“There you are,” he says. For one second my heart lifts. I search his face for something, a look of recognition, of tenderness, of knowing, some sign that he remembers what happened between us and that it meant something to him too. But what I find instead is confusion and uncertainty, a slight panic around his eyes. He continues, his voice tight and rushed, “Thank goodness you’re here. I think I did something stupid last night.”
I stop walking. The cans in my arms feel suddenly very heavy.
“What do you mean?” I say carefully.
Hongjoong looks me over, a quick scan from head to toe like he’s checking that I’m in one piece, and then he shakes his head and laughs. It’s a humorless sound, more air than voice. He runs a hand through his messed up hair and says, “I think I went into rut last night, but I don’t remember a thing. The whole night after a certain point is just blank.”
The hallway tilts slightly under my feet. I adjust my grip on the drinks and hear myself say, “You don’t remember?”
Hongjoong shakes his head again, more emphatically this time. Then he glances around the empty corridor, checking both directions, and asks, “Have you seen anyone? Any of the guys, or anyone else?”
“No,” I say. My voice sounds normal. I’m amazed by that. “It’s just us.”
Hongjoong lets out a long breath through his mouth, his shoulders dropping. “Good,” he says.
“Why?”
He scrubs his face with both hands and then drops them, meeting my eyes with an expression that’s equal parts sheepish and genuinely rattled. “I woke up naked on a classroom floor and the whole place reeks of omega,” he says. “I was worried for a minute that I’d slept with someone. Like maybe the guys called some omegas over to party last night or something.” He pauses, scanning my face, and I keep it perfectly still. “But there’s no one around, so it must be fine. Right? I probably just... I don’t know, stripped down because of the fever and the pheromones are residual from the rut itself.”
I nod. The motion feels mechanical, my neck stiff. “Probably,” I say.
Hongjoong laughs again, and this time there’s real relief in it, strained. He tips his head back and stares at the ceiling for a moment, then looks at me sideways with a crooked grin that shows the edge of his dimple. “I was worried for a second there that I’d done something really stupid,” he says. “Like bond an omega while I was in rut. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? Making a mistake like that on our graduation night?” He shakes his head, still grinning, and adds, “My parents would actually kill me.”
My stomach drops. It drops so far and so fast that for a second I think I might actually be sick, right here in the hallway, all overthe vending machine snacks I’m clutching to my chest. The bite mark throbs under my buttoned-up collar like it heard him, like it’s responding to the wordmistake. I can feel it burning against my skin, hot and accusatory. I have to swallow twice before I can trust my voice.
“Yeah,” I say. The word comes out thin and reedy and I clear my throat to cover it. “That’d be awful.”
Hongjoong doesn’t notice. He’s already moving on, the crisis averted in his mind, his body language loosening back into the easy swagger I know so well. He hooks an arm over my shoulders, casual and companionable, the exact same way he’s done a thousand times before, but the pressure of it feels like it’s going to crush me. He reaches over with his free hand and plucks the bottled water from my grip, cracking it open one-handed.
“Is this for me? Thanks.” He takes a long drink, his throat bobbing, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “God, I feel like shit. I need a shower so bad.” He steers us down the hallway with his arm still slung across my shoulders, our steps falling into sync the way they always do. “Do you think the convenience store near school is open yet? I’m fucking starving.”
I say nothing. I match his pace and let him talk and I keep my face pointed forward and I feel the bite mark burn under my collar with every step, every heartbeat, every breath.
I decide right there, walking down that empty hallway with Hongjoong’s arm warm and heavy across my shoulders and his voice filling the silence between us with easy chatter about breakfast and showers and how totaled his body feels, that I will never tell him the truth about last night. It’s better this way. It was just a rut. Just hormones doing what they do to stupid teenagers who don’t know any better. If Hongjoong doesn’t remember then it doesn’t count, and if it doesn’t count then I can bury it and move on and we can stay friends and nothing has to change. He called it a mistake. He called it ridiculous. Hisparents would kill him. I heard him clearly and I understood, and there’s nothing left to misinterpret.
I tell myself this firmly, ignoring the way the bond mark throbs against my collarbone with every beat of my heart, steady and insistent, like it’s trying to tell me something I’ve already decided not to hear.
Chapter Ten
Ilie on Hongjoong’s bed in no hurry to move, sprawled on my stomach with the sheets tangled loosely at my waist, sunlight warming my bare back through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s one of those rare mornings where nothing is pressing, no texts, no school fees due, no appointments to rush to, and my body feels loose and rested despite the pleasant ache between my legs that’s become familiar over the weeks of this contract. I can hear Alto and Rennard clicking around on the hardwood somewhere in the apartment, their nails tapping in that delicate prance, and the distant hum of the city far below the windows. I close my eyes and let myself just exist for a minute, face half-buried in a pillow that smells like Hongjoong’s shampoo.
The mattress dips beside me. Hongjoong’s mouth presses warm against my cheek, dry and soft, and I make a low sound of acknowledgment without opening my eyes. Then his lips move lower, finding the knob of my spine at the base of my neck, and he starts trailing his mouth downward, kiss by kiss, slowand unhurried, like he’s counting each vertebra with his lips. His breath is warm against my skin and I can feel the slight scratch of stubble he hasn’t shaved yet, the faint drag of it raising goosebumps along my sides. I stay still and let him, my breathing even.
When he reaches the swell of my ass and nips at the skin there, teeth light and teasing, I laugh softly into the pillow. “You’re like a dog with a bone,” I mutter, and he bites down a little harder in retaliation, making me flinch and swat backward at him blindly.
I turn over onto my back, blinking against the sunlight, and Hongjoong lies down beside me, pressing the full length of his body against my side. He’s warm, sleep-heated, his skin smooth where it meets mine, and when he pulls me close and kisses me properly I let him, my hand coming up to rest against his jaw. The kiss is morning-slow and warm, his mouth tasting faintly of the water he must have gotten up to drink at some point, his tongue sliding against mine in lazy strokes that don’t demand anything, just take their time. His hands cup my face, both of them, palms against my cheeks and fingers curling behind my ears, and when he pulls back it’s only far enough to look at me, his brown eyes still soft with sleep.
“I’m never going to get sick of seeing you all cute and sleepy like this first thing in the morning,” he says, his voice still rough from sleep, that low scratchy quality it gets before he’s fully awake.
I put my arm over my face and groan. “I’m not cute.”
His hand slides down my chest, my stomach, and then cups my soft cock where it rests against my thigh, giving it a light squeeze before flicking the head with his thumb. “This is pretty cute, in my opinion.”
I hiss and jerk my hips away from his hand, then drive my knee into his side hard enough to make him grunt. “Don’t flick it, you psycho—”
He grabs for my wrists and we’re wrestling before I can finish the sentence, tumbling across the massive bed in a tangle of bare limbs and bunched sheets, grunting and cursing at each other. I get a solid knee into his ribs and he wheezes, then retaliates by hooking his leg around mine and trying to pin my wrists above my head. I buck hard and twist free, rolling to the edge of the mattress, breathing hard and grinning despite myself, my hair falling into my eyes.
“We should get dressed,” I say, pushing the hair back. Hongjoong has a weekend conference outside the city, some racing industry event that he wants me to come along for, and I need to go back to my apartment first to pack a bag. “I still have to go home and get my things, so we should get moving if you want to leave before noon.”
