Page 10 of Obsession
"You said you'd been thinking about me for three months," he says, and his voice is quiet and unhurried and his thumb isstill moving on my hip. "Did you mean that, or was that heat talking?"
There it is. The question I can't dodge and can't answer honestly without handing him something that'll make me want to die of exposure.
"The heat doesn't make you say things that aren't true," I say, and it comes out small and reluctant and nothing like the sharp confident omega who walked onto that floor last night.
"So you came here looking for me specifically."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I laugh, and it sounds awful, bitter and thin. "You really want to know?"
"I've wanted to know since you looked at me from the gallery railing and your scent hit me like I'd been waiting for it my whole life. Yeah. I want to know."
My chest aches at that. I press my face into the pillow. I can’t look at him, can’t look at anything. The words come out muffled and messy and too honest.
"I saw you. Months ago, outside of here. In a professional context. I don't — I'm not going to tell you the details because I'll lose my mind if you know the specifics of how pathetic this actually is. But I saw you and I caught your scent, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I tried. I really tried. And I told myself I was coming here for a different reason, a smarter reason, because I couldn't admit that I just — that I wanted—"
I stop. My throat is tight. I am not crying again. I’ve used up my lifetime supply of tears in this room.
"You couldn't admit you just wanted me," he says, finishing it, and there's no cruelty or smugness in his voice. He's just reading the obvious conclusion of an argument I've been building all night.
"I built an entire plan around it," I say into the pillow. "I built a case for why I needed to come here and it was the most convincing argument of my career. It was complete bullshit from the start. I just wanted you and I couldn't say that, so I made it about something else."
He’s quiet for a long time. His hand is still on my hip, warm and steady. I can hear him breathing. I can smell him thinking, just like last night. I want to pull the pillow over my head and disappear before he says anything else.
"You know what I think?" he says eventually.
"I really don't want to."
"I think an omega who can construct an elaborate scheme to get close to a specific alpha, maintain a performance through peak heat, and think strategically while being edged and denied is probably the most interesting person I've ever met." He shifts, and I feel his breath against the back of my neck. "And I think whoever you are outside of this room is someone I want to have dinner with."
I turn my head enough to look at him. He's propped up on one elbow, mask still on, and below it, his mouth ticked up in a smirk. Warmer than a smirk, steadier, like a smile. My chest hurts looking at it.
"You don't even know my name," I say.
"No. But I know you're a lawyer, and I know you're stubborn as hell, and I know you've been thinking about me. I know what your face looks like when you stop pretending." His hand comes up, and his fingers brush the edge of my mask, light, not pulling. "I'll figure out the rest over dinner."
"That's very confident of you."
"I'm a confident person." His thumb traces along my jaw. "Take off the mask."
I look at him. His mask is still on, and mine is still on, and we're two anonymous people in a club that runs on anonymity,and I should keep it that way. I should get up and get dressed and walk out and let this be what it was supposed to be: one night, no names, no consequences.
But he's looking at me like he already knows me. Like the mask is a formality.
"Kieran," I say, and my voice cracks on it. "My name is Kieran."
I don't know why I give it to him. I don't know what possesses me to hand this man the one thing I've been protecting, the thing that connects the anonymous omega on the club floor to something else. It's the worst strategic decision I've ever made. It comes out of me like a confession, like the ones he pulled out of me with the vibrator, except nobody's making me say this. Nobody's edging me into honesty. I'm just lying here with his hand on my jaw and I want him to know my name. I want to hear him say it.
"Kieran," he repeats. "Take off the mask."
My hands are shaking when I reach up. The elastic catches in my hair and I fumble with it. He waits, patient, the way he's waited for everything tonight, and I pull the mask off and let it drop on the sheets. My face is bare and I'm looking at him. I have never in my life felt this exposed.
He looks at me for a long moment. Studies my face the way he studied my body, thorough and unhurried, and I can see his eyes behind the mask now that mine is off—dark, sharp, warm in a way I wasn't expecting. He reaches up and pulls off his own mask, and I see the rest of his face for the first time and he's—
He's exactly what I remembered. Strong jaw, slight stubble, mouth that looks like it's always two seconds from either a smile or a devastating smirk. Not movie-star handsome but something better, the kind of face you trust before you've decided to. I understand why juries listen to him . I understand why I've beenobsessed with him for three months, I understand that I am completely, irreversibly fucked.
