The Mating Game by Lana Ferguson - 22

“Okay,” I tell her, turning my head ever so slightly. “I won’t look, all right?”

“I’m mostly dressed,” she points out. “It’s fine.”

I turn and immediately crouch, my fingers brushing along her calves as I try to locate the waistband of her sweats in the half-dark room. My knuckles brush against her skin when I find it, and my fingers curl into the edge as I slowly start to pull her pants up her legs.

Now, I know this is probably one of the most awkward, ridiculous moments of my life, and I shouldn’t feel a rush of adrenaline and a quickening pulse as my knuckles inadvertently glide against her knees and then higher over her thighs as I work the material up to where it’s supposed to be, but my body doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

“Lift up,” I murmur, my voice rough.

She raises her hips as instructed so that I can work her pants to her waist, then she lets out a quiet gasp that makes me still for half a second when the backs of my fingers graze her ass on the way.

“There,” I rasp, quickly pulling away from her. “All done.”

“I can’t find my socks,” she mourns. “I think they got knocked off the bed.”

“Oh. I have…Just a second.”

I move to the other side of the room, knocking my hands against the things on the dresser, the sound deafening in the quiet space, right before a bright beam of light illuminates the entire room.

“You had a flashlight that entire time?”

I can only hope she can’t make out my sheepish expression in the glow of the flashlight. “I didn’t think you’d want me to bring it into the bathroom. Didn’t think you’d want me shining it on you when you were naked.”

The flashlight is pointed right at her, so I clearly see the way her lips part slightly and her eyes go wide, no doubt realizing that fact herself. If the sudden burst of her scent is any indication, I almost think she might not have minded.

Hopefully the bright light of the flashlight is washing me out enough that she doesn’t see my face flushing.

I move the beam to the floor in search of her socks, quickly finding them under the edge of the bed where they’ve fallen. I grab them before I set the flashlight upright on the ground beside me, looking at her from where I’ve knelt and holding out my hand in a quiet request. She gives me her foot while I barely breathe, unsure how putting on her socks could be so hard on my heart. It’s practically dancing in my chest right now.

I slide one sock over her good foot before moving to the sprained one, cradling her heel gently as I carefully pull the material over her toes and upward to slide it onto her foot. Again, the backside of my finger teases her skin as I work, but there’s an added bonus of my palm half curving against her calf as I tug the long sock all the way up.

“Done,” I tell her, looking up at her from the floor.

There’s probably something wrong with my face—maybe it’s blue or something, given that I stopped breathing about thirty seconds ago. Maybe that’s why I linger on the floor for a moment, just staring at her and breathing in her sweet scent. It’s brighter like this, fresh from the shower, and the urge to rise and press my tongue against her skin is stronger than it should be. I don’t know how long it is before I remember myself, clearing my throat and pushing up from the floor to return to a standing position before grabbing her towel from where she dropped it on the bed and handing it back to her.

“Dry your hair,” I order gently. “Don’t want you to get sick.”

“Right,” she answers, taking the terry cloth from me. “What about the power?”

I shake my head. “I texted my friend at the co-op. He hasn’t texted me back yet.”

“Are we going to freeze to death? Is this how we die?”

I can’t help but chuckle.

“I’m going to build a fire downstairs. It’ll warm the room right up, don’t worry.”

“My hero,” she laughs.

I reach to rub at my neck. “But…we’ll probably need to sleep down there. This upstairs is going to freeze after a bit.”

“Together?”

It’s an innocent question, but what it does to me is less so.

“There are extra blankets and pillows in the storage closet downstairs. We can make pallets near the fire.”

It’s not quite an answer to what she was inadvertently asking, but only slightly, as far as I’m concerned.

“My phone,” she says suddenly. “It’s on the bathroom counter. Can you grab it?”

“No way to charge it,” I point out.

“I just want to let my brothers and my friend Ada know what’s going on,” she tells me. She laughs then. “Want to make sure she knows who to blame if you murder me out here.”

I snort out a laugh of my own. “More likely that a bear finds its way in looking for warmth and makes a meal out of you.”

“ What? ”

I flash her a sly grin in the glow of the flashlight. “Kidding.”

“Hysterical,” she grumbles.

“Come on,” I say, reaching out my hand to help her stand after picking the flashlight off the floor. “Let’s get you downstairs and warmed up.”

