Chapter 244
“Rafe,” Daphne murmurs, clearly guilty as she reaches out and cups his cheek in her palm. “I’m sorry, I just –“
“No, Daphne,” Rafe replies, laying back against the pillow and closing his eyes, moving his arms so that his hands press lightly against her back. “Don’t be sorry – don’t ever be sorry for something like that. If you want to slow down then we’ll go slow.”
Daphne smiles a little, accepting the invitation his hands give to lay herself down over his broad chest, to tuck her head beneath his chin.
And as she does, Daphne feels incredibly guilty.
Because here is this perfectly wonderful prince, who she’s had a crush on for literally years, who so clearly wants to be with her…
And all she can do is think about…
Well.
The less thought on what’s actually on her mind, the better, for now.
At least while Rafe Sinclair is in her room, his arms tight around her, working hard to steady his breathing.
Daphne sighs, letting her own eyes drift shut. Wondering what the hell she’s supposed to do next.
“So,” Daphne whispers, working hard around the knot in her throat. “Tell me about your day, Rafe.”
He sighs, laughing a little and holding her closer. “What do you want to know, Daph?”
When I come back to the room after my workout with Blaze, the mood is unusually somber.
And the room itself is unusually…empty.
“Where’s Rafe?” I ask, putting my hands on my hips and frowning as I look around the room.
“He stole your dinner and took it down to Daphne’s room,” Jesse mutters, stabbing his pen at the page of the notebook resting in his lap. He’s sitting moodily cross-legged in his chair, his head resting against his hand.
My mouth falls open in horror as my stomach turns, grumbling. “What!? Daphne doesn’t need my food!”
“Apparently she did,” Jesse snaps, raising his eyes to glower at me.
My own eyes go wide as I look at him because what the hell is this mood about?
But Ben, from his spot on the couch, looks up at me and hastily shakes his head. I do as he asks, falling silent, but after a moment I figure it out – why Jesse might be in a mood at Rafe’s absence. What, precisely, he might be imagining happening downstairs.
I grimace a little and turn away, sensing that my cousin needs his space to deal with his…emotions.
“Here, Ben and I saved you the best scraps,” Luca says from an unusual spot on the floor, gesturing towards a plate resting by his side. I smile at my mate, moving quickly towards him as I push the door shut behind me.
But my smile immediately falls when I realize that the scraps are a couple of crusts of bread and the tail end of a piece of salmon.
“Luca!” I gasp, slumping down next to him on the floor. “This isn’t dinner! This is…trash!”
“How dare you insult my gift,” he growls, pulling me tight against him and making me laugh, “which I saved from the jaws of starving dogs for you, my love.”
“Yeah, well,” I sigh, leaning my back against him and grabbing one of the bread crusts, shoving it eagerly in my mouth. “Next time can you try to save some meat from those slavering jaws? Or like, cake? I’m starving.”
“I will do my best, baby,” Luca murmurs, pressing a kiss to my hair. I swallow my bite, tilting my head back to grin at him, and Luca takes advantage, pressing a long, warm kiss to my mouth.
As he does, my poor hungry wolf turns in a contented circle and settles in my soul, warm and comforted.
“So,” Luca whispers a moment later when he pulls away, smiling down at me. “Tell me about your day. I want to hear everything.”
“Well, you’re going to have to hear about it with my mouth full.”
“Oh, I understand full-mouthed language,” Luca murmurs, tightening his arm and pulling me closer. “The past several months with you have made me an expert.”
I laugh, swatting at his leg, but then I begin, telling Luca all about my lesson with Blaze. Luca listens carefully, smiling a little as I give him every detail.
Rafe doesn’t actually come back to the room until hours later, once Ben and Luca have gone to bed. To my surprise, Jackson is at Rafe’s heels when he comes through the door.
“Really?” Jesse asks, perking up a little as the two of them come in. “Were you two…together?”
