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I laughed, dragging his mouth to mine. “I couldn’t even begin to start counting. I think my brain melted in there.”
“That’s the goal.” He cupped the back of my neck, his thumb teasing over my throat. “Was that okay with the toys?”
“Yep. The most important part is that you’re here, but I’m never going to complain about a vibe being added to the mix. I gotta hand it to the makers of this toy, it really does feel like a real knot.”
It was a damn good thing that we had the cuffs and collar and birth control, because when I was high as a kite on heat hormones, it made all the things they were protecting me from not seem so bad. Once I was fully sober and lucid again, sense would return, but right now I need to be saved from myself and those ridiculous primal instincts.
The knot kept me suspended, hovering in the nebulous zone between lucidity and a heat spike every time I shifted. Luca gathered me close and I laid my head on his chest, listening to the pounding of his heart. I traced circles on his skin and let my purr go at full volume until he was melting beneath me and his heartbeat had calmed.
Would it have been easier to do all of this at the club with alphas who were paying to be there? Undoubtedly. But it wasn’t too difficult to make the sacrifice of ease when my reward was feeling safe and loved in a way I never had before in a heat. Maybe loved was a stretch. I knew Luca was infatuated, and it could easily be mistaken if I didn’t know the context of how sweet and helpful he was to everyone in his life. I couldn’t let myself get confused about that. I couldn’t let myself want that as badly as I was beginning to. Eventually he would get tired of how this all worked and I would be left to pick up the pieces.
Luca drew lazy fingers down my back. The soothing motion would have lulled me to sleep if not for my twisting thoughts. That was a perk of going into heat. Thoughts got quiet when nothing else mattered. With the haze over, they were going to weasel their way in whenever they could.
I clung tightly to him to anchor myself. Whoever ended up with Luca was going to be so fucking lucky. I swallowed down my growl. It was absolutely ridiculous to be jealous of the future, and yet here I was.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Just my brain being mean to me.”
“Over what?”
I closed my eyes, debating if I should bring it up. Now wasn’t really the time. Conversations like that should wait until everyone was levelheaded and rested. He might not even remember if I brought it up now. That fact shouldn’t have made it more tempting.
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me,” he urged.
I debated a few moments before quietly saying, “I was thinking about how you’re going to leave eventually.”
His body tensed beneath me. “Leave?”
“Yeah. When you get tired of me.”
He propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at me. “Luna, and I mean this with absolute respect, what the actual fuck? Why would you think I would ever get tired of you?”
I shrugged, tucking my head down so I didn’t have to look at him.
“Talk to me.”
I pressed my forehead to his chest and sighed. “I’ve never been important enough for anyone to stay. Not for long, anyway. People leave when it’s no longer convenient to have me around.”
“Luna…”
“You can’t even tell me it’s not true. My parents don’t talk to me. I’ve never even met some of my step-parents. Stella let me go so she could marry Rodney. Every relationship I’ve ever attempted had ground to a halt over my job at the club or some boundary I’d put down. Luca, I’m not worth it to people.”
It felt like a completely ridiculous conversation to have while we were still stuck together with the knotting toy, but he had insisted.
He clutched me so tightly I squeaked. “You’re worth it to me. Holy shit, Luna, you’re worth everything to me. The only way you’re getting rid of me is if you tell me to go, and if the only way to prove to you that I’m going to stay is by staying and fighting for you every day, I’m going to do it.”
I didn’t know how to believe him. “You say that now?—”
“Yeah, I fucking do. I say it because it’s true. I know there are rules, and I know you’ve broken almost every single one of them for me. I don’t know what that means, but it feels like maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
He hesitated. “Maybe you want this to be more than you thought.”
I stayed quiet, breathing him in to give myself time to think and collect myself. He was right, but it didn’t make it any less dangerous. It didn’t mean he knew the future. He could say anything he wanted in the moment, and a month from now, a year from now, he could feel differently.
