Chapter 7: Focused on You

Chapter 7

Focused on You

For long, agonizing moments, Drew didn’t do a goddamn thing.

He just watched me.

When he finally moved, all those muscles rippling and flexing—and how the hell did he manage to be so intimidating naked when most people looked all soft and vulnerable—I didn’t do a goddamn thing. My panic had transmuted into a cold, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, something like despair. Could I have started the car and tried to make a last-ditch break for it? Yeah. Sure. And he’d have been able to punch through the window and drag me out before I could even gun the engine.

For all I knew, he could stop the car with his bare hands, or chase it faster than I could drive.

Drew rounded the hood and came to stand right by the door, leaning down to peer in at me through the window. Our eyes met. And I felt the same way I always did: safe. A burst of relaxing warmth inside me. Even though this time I knew it was a lie.

“I’m not going to—” He stopped and shook his head. The window muffled the words enough that I couldn’t read his voice, and his face didn’t give much away. Every trace of emotion had been erased, or maybe he’d shoved it down so far he couldn’t even show it. “I know saying I’m not going to hurt you isn’t going to mean much,” he went on. “But it’s the truth. I had a—a lapse. I’m, fuck, Ash, I’m in control right now. I give you my word.”

Now a little feeling had bled through, and I recognized it. It matched what was going on in my own head: helplessness, confusion, desperation.

The truth, the obvious, glaring truth that I’d somehow completely missed, finally hit me like an alpha werewolf crashing into me.

They’d done something to Drew, too.

He’d said he was fine. Maybe he’d even felt fine—at first. And since then he’d been in denial, trying to force himself to believe that he hadn’t been there long enough for whatever they’d started doing to him to take effect.

Anger rose up to take the place of my fear, grinding my teeth together and making me feel like the top of my head might pop off. My hands clenched around the steering wheel, where apparently I’d grabbed on in terror when Drew appeared.

Anger at those fucking bastards who’d done this to us. Anger at Drew, for hiding this from me when clearly I’d been at risk and deserved to know. Fury at myself for not noticing, for somehow not realizing that Drew’s behavior—cagey, distant, unpredictable—didn’t match up with everything he’d said about being on my side, about us being a team.

“I’m sorry,” Drew said, interrupting my spiral of rage. “That’s not enough. I don’t know what else to say. Please get out of the car and let me help you make sure you’re not hurt. You wouldn’t know if you were. Please.”

He was right, of course. My arm, the one that’d collapsed when I put weight on it. I might have a bone poking through the skin under the sleeve of my sweater, and I wouldn’t have any idea until I rolled it up to look.

Please. I’m sorry.

Inadequate, yeah. But no other words would’ve changed anything either, and he obviously knew that too.

I forced myself to meet his eyes. When he looked at me like that, all glowy and intense, I had to fight the urge to duck my head and simply do whatever he wanted.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. “That you—they did something to you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Drew swallowed hard, and his eyes dimmed a fraction. “I didn’t want to worry you. And,” he went on, glancing down and away—and shit, had I really won a staring contest with an alpha werewolf? I ought to put that on a T-shirt—“I didn’t want to admit to myself that I…” He trailed off into a mumble.

Yeah, that was just freaking great. He had been in denial, and then he’d nearly—killed me? No. That might’ve been less terrifying, if he’d almost killed me.

He’d almost raped me.

I had to be able to think it, at least, even if I couldn’t imagine saying it. Maybe I was furious, but I also couldn’t bring myself to put it out there. He knew it as well as I did. I thought hearing it aloud might break him even more than it’d break me.

He’d been trying to protect me. Maybe not in the best way, and maybe not in the smartest way, and he’d obviously been a little too arrogantly confident that he could keep himself under control.

But he’d been trying to protect me.

And we’d been in that place together. They’d taken my memory and my nerve sensation, hurt me and wrecked me and left me a shell of myself.

But they’d taken something from Drew, too. I didn’t know what to call it, exactly, although I supposed control wasn’t the worst word for it. The thought of Drew, this Drew, repentant and distressed and more anxious about whether he’d hurt me than about his own breakdown, taking me by force up against his washing machine…well, it didn’t compute.

