I’m also panting now as I try to deep-throat him and fail. Yet he’s rocking a little upward, and his hand tugs on my ponytail, and it’s all making me cramp inside, I’m so aroused. I bob my head, massaging his cock with my lips, and use my tongue, dragging it on the underside, over some of those silver bars.

His thighs tense on either side of me, those impressive muscles bunching up. His cock is hot and hard like steel in my mouth. His hips jerk. His hand on my hair tugs. He’s close, it’s obvious.

I suck on the head, curling my hand around the base of his cock, stroking. That’s all it takes.

He comes with a bitten-off curse, his salty release choking me before I pull back. I swallow, then watch, fascinated, as ropes of cum stripe that unreal eight-pack of his with white.

“Gige…” His voice is groggy. He reaches for me. “Come here.”

And… that’s my wake-up call, ladies and gents. Time to snap out of this fantasy and return to reality.

“I should get some sleep,” I whisper, scrambling off his bed. “Good night, Ron.”

“Gigi. Wait. I said, wait!”

But I slip out of his room, so aroused I’m aching and so confused I’m shaking.

Now,I tell myself,you got them all out of your system, right? You did it. It’s over. Good job.

Yet it doesn’t feel like it’s over, doesn’t feel like they’re out of my mind and it takes me a long, long time to fall asleep.

15

GREY

Iwalk the city streets, walk through the night, hands jammed inside my jacket pockets, cold air stinging my face. It’s supposed to clear my head but my thoughts are a tangled nest of vipers.

All the things I want.

All the things I fear.

That girl’s shocked face when she recognized Ronin.

“Gigi,”he’d said.

He’d said her name and ran after her like the fucking world was ending.

He’s in love with her.

Not with me.

Then again, I knew that. He wasn’t supposed to be. He can’t be in love with me, but I didn’t expect to feel so fucking … crushed. Didn’t expect to have to face it all so soon. I thought we had more time.

ThatIhad more time.

To do what? Find a beta, fall in love, find a family? You?

I chuckle bitterly to myself. Kick at some trash. As if anyone would want me, with my baggage and my past. What I had with Ronin wasn’t meant to last. That was the agreement. The arrangement.

It shouldn’t fucking hurt.

Thunder booms overhead. Rain splatters on the sidewalk. On me.

I’ll see him every day at work at the tattoo studio and I will have to nod and be cool with him. Pretend I’m all right. Because I doubt he’s coming back to me now that he landed Gigi. Gigi who he obviously feels something for.

He called out for you to wait,I tell myself.Before he went after her.

But he didn’t go after me.