Page 36 of Sugar Rush
I wasn’t the only one that Jordy played like a fiddle on a regular basis. And it had been like that between them since the day my mom had introduced Chester to me as her fiancé.
A memory of right after Jordy had presented as an omega flashed into my mind. Chester had brought up the idea of separating our bedrooms, one of us moving downstairs. Jordy had whined and cried about the idea, saying he didn’t want anything to change, and that had been the end of that. As far as I knew, it’d never gotten brought up again.
“A heated debate about what?” My mom asked, sounding amused at our antics. If only she knew. I didn’t bother saying a word, knowing Jordy would confidently spout out a convincing lie.
“Just this dumb zombie show we watch,” he said. “The last episode ended on a cliffhanger and I totally think one of the characters is going to turn into a zombie, but Kieran thinks it’s just a red herring.”
It was sort of creepy how well he could do that.
“Oh!” My mom responded, still sounding fondly amused.
“We’ll take it upstairs,” he assured them. “Goodnight!”
They told us goodnight, and Jordy ushered me up the stairs, mostly against my will. Luckily I’d been taking bites of my food between sentences so I wouldn’t starve overnight.
With his own phone back in his hand, Jordy made a show of deleting the message that I was fully convinced was from that bastard Andrew, and blocking the number it had come from.
“See?” He said, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Everything’s fine now. No need to charge in and defend my honor.”
“Deleting the text doesn’t change the fact that he’s practically stalking you,” I answered flatly. “Maybe I should cancel my trip.”
“What? No!” Jordy insisted, looking horrified. “You’re finally being recognized for all your hard work! You’re not going to jeopardize your reputation over some moron sending me anonymous text messages.”
“And what are you going to do if he decides to stop by and pay you a visit?” I asked, resisting the urge to grit my teeth at his stubbornness. Part of me knew he was right, but… I couldn’t stand the idea of leaving him alone and vulnerable to another alpha.
“We live in a house. There are doors with locks. It’s not a cave where he can just muscle in and club me over the head.”
What he was saying made sense, but it wasn’t enough for me. Just the idea that he would be scared and by himself, even if he was safe, was too much for me. I knew I wouldn’t even be able to focus on tattooing the client anyway. I’d be checking my phone every five minutes to be sure he didn’t need me.
“I don’t know,” I finally said, after a long stretch of silence where my mind was concocting horrible scenarios of Jordy being in danger.
“You really worry about me that much?” He wondered, giving me that adoring, affectionate look again.
“Of course I do,” I said, somewhat begrudgingly. It was weird, expressing all these feelings for him that I’d been hiding for so long. “You’re…”You’re the most important person in my life. That’s what I wanted to say, but knew that I couldn’t. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
He took a step forward, closing the gap between us. Laying his ear over my heart, he wrapped his arms around my torso, nuzzling into me. His body fit against mine so perfectly, like we’d been created with the sole purpose of fitting together. His sugary scent wafted up into my nose, flowing through my senses until the tension ebbed out from my muscles so I could relax.
“Jordy, we shouldn’t be doing this,” I said, but couldn’t make a move to push him off.
“I know that’s what you think,” he responded quietly, but only tightened his hold around me. “You’re just wrong. I don’t know what else to say.”
Closing my eyes, I exhaled a long breath before lowering my chin to press a kiss onto the top of his head. His hair was softer than silk against my lips, and sweetly fragrant. “You’re so damn stubborn,” I murmured, but without much heat in the statement.
“You’re the stubborn one,” he corrected me. “And there’s no way I’m letting you miss that trip and jeopardize your career. I don’t want you ruining your life for me.”
Couldn’t he see that was exactly how I felt about him, and what I was trying to protect him from?
“I…” Shaking my head, I raised my gaze up to the ceiling and groaned. “I don’t know what to do. If I go, my head’s going to be here the whole time anyway, and the tattoo’s probably going to end up looking like shit.”
Sighing, he shifted to hook his arms around my neck so he could stare up into my face. “I won’t go to the center on Saturday like I normally do. I’ll stay home.”
It was a nice offer, but it wasn’t enough for me. I knew I was probably being paranoid, but I couldn’t shake the ominous feeling I had about that guy. When I didn’t answer, obviously not convinced, Jordy raised up on his toes to peck a little kiss onto my lips. It surprised me, ripping me out of my morbid thoughts.
“Just don’t cancel or do anything rash yet, okay? I’ll figure something out,” he promised me.
I tried to ignore how much his innocent little kiss had affected me, which I’m sure I failed miserably at. It was too difficult pretending he wasn’t the most beautiful person on the planet, with the softest, prettiest lips and the shiniest hair and the smoothest skin. And a body so fucking perfect, it’s like it was printed onto the back of my eyelids so it was all I could see every time I closed my eyes. He was smart, sweet when he wanted to be, and incredibly thoughtful. Someone I would never get bored with or get tired of being around. He was everythinganyone could ever want in a partner. I’d known that for what felt like forever now, but I’d never anticipated having to actually reject advances from him. Why the hell was someone like that so infatuated with someone like me?
“Okay,” I finally said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure there was a solution that would really fix the issue.
