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If my dick could talk, it’d be screaming in protest. “I remember.”
She nods and then turns and leaves. When she’s gone, I release a ragged breath. My blood is cold with remorse. Every time I cornered her. Every time I got into her space, trying to catch a hint of her scent, I hadn’t realized the extent of damage I was doing. I was so desperate to smell my mate again, I forgot that she was suffering through mine.
I grab a few bags of popcorn and set them on the kitchen counter, heading to take care of my scent before I make the popcorn. Quinn wants me to know what it’s like to be her, and that includes hiding who I am.
Maybe it’s dumb, and maybe she truly doesn’t want me to use the descenting lotion, but for myself, I need to experience what she did. I already know it’s going to suck, but I don’t care. I need to suffer through what she did. It’s the only way I’ll really understand.
Forty
QUINN
I fell asleep during the second movie, and I wake up sweating and tired of sitting on the couch. Dylan is snoring softly, nose nestled against my neck, and Austin’s head is in my lap, arms wrapped around my legs. Brady is on the far end of the sectional, stretched out on the elongated seat. The Quinn-pile is cute, but I really have to pee. Ever so carefully, I climb out from between the brothers. Cupping Austin’s head, I push a pillow under it and step away.
Dylan is still snoring, snuggling the back of the couch now, and Austin is still fast asleep. I breathe out a sigh of relief, but my skin pricks, and a familiar electricity raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
Brady.
I glance at him, catching him mid-yawn. There’s something different about him, but I can’t pinpoint it. And it’s not just him trying to be nice. It’s almost like the air around him is different. My bladder interrupts my analysis with an unpleasant reminder that I really have to go. I rush off to the hallway bathroom and do my business. My reflection in the mirror is slightly horrifying.My eyeliner is a mess, and my hair is all over the place. Redness clings to my lips, but it’s not from lipstick.
Grabbing a cloth, I clean myself up as best I can. There’s really not much else to be done without showering, and I’m not ready to wash the rest of Austin’s and Dylan’s scents from my skin. In the secrecy of the room, I pull the collar of Dylan’s shirt aside and study Brady’s mark.
Some omegas like to be romanced before getting their marks, but I’d been so desperate for it to happen, I didn’t care how or when or why, only that they do it. Could it have been more romantic? Sure, but that’s never been us.
Our story is wrought with bad decisions and need.
Secret touches and whispered filth.
Stolen glances and intimidation.
My gaze strays to the door, and I take a breath, bracing myself for facing off with Brady. Only, when I open the door, he isn’t there. I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or relieved. Before, I knew what to expect. I knew when to anticipate his moves and the things he would say.
He’s trying, I remind myself. Sighing, I head back to the movie room to wake up the other brothers. Brady is sitting now, staring at the doorway and clenching his jaw. As soon as he sees me, the tension drains from his body.
He was holding himself back.
He wanted to corner me like all those times before.
Like I did to him.
A smirk tugs at the edges of my lips. It’s probably twisted that I enjoyed how hard he tried to get away from me when I found him in the pantry. For a few minutes, he didn’t know what was happening, but then I saw the moment he understood. The regret that creased his forehead and softened his eyes.
Instead of waking up his brothers, I walk toward him. His gaze roves over me, and if my hips sway a little harder, whocares? Brady does. He curls his fingers into fists in his lap in an effort not to do what his alpha nature is telling him.
Take. Claim. Mate.
I stop mere inches away from his seat and stare down at him.
He tips his head to the side and studies me right back, waiting with bated breath for what I’ll do next.
I should leave, but I still can’t figure out what’s different. Usually, his presence is so big and his scent overpowers me but...wait. His scent. I take a slow inhale and squint at him.
“I used the descenting lotion,” he explains in a hushed tone, as if I didn’t already know what that distinct lack of smell meant. Like I hadn’t erased my own for years.
But suppressing my scent didn’t start with Brady. It started the day my real dads left my mom for their scent match.
Brady takes my silence for confusion. “I thought this would be what’s best for both of us. I never really thought about what it meant for you to be around me, around us, with our scents clinging to every fabric. I was so used to you not having one that I never considered what it would be like to be tortured by something you can’t have.”
“It is, isn’t it? Torture?”
