Page 9 of Down Knot Out (Pack Alphas of Misty Pines #3)
Chapter Seven
Chloe
D ominic shifts uncomfortably, the chair in the hospital waiting room squeaking with every movement, and his knee bumps mine. We both freeze for a heartbeat, then he shifts again, withdrawing the touch.
It leaves my pulse doing funny things, though, so I focus on how the fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everyone in the same sickly shade of pale.
Focus on the rustle of pages turning as the woman across from us flips through a magazine.
Focus on the antiseptic smells and the way Dominic’s citrus and musk pheromones help make it more bearable.
His leg brushes mine again as he adjusts his position for the fifth time in as many minutes, and I pretend not to notice the electric current racing up my thigh.
At the front of the small room, a receptionist taps at her keyboard behind a glass partition. The rhythmic clicking blends with the murmur of conversations and occasional beeps from deeper within the building.
The waiting room temperature hovers at a perfect level for discomfort, not cold enough to complain, but cool enough to raise goose bumps along my bare arms. I rub my palms over them, wondering if someone left a jacket in the SUV that the guys leave parked at the docks for town excursions.
“You know you didn’t have to come,” Dominic says, his voice pitched for my ears alone.
I focus on a health poster across the room with a diagram of a brain sectioned by colors. “You shouldn’t drive with a head injury.”
“I could have called a rideshare.”
“And miss the chance to sit in these luxurious chairs?” My fingers trace the crack in the vinyl beneath my thigh. “Besides, I’m the only one with a flexible schedule.”
What I don’t say is that I’m worried about him. He shouldn’t still be in pain from hitting his head, and his doctor agreed, which is why we’re here, waiting for an X-ray to rule out anything serious.
Dominic winces, and his fingers lift to his temple, massaging in small circles. The motion dislodges a few strands of black hair from his French braid to frame his face and soften his sharp features.
“Are the lights hurting your head?” I ask, though the answer is written across his furrowed brow.
“I’m fine.” He searches my expression. “And thanks for coming. I appreciate it.”
A flutter starts in my chest, and I reach up to fiddle with the collar of my shirt, still missing my lucky shamrock necklace. Everything started going wrong the second I lost it.
Dominic’s gaze drops to my throat before rising again. “How’s your book coming along?”
“Oh, you know…” I flap my hand. “It’s… coming. One painful sentence at a time. When I’m not just staring at the screen, willing the words to jump from my brain straight to the page. Just splat them out. I can fix a splat. I can’t fix nothing being written.”
“You never struggled with term papers.” He shifts in his seat to face me, his knee bumping mine. “Always got them done so fast. ”
“That’s different.” I stare at that point of contact as the flutter in my chest turns to a tornado. “The teacher assigned the topic.”
“But I thought you had your topic.” He rests his arm along the back of our chairs, almost embracing me, but not. “That’s what your outline is, right? So just whip out your term papers based on that.”
I give him an annoyed glare. “How many pages was your longest term paper?”
He purses his lips in thought. “Ten?”
“Okay, so you’re telling me to whip out forty to fifty term papers, all from my imagination, with no quotes pulled from reference material. On top of that, I have to juggle a detailed, multi-level plotline and manage over a dozen personalities in my head.”
He winces. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“I am fully capable of typing eighty words a minute. Do you know how many I can type when I’m creative writing?
” I lean forward and hold up two hands, fingers spread.
“ Ten , Dominic. I can average ten words a minute. Do you have any idea how stressful it is, knowing what I’m capable of and still only averaging ten ? ”
His lips twitch, and he catches my hands, drawing them to his chest. “Okay, I get it. It’s way harder than just sitting down and doing the work. I’m sorry.”
My chest heaves from my whispered rant. “Well, it’s also about butt-in-chair.”
“Butt-in-chair?” he questions.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “Just me keeping my butt in front of my laptop until the magic happens. Sometimes, I even average forty-one words a minute. But it’s not the standard. That only happens when I’m super inspired.”
“I should read your books.” His voice drops lower, the hint of his Alpha purr sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. “Holden says they’re good adventure stories.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks as I recall all the sex stuffed into those adventures, and I realize how close I am to Dominic. Nearly on his lap. Definitely within his personal bubble.
