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Yet another thing to add to the pile of all of the bullshit I was carrying around on a daily basis.
Ciara was quiet for a moment before she let out a sharp sigh. “My mam left me with my drunk of a father for six months before coming back for me. When I saw her standing in the foyer I was so excited and elated… and then as soon as that wore off I was so mad at her for not taking me with her. I never even got a chance to get past that feeling because the car we were driving in lost control and we flipped over the side of a bridge.”
I… I hadn’t known that about her. Anything she’d told Leith or Artie about her past they’d kept close to their chests. I sort of figured bad shit had happened to her judging by her propensity to run away from her problems—but I hadn’t expected that.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured softly, turning to look at her fully and really look at her for the first time since I’d stomped my way into this closet and gotten us trapped.
Ciara shrugged like it didn’t bother her at all anymore. “I’ve got a wonderful family now that loves me… and a boyfriend who I think might do the same.”
The word boyfriend grated against my nerves, my inner alpha disliking her use of it when talking about someone who was not in my pack.
Leith and Artie had made it very clear that they wanted her to join our pack and I’d resigned myself to it—or at least that’s how I presented myself to my packmates.
I hadn’t resigned myself to shit and I knew it deep down. Every time I saw the female alpha when it was my turn to pick Artie up from practice she looked and smelled better than the last time.
Artie had been my first love and I could recognize the signs of attraction for Ciara a mile away.
“Why didn’t you tell them about me confronting you on your run? You could have done so—easily—but you didn’t.”
If Ciara could tell I was avoiding her mention of a boyfriend, she didn’t show it as she wrapped her arms around her knees. “At the time you weren’t wrong to ask that of me. The chasing me down on a run I could have gone without, but your reasons were solid. I’ve always been so terrified of waking up one day in the same exact situation as my mam that I sort of… avoid romance entirely.”
I sat up, feeling a little bit offended. “Artie and Leith would never do anything like that.” And neither would I, a voice in my head whispered.
“You don’t think I know that? Leith Dougall is one of the gentlest men I’ve ever met. But that doesn’t mean anything to my cracked little brain—especially four years ago when I felt like I was a bad luck charm to everyone I met.”
“And it’s somehow better with this boyfriend?” Jealousy that I hadn’t even realized I’d been feeling leaked into my voice.
Ciara’s brows rose as she glanced over at me, her full lips opening to let out a whoosh of breath. “Yes—at least I think so—Wiz makes me feel… I don’t know, secure? Like even if my world is going to shit, that he’d be my landing net.”
“Artie likes you, so does Leith, what about them makes you feel insecure?” Shit. That came out almost accusatory when I hadn’t meant it to.
Ciara’s soft expression hardened and her lips pressed into a thin line.
“It’s not them that makes me feel insecure. It’s you Enzo Santoro,” she scolded, pointing a finger in my face. “You glare at me one moment and then act soft in another. It’s utterly confusing. Half the time I’m not sure if you wish I’d just disappear or if you want to fuck me and get it out of your system.”
Her words stung fiercely and I couldn’t admit, even to myself, that they rang of the truth.
And I really didn’t like that.
Without thinking, I reached over and gripped her chin and pulled her face to mine.
Her lips were just as soft as I’d imagined they’d be a thousand times when Artie came home from practice wearing her scent on his skin. The image of both my omega and her dancing along either side of me as I tasted both of their lips like very different, but still very delicious glasses of wine.
That scent which had previously lingered in my peripheral thanks to my omega, now filled my nose and everything finally clicked for me. The reason why Leith and Artie were so set on the woman in front of me and what my inner alpha had been whispering to me all along.
Scent match, I realized with a jolt as Ciara moaned softly, her lips moving against mine.
Then the moment was over all too soon as the door to the storage closet was opened, nearly sending the both of us careening backward and flat onto the floor.
Aurelia Peterson peered down at us from her wheelchair, a shocked expression on her face. “I was wondering where you’d gone and I figured you weren’t listening when Hideo told you about the closet but…”
Ciara was up on her feet, a hand touching her swollen lips as she snagged the bag full of supplies she’d been sent to collect.
“Not a word,” she said to her sister, her cheeks warm with a blush as she hurried out of the broadcast studio, leaving Aurelia and me still staring at one another.
There was a beat of silence, Aurelia’s blue eyes taking in my disheveled appearance with the level of shrewd observation that I’d seen in the eyes of her father and uncle while they watched their players at practice.
“I’m not going to say anything about what I just saw,” she began slowly and held up her hand when I opened my mouth to thank her. “But, I will say this. Ciara may look like a tough woman on the outside because that’s what she wants the world to see. But I know better and I’ve been protecting her since she was twelve years old, so if you hurt her in any way I will make your life a living hell.”