I don’t think it really hits me, not until she’s once again tucked against my side with her arm around my neck and her hand clasped around my waist to steady herself as we work our way out of her room toward the stairs. It takes that long, at least, to fully sink in.

That we’re all alone. That we’re trapped in the lodge without power and with only each other for warmth.

Okay, maybe that last bit was a stretch…but tell that to the sense of anticipation clenching in my gut.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch.”

I give her a stern look from the floor. “I told you to be still.”

“It hurts ,” she whines.

I shake my head as I continue to wrap her ankle with some gauze from the first aid kit. “I think it’s just twisted. It’s not even swollen. You’ll probably be fine by tomorrow. Better keep off of it tonight though.”

“Well, there go all my pressing appointments,” she remarks dryly.

I grin as I work, the warm light of the fire I built flickering across her face and my hands as I continue to gently wind the cotton gauze.

“There,” I say finally. “That should be good. Not too tight, is it?”

She curls her toes to test before shaking her head. “Feels good.”

I’m all too aware that my hand is still cupping her heel, her skin somehow warmer than the nearby fire. Her natural scent is intoxicating—and something deep inside me feels immense satisfaction at being able to take care of her like this. Even if the thought of her hurting makes me feel the opposite.

“Want some ibuprofen?”

“Please.”

I disappear from the room with my flashlight, quickly finding what I need and returning to her so I can hand her two pills and a glass of water. She downs them quickly, and I watch her wince as she tries to put a little bit of weight on her foot.

“Be careful,” I tell her. “You don’t want to hurt yourself more.”

I know that if she does, it will be hell getting her any sort of help with the storm beginning to rage outside, which only makes it more obvious how alone we are up here. How I’m trapped in the lodge with no one but her and her delectable scent and the memory of her leaning into me only last night.

I think…you kind of want to kiss me.

I’ve been trying to reconcile why I didn’t—why the thought of doing so sent a shock of terror through me—and all I can come up with is the fear of being so intimate with someone again. And yes, I’m aware that she and I have been intimate , but there’s something about kissing that brings everything to a new level. It’s a connection, a promise almost. One I’m not sure I can give her.

“Did your friend text you back?” she asks, breaking me from my reverie.

I nod. “A couple of downed trees on the line. He says they won’t be able to get up the trail to fix it until the snow stops. We might be out for a day or so.”

“Awesome.”

“We’re really roughing it now,” I joke.

“I bet this is your regular Saturday night,” she teases back, tucking a blanket all around herself. I notice sweat beading at her temples despite the way she’s bundling herself up and worry that she might be getting sick somehow.

I touch my fingers to her water glass, urging her to drink more. “All that’s missing is my whittling knife.”

“And an oil lamp.” She takes another gulp. “Can’t forget the oil lamp.”

I shake my head as I turn away from her to rummage in a pile of things I brought back with the first aid kit after I built the fire. I grab two cans from the pile before I turn back to her with one cocked brow, holding them out for her to see.

“Would you rather have chicken noodle or…” I squint to read the other can. “Creamy wild rice?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Cold soup?”

“I’m going to heat them up over the fire,” I tell her. “Which one?”

She gives me a look that says she doesn’t find this possible, but points to a can all the same. “Chicken noodle.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Sure you were.”

I actually do pull out a knife then, ignoring her follow-up whittling joke with a roll of my eyes, instead popping two holes in each can’s lid before I tear the wrappers off both.

“This feels like I’m watching a live National Geographic documentary,” she comments.

I grin as I place both cans as close to the fire as the hearth will allow. “It’s something my dad taught me when we would go camping.”

“Did you do that a lot?”

“Every summer when it got warmer,” I tell her. “Until I went off to college, that is.”

“You went to college?”

I frown. “Only for a year. Not even that, really.”

“Why did you leave?”

I can’t bring myself to look at her, shrugging as I keep my attention on the cans near the fire. “Parents died.”

“Oh.” She gives me a look akin to pity. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“No reason to be,” I say quietly. “Where did you go?”

“I got my bachelor’s at UCLA.”

“I bet your parents are proud,” I say.

Her expression turns soft. “They are. My dad worries a lot that I gave up my own dreams to live his, but I really didn’t. I’ve always known I wanted to carry on things in one way or another.”

