his strained relationship with sittable furniture. “Let me drag another chair— ”
Before I can go in search of one, he tugs at my wrist and pulls me between his knees. My ass hits the hard muscles of his quads none too gently, and his left arm loops around my hips, the back of his hand resting on the upper part of my left thigh. He angles me so that my legs occupy the slice of space between his.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he grumbles, low against my ear. My heart skips around for a minute, and there is no way he misses it, but . . .
Okay. Sure. Fine. Just one chord. He picked it. He won it, fair and square. “Any objection to C major?”
“Nope.”
“Cool.” I swallow. Take his right hand in both of mine and gently splay his fingers— thumb, index, ring. “Here,” I whisper, and they seem to fall on the white keys instinctively, almost too easily. Maybe someone else tried to teach him how to play in the past? Maybe there is some knowledge of the basics, deep in the recesses of his brain? “Now, you just press— like this. Yeah.” The simple chord rises up, enveloping us. “You did it. Look at you.”
I grin wide, lift my eyes to meet his, and find that he’s already staring at me, black eyed and voracious.
“Look atyou,” he says. At least, Ithinkso. I could have imagined it, because it’s little more than a whispered growl, quickly followed by a much lighter question. “Now what?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. “Now you just, um . . . I don’t know. Repeat the chord over and over, and play the most boring song in history?”
His eyebrow lifts. “I think I’ll do that. It’s what my roommate deserves.”
I snort and watch him hit the C chord ten more times in quick succession, histhis is what you getlook boring into me and making me laugh even harder. I’m so busy being amused, it takes me a second to realize that his left hand, the one on my thigh, is moving, too.
It’s not unpleasant. His fingers press lightly into my flesh, the warmth of his skin branding through the cotton of my pants, a rapid beat that makes my heart speed up. It’s almost as though he’s walking through the chord, stepping up and down and up again in a sustained rhythm, skimming closer to the crease where my thigh and my abdomen join, and . . .
With a sharp exhale, I snap my legs shut. It’s an automatic gesture, one that traps his fingers there, right between the softfat that wraps around the inside of my thighs. I look up at him, confused. All at once, I’m hot all over. Liquid.
Koen’s face, on the other hand, is etched in stone. “Serena,” he murmurs, scent spiking, voice otherworldly, and it feels like . . . I don’t know. A question, maybe. An invitation. A turn in the road, and the beginning of something.
We could kiss. If we wanted to, it would be the perfect position, the perfect situation.
We can’t, I scream inside my head.Are you insane?