That had been him, but…it also hadn’t been him. He’d been catering to my every need to try to help me with what had been done to me.

I owed him what help I could give him, too. And maybe I could only help him by putting my faith in the essential person he was underneath whatever changes they’d made to him.

I unpeeled my fingers from the steering wheel and opened the car door, Drew stumbling back and out of the way.

That little failure of his usual predatory grace leached away the last of my anger—at him, anyway. They’re all dead, I reminded myself. He killed them all. To save you. He already had his revenge. Our revenge.

It didn’t help that much.

I shut the door behind me, standing there in the chilly garage with a lump in the concrete floor digging into the bottom of my foot, face to face with Drew and his…everything. I couldn’t help glancing down, my eyes drawn like a magnet. Jesus fucking Christ. He had to be a shower not a grower, right? Because if that got much bigger…except that I remembered, far too vividly, how his erection had felt pressed against my back. And it had been even bigger than that.

So he showed and grew. That didn’t seem fair, somehow. I swallowed hard and forced myself to look up again.

“You need to get dressed,” I said, making the understatement of the year. That enormous cock kept drawing my eyes, and the rest of him kind of kept drawing my eyes too, actually. “And then we have to talk. Really talk. No more keeping me in the dark. It’s a lot more worrisome for me to not know when you’re going to snap and try to—I’ll be less worried if I know what the hell is going on with you. At least then we can deal with it somehow.”

Drew blew out a long breath, reaching up to rub the back of his neck in a gesture that I’d already learned was habitual. That it made his biceps bulge and flex like that had to be a coincidence. His arms alone looked like weapons of mass destruction, totally aside from the claws and the teeth and the everything else.

We really, really had to deal with it somehow, whatever that meant. If Drew went nuts again, I’d be toast.

Possibly well-fucked toast. A tremor ran through me, settling in the pit of my stomach.

And I really, really needed to find out what the hell “differences in sexual function” meant. Just in case.

“Yeah,” Drew breathed out. “Yeah. In a second. I need to—you know I need to check you out.” That hung in the air for a second. “Check on you! Check you for—I need to make sure you’re not hurt.”

A deep-red flush crept up his neck and took over most of his face, but his features had set.

He meant it.

I needed him to get dressed before he touched me. But he didn’t seem to be moving, so I gave in and rolled up my left sleeve. “My arm gave out on me when I stood up. But I don’t think anything else got hurt at all.”

Drew approached me warily, holding his hands out slowly enough that I might’ve told him to get on with it under other circumstances.

When his big, warm hand wrapped around my wrist, I gave a little shiver.

Drew jerked his hand back like I’d burned him.

I bit my lip, and Drew stared at my mouth, making me bite harder. His breath started coming a little faster.

Shit.

Still naked. He could pin me against the car and…

“Just check out my arm,” I said, more brusquely than I’d meant to, fear making me snippy. “I’ll get over it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” He reached out again, took hold of me, and bent down to examine my arm, using the fingers of his other hand to poke and prod. I stood passively, trying not to show any other reaction, wondering how much it would hurt if I could feel it. “Nothing’s broken, I don’t think. You have a nasty bruise coming up. Maybe rest it for a couple of days in case there’s a sprain or something. If it swells, or anything else, I’ll have the doctor come out.”

I yanked my arm away, unable to bear the warmth and strength of his fingers any longer. Those hands were capable of violence. I’d already known it. But I hadn’t thought they’d be capable of violence directed at me, and the push and pull between wanting to run from him and wanting to throw myself against his broad, hard—yes, still naked—chest and beg him to promise to protect me had me in a state.

“Okay,” I managed.

Drew nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He looked up at last, his brow furrowed. “Promise me you’re not going to take off while I’m getting dressed? I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I’ll be here,” I said, and it felt right—but also like signing a high-interest loan or something. In blood.

“Okay.” He sounded dubious, but he left the garage, and a moment later I heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs.

I took a second to close my eyes and take a deep, deep breath, letting it out slowly. It didn’t help much.

A drink sounded good. Maybe I couldn’t taste it, but I needed something. On the other hand, one of us had to have our wits about us.

