She Loves Me Not

Hate | 8

My breathing increased as I looked deep into his ruby eyes, trying not to think about everything I wanted to do to him. With each intake of breath, my senses were overwhelmed with his intoxicating scent. His face was mere inches from mine as our heavy breaths mixed in the air between us. "No better off than a pair of humans, huh?" He smiled as his eyes dropped again to my lips.

Yet somehow I knew our relationship was not equivocal to true mates. I was more attracted to him than I ever had been to Jeremy; but Jeremy and I had not even started the mating process. The Alpha kneeling in front of me, slowly moving his thumb in a circle on my thigh smelled, looked, and I am sure tasted irresistible to me. However, I did not love him. 

Lust? Yes. 

Love? No.

A husky chuckle escaped his lips. "So we are a little better off..." He lifted the hand that was not drawing circles and rested it confidently on my the mark he had left on my neck only the night prior. The moment his palm came into contact with my now very sensitive skin, a shutter ran down my spine. To my surprise, it took ever once of self restraint I had not to let out a moan of pleasure.

Everything in me was telling me to lean forward and kiss him. It did not matter that he was not my true mate or that he was a complete stranger. All I wanted was to find out if his soft pink lips were really as soft as they looked. I started to lean in, only to have him pull back at the same time, shock written across his face. Instantly, I was embarrassed. 

His eyes were filled with concern as he titled my head to the side, exposing the spot in which he had left his mark. "Elena, what did you do?" That was a real mood crusher. We were moving way too fast though, so it was a good distraction. 

 I assumed he was holding my face this way to examine the mark on my neck, but each time I tried to pull away, he would not let go. The tingling sensation his touch left on my skin was still there, urging me to grab his face and kiss him, but I tried to pull out of his grip nonetheless. "Alpha, let go..."

He slowly slid one of his hands from my neck and down my right arm, leaving a trail of electricity along the way. He then interlocked my hand with his own and cautiously lifted it to my neck. He placed my hand over my mark, his on top of mine. "Do you feel it?"

"What do you mean do I feel it? I don't feel anything." The fact that I had been about to kiss him, a man that was not my mate, and he interrupted me to feel the mark on my own neck was insane.

"Exactly..."

Realization hit slowly, then all at once. I hesitantly clasped my fingers around my neck as he pulled his away to give me better access. The Alpha's hands returned to my knees, reassuringly as he stared at me with immense concern written across his face.

My skin was completely smooth; clear from any scaring or marking. His hands silently fell to his sides as I promptly stood up, on a mission to find a mirror. He followed close behind, taking care not to touch me or get in my way as he allowed me to walk around his room aimlessly. I thought it was clear what I was looking for, but he seemed too in shock to make sense of my actions. "Mirror?"

Realization hit his features quickly as he stepped in front of me and led me to one of the many doors inlaid in the walls of his room. He opened the double doors for me, but stood hesitantly at the doorway as I found the mirror and exposed the skin connecting my neck to my shoulders. The area in which a mark had definitely been this morning was completely clear. In fact, it was even more clear than it had been prior to the ceremony the previous evening.  

I moved in every direction possible, willing a mark to show up. I don't know why I was silently praying that if I hit the lighting just right, his mark would appear. I did not even want him to mark me, yet here I stood, panicked in his master bathroom.