He sat up on the bed. Slowly. His legs felt heavy and his head was throbbing. He sat facing Brody with his legs crossed and his hands on his thighs, his knuckles white.
“Tell me what you’re doing to fix this.”
Brody looked at him for a long second.
“I’m making moves. That’s all I can tell you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Are you negotiating with Reznov?”
Brody’s silence was answer enough. Ren felt bile rising in his throat.
“Are you going to buy me? Is that it? Are you going to pay him and keep me as if I were a transfer of ownership?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Give me a few days.”
“How many?”
“As many as I need.” Brody leaned forward. The smell intensified. Raisins, walnuts, a hint of cinnamon underneath, something Ren couldn’t name but that relaxed his jaw muscles. “Trust me for a few days. That’s all I’m asking. After that, if you want to leave, I’ll help you leave. Papers, money, a safe place. But right now, I need you to stay here and not do anything stupid.”
Ren swallowed. The distance between them had closed without either of them having moved. Or maybe they had moved. Maybe Ren had leaned forward when he heard the word papers or maybe Brody had stepped closer when he said trust me, but the result was the same: less than a foot between their faces.
Brody’s breath reached his lips. Warm.
“How are you doing this?” Ren whispered, no longer sure if he was asking about the negotiation or what the scent of Brody was doing to his gut. “How are you…?”
He didn’t finish the sentence. The gray eyes dropped to his mouth. A minimal, involuntary movement that lasted half a second, but Ren saw it and his entire body responded with a wave of heat that rose from his belly to his throat.
No.
The word rang clearly in his head, but his body had already lunged in the opposite direction. He leaned the last centimeter, and Brody’s lips met his halfway. He didn’t know who closed the distance. It didn’t matter.
The kiss was clumsy at first. Dry. Lips touching lips with too much pressure, Ren’s nose bumping against Brody’s cheek, the wrong angle. Ren placed a hand on Brody’s neck to correct him, and the skin beneath his fingers burned. The alpha’s pulse was racing, furious, contradicting the calm he’d built up, the measured voice, the control. Brody was just as affected as he was. Ren felt it in that wild pulse, and a dark satisfaction washed over him.
Brody took Ren’s jaw in one hand. The fingers were large and spanned from his ear to his chin, and he gently turned Ren’s face until he found the right angle. Then, yes. Then the kiss changed. Brody’s lips parted over his, and Ren stopped thinking.
He kissed him as if he’d been thirsty for years. He kissed him with his teeth, biting his lower lip until Brody growled, a deep sound that Ren felt vibrate in his ribs. Brody’s hand slid from his jaw to the nape of his neck, and his fingers closed around the short hair at the base—firm, without pulling, just holding—and Ren arched toward the touch like a plant toward the light.
He hated himself for it. He hated himself with a cold, familiar violence, the same he felt every time his omega body did something his mind hadn’t allowed. But the hatred wasn’t enough to pull away. Nothing was enough. Brody’s scent enveloped him, filled his lungs, ran through his veins like an injection, and Ren needed more. More contact. More heat. More of the alpha’s racing pulse beneath his fingers, more of the biological, savage certainty that his mouth, his powerful hands, his enormous body, were meant for him.
When they pulled apart, Ren’s lips were swollen and his cheeks wet with tears he didn’t remember shedding. Brody pressed his forehead against the boy’s. Both of their breaths were ragged, mingling in the tiny space between their mouths.
“A few days,” Brody murmured.
Ren closed his eyes. Shame burned his skin, thick and sticky, but beneath it, beneath it all, his body vibrated with a relief he couldn’t deny. That kiss had ripped something out of him. Something he needed to keep standing. And the worst part was that he felt better without it.
“A few days,” he repeated, his voice breaking.
Chapter 8
The relief lasted three breaths. Three heartbeats during which Ren allowed himself simply to be, with Brody’s forehead pressed against his own and the scent of raisins and walnuts filling his lungs like a remedy.