I headed for the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Caffeine or alcohol. Or a hammer to the head and a fistful of Valium, but I didn’t have that available.

Drew came back down before I’d even finished turning on the machine, in gym shorts and an inside-out black T-shirt. He’d been in a hurry, then, and I tried and failed not to be a little touched. Had he really thought I might take off after all? Yes, because he also had a few fragments of leaves and twigs caught in his wavy dark hair, now that I had the brainpower to spare to notice details. He hadn’t even stopped to take a shower.

“I made coffee,” I said redundantly as the machine started to hiss and spit. Drew hovered in the doorway, looking awkward as hell, big and clumsy in a way he usually didn’t.

Avoiding me, I realized. Giving me my space. I couldn’t help my gaze flicking over toward the laundry room.

Drew let out a pained little sound.

I edged away and sat down at the table, putting its flimsy barrier between me and him. “Have some coffee, okay? And then talk.”

He poured us both a cup without comment, took the other chair, and stared down at the table.

At last, he said, “I think they were trying to enhance me. Make me stronger, or something. More of an alpha.”

Drew stopped abruptly and started to fidget with the handle of his mug, running his finger up and down it. Flicking it, poking at it, and I was going to go nuts wanting to reach over and slap his hand.

More of an alpha. I turned that around in my head for a minute, since he didn’t show any sign of going on.

“What does that mean?” I prompted him when the silence had started to make my brain feel like it had a cheese grater rubbing on it.

Drew’s gaze flicked up from his frowning contemplation of the coffee mug, and he shrugged. “Like I said. Stronger, faster, harder to kill. That was what I thought, anyway. But if they did boost my alpha magic, then…more aggressive. Less self-control. More of—Jesus. This sounds so fucked-up. It sounds like I’m trying to excuse what happened—what I did to you. Earlier. I’m not, okay?”

He sounded so desperate that I couldn’t do anything but nod. Anything I said would only make this worse. His eyes pleaded with me, dark brown now without any gold at all, clear and honest.

“More of the urge to mate,” he went on. “To claim what I—claim. Whatever I want. And just to get off. Sorry. That’s so fucking crude. But it’s the truth. I’ve jerked off more since we got out of there than most of my life.”

The last few words came out in a rush, like he could hardly stand to say them out loud. He had one hand clenched so tight around the mug handle that I knew it’d break any second, and he couldn’t look at me again.

Just as well, because I couldn’t have met his eyes either, not even with a gun to my head and an offer of a million dollars.

I stared down at the table, a barrage of images crowding my mind’s eye.

That was what Drew had been doing during that chunk of time between getting ready for bed and actually coming to bed? I’d assumed he went in there to change clothes or something, but now…

The thought of Drew silently getting himself off in the room across the hall made my stomach twist. Leaned up against the wall, maybe, or lying down on the bed with his long legs sprawled out and his massive cock jutting obscenely out of his gym shorts, where he’d pulled them down over his hips.

Drew had big hands, too, though. Big enough to handle it. I let go of my coffee mug and appraised my own. Not small, but not huge, either. I flexed my fingers. Definitely smaller than Drew’s hand. His cock might take two.

And oh, God, where the hell had that thought come from?

“Ash?” Drew asked tentatively. “Are you so disgusted you can’t even stand the sight of me?”

Thank goodness those assholes hadn’t thought to try to make him telepathic, too, because if Drew only knew what had been going on in my head…I could feel myself blushing furiously, but I forced myself to look up, to try for something like chill.

So he’d been masturbating. People did that. So I couldn’t think about it without it turning into porn, even though I didn’t have any use for porn at the moment. He didn’t have to know that. He wouldn’t even suspect, right?

When I finally met his gaze, he didn’t look suspicious. He looked scared, like he really thought I’d run screaming again.

I cleared my throat.

“It’s not disgusting.” My voice still came out too high and scratchy. I cleared my throat again and went for a swig of coffee, managing to drip some down my chin. I wanted to sink through the floor and die. “It’s a normal—I mean, not normal, since that’s not your usual—uh. It’s something everyone does. I’m not disgusted. I’m worried about you.” Part of trust was being honest, right? I forced myself to add, “I’m worried about me.”