The air between us thickens as I become hyperaware of the space where our bodies touch, the warmth of his elegant fingers cradling mine. Beneath my palms, a light vibration starts up, and my ears prick at the almost imperceptible purr coming from Dominic.
My lips part, but no words emerge. What are we doing? What is happening right now? He’s not my bully anymore, but also not my friend. Not my lover, not my boyfriend, not my Alpha.
The bond hums in answer to his hesitant purr. My Alpha. My bondmate. The Omega in me knows it, even if my mind still struggles to accept it.
“Chloe.” My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. “Do you think it’s possible?—”
“Dominic Sterling?” A nurse in blue scrubs calls from an open doorway.
The spell breaks, and I jerk backward, collapsing into my chair.
Dominic’s jaw tightens, frustration flashing across his features before he masks it. He stands and turns back to me. “Come back once I’m done with x-rays to hear the results?”
I nod, my throat too tight for speech. As he follows the nurse through the door, my attention remains fixed on his broad shoulders until he disappears around the corner.
Alone now, I exhale a long breath, willing my heartbeat to slow. The vinyl chair creaks as I sink back into it, the room colder without him here.
To distract myself, I pull my phone from my pocket, but the screen blurs as my mind replays our interaction. What was he about to say before the nurse called him? And why do I fear the answer as much as I crave it ?
A mother across the room bounces a fussy baby on her knee, her exhausted murmurs a glimpse into a life I’ve never considered for myself. It’s hard to dream of a family when you live the hermit life, and I had pretty much resigned myself to being a spinster author living vicariously through Grady.
But now? My fingers find my collar again as my focus shifts to where I last saw Dominic.
I both hope the x-ray turns up nothing and hope it does so at least we’d have an answer for why he’s still in pain. The doctor warned about concussion symptoms that linger and the need for caution. The thought of Dominic in pain twists an emotion inside me that I’m not ready to name.
The rhythmic click of heels on linoleum breaks through the quiet of the waiting room, sharp, staccato, and with a familiarity that straightens my spine before I see her.
The sound is embedded in my muscle memory, the click-clack that preceded scoldings, disappointments, and rare moments of affection.
Not wanting to, I lift my head as my mother stops in front of me. Vivian’s dark pink hair is styled in a chignon, and my own messy pink bun feels childish in comparison. She wears a cream-colored pantsuit that accentuates the length of her legs, her six-inch heeled boots adding to the illusion.
One sculpted pink brow lifts. “What, no kiss for your mother?”
The last time I saw her, she had left me imprisoned with Louie, yet years of conditioning pull me to my feet, and I rise on tiptoes to kiss her cheek. “Hello, mother. What are you doing here?”
“When you refuse to take my calls, it leaves me no choice but to track you down.” She lets out a put-upon sigh. “Come now. You can’t hold that whole courtship thing against me forever. Stop pouting.”
The elderly man across from me suddenly finds his outdated magazine fascinating. A pregnant Beta by the window shifts uncomfortably in her seat.
“I have a restraining order out on you,” I remind her as I resume my seat. “How did you find me here? Were you lurking in the corridor until Dominic was called back so you could ambush me alone?”
“I do not lurk.” She sneers in disgust at the empty seat beside me. “But some things should be kept in the family.”
My chin lifts as I stare up at her. “Oh, yes. Family. Are you speaking of the Sinclairs? ”
“No, of course not.” Her delicate nostrils flare. “I’m speaking of the Santaro pack. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
I look away from her. “What happened to Louie was his own fault.”
From her small purse, she produces a handkerchief to place over the cracked vinyl before sitting, and her tone shifts to a venomous whisper. “Everything I worked for is gone because of your stubbornness. The board froze my accounts. I have bills to pay.”
“I haven’t done anything to you.” My fingers curl around the armrests.
“No?” She leans closer, her breath hitting my face, and the cinnamon gum can’t hide the undertone of alcohol. “If you had just accepted the courtship I arranged for you, even for a year , we could have had the world . But you ruined it, you ungrateful child .”
I rear back. “You sold me and left me to be bred like livestock.”
“Did I report it to Louie when my suppressants went missing?” She shakes her tiny beaded purse at me. “No. I wanted you married, not knocked up. Louie knew he wasn’t to touch you.”
Disbelief shoots through me, and a broken laugh escapes. “You can’t be serious. There’s no way you’re that delusional about what he was planning to do!”