“No,” Jackson replies, frowning a little at Jesse as he pushes the door shut behind him. “We just happened to run into each other a few moments ago in the hallway.”
Jesse’s shoulder slump and he looks down at his bedspread, tracing his fingers across it.
Rafe, a little moody in turn, doesn’t say anything and heads directly for his bed, opening his dresser and pulling out some pajamas.
“Where have you been!?” I bite out from my place in my nook when Jackson turns towards me. I snap my hands firmly to my waist, even if the effect of my rage is a bit ruined by the fact that I’m sitting cross-legged, and my pajamas are pink, and I have books and colored pens scattered all around me.
“What, did you miss me?” Jackson asks, completely unperturbed, walking slowly across the room to me with his hands in his pockets, moving in a way that just…
Guh.
My breath all leaves me in a woosh and I just stare at him, shaking my head.
Jackson’s face breaks into a broad grin as he feels absolutely all of my emotions coming over our bond with a rather embarrassing amount of clarity.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmurs, his voice low, his eyes narrowing a little as he tilts his head and looks down at me in the bed.
“Not fair, McClintock,” I growl, whipping a hand up to point at him. “You should –“
But before I can get any further Jackson’s hand shoots out, whip fast, and grabs my wrist, hauling me up out of my blankets – scattering my books and pens everywhere – and up into his arms. I shriek in both protest and delight as I find myself suddenly high in the air, pressed to his chest, laughing down into his face.
He laughs too, smiling up at me, his arms wrapped low beneath my ass as my legs go around his waist.
“Seriously,” I sigh, pouting and running my hands through his silky brown hair. “Why didn’t you come to dinner? We talked about this.”
“You said I didn’t have to if I needed peace and quiet,” he replies with a little shrug. “And I needed to study. Rafe and I have…kind of a big thing tomorrow.”
“Really?” I ask, glancing over at Rafe, who is still moody as he finishes pulling his pajamas on and starts to stride for the bathroom. Because, I mean, apparently he was…not here doing homework tonight.
How big could it be?
“Hey,” Jackson says, giving me a final squeeze and drawing my attention back to him as he lowers me to the floor. “You ready for bed?”
“Well, I was,” I say with a sigh, turning and casting a hand out towards the wreckage of my bed. “Until someone came and destroyed my study space.”
“Come on,” Jacks says, giving me a warm pat on the booty. “I’m sorry. I’ll help you clean it up.”
Jackson does just that quite helpfully, even urging me to go wash up in the bathroom one last time while he finishes neatening the nook. When I come back and he goes to brush his teeth, a warm rush of delight runs through me when I see that Jackson has lined my pens and notebooks up on my desk just as I like them. My weird organizational methods are not something I ever laid out for Jacks, but which he clearly noticed anyway and took care to replicate them.
I sigh, flopping into my bed, delighted at how sweet and thoughtful Jackson can be.
“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” Jesse mutters across the room.
I frown, turning towards him. “What?”
“Can we all just go to bed?” Rafe grumbles from his own corner, now dark, where he’s huddled down beneath the blankets.
I frown at him in turn, wondering what the hell is up with these two.
“Actually, no,” Jackson says, striding out of the bathroom and surprising me by not climbing into our bed but instead sitting on the edge of it, resting his elbows on his knees and looking with interest at Rafe and Jesse.
“What?” Rafe says, kind of angry, sitting up to glare at my mate. “Jackson, what are you talking about? We need to sleep, we’re –“
“Before we sleep,” Jackson cuts in smoothly, his voice deadly serious. “We need to talk about why you two,” he points now between Jesse and Rafe, “can’t see how creepy Alvez is with Ariel. And why Tony and I can.”
“What?” Rafe says, sitting up straight in his bed, his anger immediately washed away in his concern.
“Jackson,” Jesse says, his head turned to the side like he’s worried that Jacks has finally cracked or something. “What the hell are you talking about?”