“That’s really special,” I tell her wistfully. “I imagine your dad thinks so too.”

She smiles shyly. “It’s nothing glamorous, really—or, well, it wasn’t before the social media aspect of it all…but still. I like it. I like knowing that something my dad built will go on even if he can’t go on with it, you know?”

Her phrasing tugs at my heartstrings, and I can’t help but think of my own situation. Sure, it’s not something I chose on my own, but there really is something special about knowing that something my parents built will go on…even when they can’t go on with it, just like she said.

“Your brothers said you were a daddy’s girl,” I tease, trying to change the subject before I get all forlorn.

“Terribly,” she tells me with a laugh. “He used to bring me to jobsites when I was younger. I loved watching him work. He focused more on home renovations back then.” She chuckles softly to herself. “My dad isn’t actually big on the outdoors.”

“That’s surprising somehow,” I state.

“Kind of,” she responds. “Needless to say, this is as close to camping as I’ve ever been.”

She looks down as she says it, which eats at me a little.

“Then I guess I’ll have to give you the full experience.”

I turn my attention to the cans by the fire, grabbing a small towel and folding it lengthwise before wrapping it around one of the cans to bring it over to her. I murmur that she should be careful as I hand it over, leaving and coming back in an instant with a spoon, which I use to open the pull-tab top before relinquishing it to her. I don’t speak while I prepare my own soup, not until I carefully carry it over to the couch to sit down beside her, my shoulder touching hers as I stir the soup without looking at her. The silence in the room is an ever-present reminder of how alone we are, and the heat emanating from her body makes me shift slightly in my seat. Not to mention how her scent fills the space, threatening to suffocate me in a way I would be grateful for.

“So…I get that I don’t know a lot about what you do,” I say. “Or much about any of that stuff, really, but I think it’s easy to tell how much it means to you. I don’t know you as well as your brothers or your parents—hell, I don’t know that much about you at all, if I’m being honest.” I bring my spoon to my lips to blow on it gently, watching from the corner of my eye as she gapes at me with an open mouth. “I think anyone with half a brain can see that you’re passionate about it and that giving up on whatever your life might have been to help your dad is admirable.” I shake my head. “I can’t say that if I had been given the choice, I’d have done the same.”

I hear her small intake of breath, my pulse quickening as her scent blooms deliciously. Something about it makes my skin prickle, but I keep my eyes on the fire as I continue to slowly bring the spoon back and forth between my can and my mouth, mostly because I don’t know what else to say after uttering something so embarrassing. I sense the way she’s still gawking though and give her shoulder a slight nudge.

“Eat your soup before it gets cold.”

She does as I say, her brow wrinkled in thought as she tucks into her food. My mind lingers on what I’ve said, realizing how much truth there is to it. Tess really is passionate about her job, and it’s clear she shares that same passion for her family. It makes me feel like a bit of an ass for the way I treated her when she first showed up here.

“How is your ankle?”

She turns her head to catch me looking down at the bit of her toes that has slipped out from under the blanket and pushes her foot out farther to reveal the ankle in question. “I think it’s a little better,” she tells me. “Ibuprofen must be kicking in.”

She slowly tilts her foot from side to side to show me that it is indeed getting better, and I nod in approval before I take another bite of soup.

“Good.”

I can hear the scrape of her spoon as she stirs it in her can, and when I peek over at her from the side, I can see her white teeth pressed against her soft lower lip.

“What is it?”

“I didn’t thank you for taking care of me last night,” she starts quietly, and I feel my heart begin to pound in my ears a little with nerves. “You know…getting me back here…tucking me in…all that.”

“No reason to thank me,” I answer, turning my face away. “Just the decent thing to do.”

“I told you I’m not used to people fussing over me,” she mumbles.

I smile. “And I told you that you should let people fuss over you more.”

She goes quiet again, and I can practically hear the question on her tongue as she obviously struggles to ask it, my body tensing in preparation for the conversation I knew we would need to have eventually.

“You know…about last night…”

There’s a sound of metal against metal that signals my can is empty, but I continue to absently scrape my spoon around the bottom. “Last night?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she huffs. “Did I misread things? It felt like you…I mean, at least, it seemed like you wanted to—”

“You didn’t,” I say evenly. “Misread things.”

