Page 276 of Alpha Mates

“Yeah, I know, and it makes me cringe to imagine,” I mumble with a shudder.

He laughs as he slips his fingers into my hair. “If it helps, I don’t remember you wanting to play much.”

“All you ever wanted to do was play,” I groan, recalling our earlier days when our parents were still trying to force us to get along. “Mud lived between your teeth.”

“Now why are you trying to taint my image?”

“I’m not,” I chuckle as I lean into his palm. “I can’t help it if it’s already fucked up.” His eyes spark, and I savour the short-lived amusement. “What are we going to do, Aiden?”

“I don’t know,” he admits quietly, slumping. “I don’t know what they expect us to do.”

“Fix it,” I reply with a chuckle. “We’re alphas, so … we have to figure it out.”

Aiden hums, weary again, before his eyes light up. “I mean, you could always get pregnant.”

I hold his gaze for a stilted moment before I push his hand away and slap him everywhere my hands can reach.

“Ah, shit!” he howls while he tries to dodge my attack, but he’s laughing too hard for that.

“I was being serious, Aiden!”

“So, was I!” he grins. “You’d be a great mom.”

I kick him this time. He howls, but it’s hardly from the pain, so I rev up for another. But he catches my leg before it lands.

“Imagine what you’d look like with a kid in you,” he teases, reaching down to rub my stomach.

My face ignites. I slap his hand away, but he reaches for me again. This time I catch his wrist. Panting, we stare at each other, and while I’m annoyed in a million and one ways, Aiden looks like he’s just found gold.

“I’m teasing, Julian,” he whispers as his eyes slip down to my lips, “but … I’m not against us giving it our best shot.”

My heart jerks at the look in his eyes and the implication behind it. He steps closer, filling the space between my legs, hiking one around his waist.

Our breaths mingle as he hovers over me. “At least then we can say we covered every base.”

“Aiden,” I try, but his lips are already on mine. It pulls a moan from me—then another when his fingers dig into my thigh.

He kisses me with a sudden hunger that makes the world sway around me. I’m already falling, already giving in to the pull that strengthens every time Aiden’s in my orbit, only—

“Wait,” I whisper, drawing back.

He follows me, trying to find my lips again. “Why?”

“You know why.” I barely utter the words because they feel rude, like a curse, when I can feel how badly he wants this. “Aiden.”

He pants, eyes clamped shut, locking everything out.

“I don’t want you treating me differently—like I’m fragile,” he whispers, voice breaking as he does. “If I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t stop.”

“I’m not stopping because I know,” I promise as I release his wrist to slide my hand around his neck. I trace my thumb across his nape as I hold him close. “I’m stopping because you told me—because you onlyjusttold me and … relived it all.” His lips tremble.“I’m giving you time.”

“I don’t need time,” he protests. “I just want things to be like they were.”

“They will,” I promise with a kiss to his cheek. “But it’s okay to give yourself a chance to pick up the pieces first, Aiden.”

He breathes quietly, his body so tense that I think he’s about to bolt or explode, but then he just unfurls. The tension bleeds out of him, relaxing his tightly wound muscles as he breathes in deeply, letting himself lean into me.

“The pack needs us to be their alphas, to be strong and perfect,” I say as I hold him close. “But I don’t need you to be perfect. I just need you to be okay.”