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"Are you okay?" Zorah repeated, the worry in her tone plainly directed at him rather than the situation.
"Fine," he grunted, his insides one giant quivering exposed nerve.
She scoffed, a loud, harsh crackle of disgust in his ear, and pulled away from him. Her head reared back, hands pushing against his hold.
"What the hell?" He firmed his grip against her slippery, wriggling body, but she only struggled harder, disturbing the water around them and making far too much noise. "Stop it."
"No." Her nails dug into his chest. "You think I'm old enough to feel up but not old enough to talk to? You can get bent, you dick."
What. The.Hell?
Stunned, Jake let her go, cringing as she moved a few feet away to grab another support beam. Worried about the fuss, he checked on Colt, who casually perched on the shore, lighting up. Probably some of the open-secret cannabis Dev grew, confirmed a second later when the acrid trail of smoke tinged his nostrils.God dammit. That inconvenient asshole planned to hang out and get high. Was this his devious plan to sniff them out? They couldn't stay in the lake all night. Day would eventually arrive and then what?
Cold closed in around him, and he felt the loss of Zorah's warmth like a physical exorcism. Her agitated pants echoed in the space beneath the dock, and he turned his thoughts to this new distance between them. They shouldn't be talking under the circumstances, but he couldn't let her comment go."You think I'm old enough to feel up but not old enough to talk to?"What the fuck did that mean?
He faced the black blob of her outline and pitched his voice as low as he could. "If you think I was taking advantage of you, I'm sorry. I thought you were into it."
She huffed again but said nothing, letting the silence fight with the tinkling drips of water. A fresh blast of Colt's cannabis smoke stung the back of Jake's throat, adding to the myriad of discomforts.
"Something happened to you," she explained, enunciating slowly and quietly. "We got in the water, and then you went somewhere else. You were trembling like you'd seen a monster." Blood drained from his face, the exposure too acute and overwhelming. "I asked because I wanted to know where you'd gone." Her tone, which had softened, turned hard and bitter again. "I thought that we're friends, at least."
Her voice cracked on the wordfriends,the word dripping with so much longing that it jabbed a jagged shard of guilt into his chest. Friends? How could they ever be something as banal as friends? The guilty knife twisted. He'd confused this girl and, in doing so, hurt her. Hurt her when she'd done nothing but witness his pain in a way no one else had. Maybe ever.
"We can't be friends." The words lurched off his lips, sounding hollow and paltry compared to the depth of his obsession or the infinite span of his intentions.
He wanted to be many things to her. Her protector. Her provider. Her worshipper. Her confidant. Her supporter. Her cheerleader. Her defender. Her lover. Her Alpha. Hermate.
Not her friend.
"Right." She gave one of her little dismissive snorts, no doubt accented with a pointed eye roll. "A big, strong Alpha would never be friends withLittle Zorah." She spit the eponymous moniker with a whopping dose of venom, yet the pain she hid behind it captured all his attention.
"Who calls you that? Your parents?"
"Not just them. Everyone."
"Everyone in River Bend?"
Her arm trembled with the effort to hold herself aloft. She shifted position, swapping the gripping hand that kept her head out of the water. The command to get back in his arms dangled on his tongue, but he held it back. She wouldn't want to be told what to do right now, that much he could tell.
"And here," she replied after her position settled.
He didn't know how to tactfully tell her that, of all the Alpha conversations he'd overheard regarding Zorah, exactly zero of them indicated anyone thought of her as a child. Then again, those conversations revolved around her availability as an Omega mate, her looks, her scent, her considerable fuckability, and not much else. Which was patronizing and objectifying as well.
He cut a glance to Colt — still smoking contentedly on the beach with no indication he'd be leaving anytime soon,the dick— and cleared his throat as quietly as he could. "You don't feel like people consider you an adult."
"No." Her words swelled like they were spoken through a bubble in her throat.
"Grace and Lars trust you with their children," he argued gently, "they wouldn't do that if they didn't trust you."
"I've been watching children since I was a child. It's hardly an endorsement of anything." Her arm quivered with fatigue, and she moved to swap them again.
Jake reached out his free hand and tipped his head toward the shore. "He's not leaving anytime soon; let me hold you." The hushed command sounded overly intimate, and he stammered to add, "Up. Let me hold you up and out of the water."
She didn't respond, but he let the offer hang, feeling her resistance wane as her fatigue grew.
Fatigue won out, and she swam to him, confidently but quietly gliding the few strokes like it was nothing. Pride bloomed under all the messiness of the last few minutes. The sleek softness of her body slid back against him; her arms circled his neck, and their torsos aligned. Tension unlocked in Jake's shoulders. This felt better, this feltright.
She didn't wrap her thighs around him, but her feet brushed his legs, and he welcomed every touch. He smoothed up and down her back, bumping his fingertips along her delicate spine. She let out a soft sigh and relaxed further into his hold.