“Then why didn’t you…?”

I experience a familiar panic and the echo of old wounds throbbing deep inside, feeling silly all of a sudden. Like maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it isn’t a big deal to her, and after everything we’ve done, maybe it shouldn’t be a big deal to me . For the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why, but it is , I’m realizing. It feels like the start of something. Something that, deep down, I’m afraid might break me all over again.

“There was a girl back in college,” I start, wincing at the thought of her name. “Chloe.”

Tess is quiet, seeming to sense that I need to get this out all at once, and she nods softly for me to go on.

I drop my spoon into my can and let it rest in my lap, eyes downcast as my jaw works and I consider what to say.

“We met during freshman orientation,” I tell her. “She was an omega, like you, and she was open about it. I’d always felt so…different after discovering I was an alpha when I was just a teenager, but she made me feel…normal. For maybe the first time.”

“Did you…?”

I nod. “We dated. You might have guessed that it got intense between us very quickly because of what we were, but I didn’t care about any of that. I was so gone for her, all I could focus on was how it felt like she was the one . We hadn’t been together long, but I was already planning our future. I wanted to make her my mate .”

I see Tess wince from the corner of my eye, and I imagine it’s strange to hear things like this considering the way I’ve been…helping her lately.

She clears her throat. “What happened?”

“My parents wanted me to come home. We had this tradition…and I…” I shake my head, the memories still too painful after all this time. “I made plans with Chloe’s parents instead. We went to the beach. I was on a beach when they ran their car off the road.”

“Hunter…”

I feel her small hand curl around my forearm, and that gives me courage to keep going. “It felt like my fault. Like maybe, had I been there, they wouldn’t have…”

“Of course it isn’t your fault,” she says firmly. “You weren’t even here.”

“That’s my point,” I tell her. “I should have been here.”

Her lips purse, but she doesn’t comment, asking instead, “So what happened then?”

“I felt like I needed to be back here. I felt like I owed that to them, to make sure this place kept going. They loved it so much, I just…” I let out a sigh. “Regardless, it didn’t fit into Chloe’s plans.”

“She left you?”

“Brutally,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Not only did I find out I wasn’t the only person she was seeing, when she realized I was serious about quitting school to come back home, she told me she wasn’t going to waste her life taking care of some dingy little lodge. She had plans , and I obviously wasn’t meant to be a part of them. I was just…something for her enjoyment. Something to pass the time.”

I don’t miss the way she makes a face at Chloe’s echo of her own word for the lodge, and I can’t bring myself to look at her as I say it.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “What I said when I got here…”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. You didn’t know.” I draw in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I learned back then that sometimes the only person you can rely on is yourself. And I guess I learned that soulmates don’t exist.”

“So you didn’t kiss me because…”

“Because you’re leaving,” I say. “And I don’t know if I can let myself be that vulnerable again.”

Her mouth opens as if she’s going to say something, then quickly closes again, as if she thinks better of it. The silence is so thick it threatens to swallow me, and I stand from the couch before she has the chance to respond.

“I need to get more blankets, I think,” I say. “That floor can be brutal.”

I stalk out of the room like the coward I am, stomping into the next room to gather some blankets from the linens closet as Tess’s delicious scent closes in on me from all sides, permeating the room and beyond. It occurs to me again when I’m bringing back piles of blankets to drop onto the bearskin rug that I will be sleeping in close proximity to this woman, that her scent and the waste of a promised kiss will linger between us intimately for the entire night—and who knows how much longer with the storm—and suddenly the thought of coming out on the other side of this unscathed seems harder than it did before.

I don’t know what it’s like to kiss Tess, even if I’m too afraid to let myself have that, but I know what it’s like to touch her. And I already believe it’s something I’m wholly addicted to. Being forced to share warmth with her for the entire night without doing so seems almost impossible. But this is a game we’re playing here, one that has a certain set of rules. She only wants my touch when she needs it, and wanting it aside from that isn’t something we agreed to. As I try to ignore the subtle way her eyes follow me while I set up our bedding, it hits me just how long of a night I’m in for. Because even if I can’t bring myself to kiss her, despite how much I desperately want to, the urge to touch her is something I’m realizing never really goes away.

And with the recognition of how much I’d like to kiss her, consequences be damned…I’m realizing I really might be utterly fucked.