Because I was, even if I’d been distracted for a minute with my bizarre speculation about how many hands it’d take to handle Drew’s generous endowment.

Drew’s eyes darkened with something I couldn’t define. “I wish you didn’t have to be,” he said, very low. “But I can’t guarantee—I didn’t think I’d lose it like that. But I did. And it could happen again. You’re—” He stopped abruptly, picked up his coffee, and drank half of it in one go.

“I’m the only other person around. I know you can’t help focusing on me.”

Drew choked, coffee spattering the table, and set his dripping mug down with a thud. At least now I wouldn’t be the only one with coffee-stained clothes.

“What?” he gasped. “You—oh, Christ, Ash.” He shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

“Then tell me! Drew, you can’t keep saying things like that when you haven’t given me any information!” Horrifyingly, I found myself on the verge of tears, my frustration and fear and anger all welling up into a physical reaction I couldn’t control.

Which maybe ought to give me a little more empathy for Drew, now that I thought about it. What would it be like to be at the mercy of overwhelming instincts and emotions and also be capable of doing so much damage when you gave in? If I went all nuts, I wouldn’t be half the threat Drew would be. The knowledge of what he could do to me if he slipped had to be crushing him as much as it freaked me out. He wanted to protect me.

But I kept my chin up and glared him down. He might want to protect me, and he might be a in shitty spot, but he still had to communicate!

He stared back at me.

The silence held.

Finally, he said, “Remember when I told you I felt like you were mine? Because I rescued you, and marked you, and brought you home?”

Yeah, that wasn’t the kind of thing you forgot—although I supposed he could be forgiven for asking, in my specific case. Thank God my ability to form new memories hadn’t been affected. That would’ve truly been hell, and I spared a moment to shiver at the thought.

“I remember.”

“Okay,” he said grimly. “Well, it wouldn’t matter how many people were here, or even if you weren’t here at all. I think I’d still be focused on you.”

Another shiver went down my spine, and it wasn’t totally unpleasant. As far as I knew, I was alone in the world. And I doubted I’d had many friends like Drew—handsome, smart, kind, not to mention an alpha werewolf—before all of this. So having Drew’s intense and single-minded focus…well, so sue me for not hating that idea as much as maybe I should have.

But it was all hormones, instinct, magical fuckery.

And remembering that brought me right back down to reality.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said lamely. “For now—maybe if we’re both more conscious of it, you can control it better?”

“Yeah, let’s hope. I’ll do my best. Maybe I should get you a gun or something. Just in case.”

“No!” The word burst out of me with so much force it made us both jump. God, no! A gun? To use on Drew? I swallowed down the bile that rose up, incredibly grateful that I couldn’t taste it or feel what was probably a horrid burning in the back of my throat. Drew, bleeding out at my hand… “No,” I repeated. “I wouldn’t be able to use it on you anyway. So there’s no point at all.”

He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes serious and his mouth set in a hard line. “You’d rather I hurt you?”

I gave it a moment’s thought. “Yeah, I would. Because you wouldn’t mean it. And to hurt you, I’d have to mean it. I couldn’t, Drew. I know that for a fact.”

Drew’s face tightened, and he stood up abruptly, his chair screeching on the floor. “I’m going out for the night. To run. Wear myself out as much as I can. I won’t be back until morning, so lock the front door. I’ll jam the back door into the frame. Not that I think anyone’s likely to bother you out here.” His jaw muscle ticked. “I’m the only real threat,” he muttered, and stalked past me without another word.

A moment later, I had to cover my ears as a horrendous screeching and thumping came from the laundry porch: Drew jamming the door into the frame, apparently.

For a long time after he left, I stared at the shiny surface of the table, marred only by the coffee we’d both spilled on it. The patterns of the droplets and smears resembled dried blood, the aftermath of a coffee massacre.

At long last, I got up, checked the front door, and went upstairs to bed, leaving most of the lights on. I doubted I’d be getting much sleep anyway, so I might as well not lie awake in a creepily dark and silent house.