Page 20 of Kings
“Fine,” he said, holding the door open. “We’ll talk about it in my dorm room.”
Ella was about to protest, but she would rather be anywhere but the guys’ room, and his dormwascloser than hers.
Chapter 12
Axel
Axel paced his dorm room, second-guessing his decision to put a weight rack where his roommate’s desk would have been. He already felt cramped enough.
Ella was in the shower, and had been for an absurd length of time. He knew well enough what would take that long if she’d agreed to let him in there, but what was she doing on her own?
Before he could give in to his impatience and knock, the door opened and she stepped out, wrapped in a cloud of steam and his bathrobe. It was too long and too baggy on her, but the sight of her in his anything filled him with a primal, possessive kind of satisfaction he’d given up on trying to get the best of.
“Thanks for letting me use your shower,” she sighed, toweling off her damp white locks.
“You can use a lot more than that,” Axel said, pulling her down onto the bed. He decided he could suspend his planned interrogation for the moment. He ran his hands down her shoulders, taking in the pleasant rosy hue of her flushed skin. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she answered. “At least if I don’t think about how I’m going to face the class tomorrow.”
“No one will even remember in the morning,” he said dismissively. “And I’ll take care of the prof.”
Ella raised an eyebrow in that incredulous expression that was as adorable as it was infuriating. “That sounds vaguely menacing.”
Axel rolled his eyes. “So. How long were you going to wait until you told me?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. Something about her tone and body language, like she was trying to pull herself in and shrink away, kept him from giving her the hard time he’d planned on. He hadn’t seen her this way in a long time. Vulnerable. He’d thought that part of her had disappeared completely, but he was relieved to know it was still around, even if—no, especially if—he was the only one who got to see it.
If she had any idea that she had so much more control over him this way.
“Why?” he asked once he trusted himself not to unsettle her fragile state. At least now he knew why she’d been so prickly lately.
She pursed her lips and fell silent for a few seconds. “I didn’t know how you’d take it. Not just you,” she added before the strange stabbing feeling between his ribs only she was capable of inflicting could grow too strong.
Another question sprang to mind, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. And he was pretty sure she didn’t, either.
“It could be any of ours,” he murmured.
Ella wouldn’t meet his eyes, but she nodded, hugging herself a little closer.
Axel pulled her into his arms and held her as tightly as caution would allow. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, stroking her soft hair.
“For what?” she asked against his chest.
“Sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me,” he answered. “A week’s a long time to keep something like that to yourself.”
She fell silent, and he started wondering if he’d said something to either piss her off or make her sad. He lived for the former, considering how sexy it was when her face grew flushed with rage and she got that look in her eyes. The other was the only thing he was afraid of, but she was as unpredictable as the wind and in his mind, there was no real logic to what set her off and what made her cry. Her heart was a fucking minefield and he was a bulldozer. No matter how carefully he tried to tread, it was always a fifty-fifty shot that it would end up blowing up in his face.
She was just the only person he’d ever bothered to try with.
When she finally looked up at him, the sheen in her eyes told him his crying guess was right, but she didn’t look hurt. There was a slight, tired smile on her lips, the first one he’d seen in too long.
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react,” she said quietly.
He pulled her back against his chest, squeezing tight. Holding her had been different ever since he’d marked her. It wasn’t just pulling their bodies together anymore, it was like taking a part of himself back.
She was right to be concerned about his reaction. The fact that he was now irrevocably tethered to another person—now two of them—shouldhave terrified him. He knew exactly how he would have reacted before. Fear, turned to anger. The panicking claustrophobia of feeling like he’d been shackled.
Now that he thought of it, he was surprised that wasn’t how he felt. That the moment he’d realized she was pregnant, his reaction had been elation and wonder rather than the fear of commitment that had plagued him all his life.
