Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 182

Chapter 182

Skye

Nicolai’s question is a test and not a test. I feel the weight of it.

“Yes,” It’s barely a sound but it’s the truth. “If you told me you couldn’t-if you really couldn’t-I would choose. you. I made a vow. I meant it. I mean it now.” My voice breaks slightly. “Even if it-yes. I would choose you.”

The way he’s looking at me, his expression does something I don’t have words for.

“Show me,” I challenge. “Show me you can’t accept this, accept him. Look at me and tell me. You do that and Ill choose you.”

He doesn’t look away but there’s no warmth in his gaze. The tension in the room holds. Then something in his face changes. The breaking-thing underneath the control surfaces and he crosses the room in one stride, takes my face in his hands and says:

“I can’t watch you give it up.” He murmurs. Just that.

My jaw drops open and I stare at him. Because after everything, what do I say to that?

“If you gave it up for me,” he continues, “I would see it on your face every day. The thing you were carrying, the thing I took away from you.” His thumbs move across my cheekbones. “I’ve watched you be slowly diminished by someone who couldn’t love you right. I’m not going to be the reason you diminish yourself.” He presses his forehead to mine. “So no. I can’t watch you give it up.’

I exhale, everything in my chest releasing. He kisses me-not carefully. This kiss is something desperate and real and fully present, both of us feeling it entirely. I don’t know how long.

We don’t make it to the bedroom. The hallway, as it turns out, is sufficient. Like we can’t stand to let another breath go by without each other. It’s heat and desperate need and passionate longing.

He takes me right there, against the wall where anyone could see, and I can’t find it in me to care. He’s not gentle and neither of us is quiet. It’s raw and primal, two animals claiming their mate all over again.

Afterward, with my back is against the wall, him still hard inside me while my heartbeat desperately tries to return to something like normal and Nicolai presses against me, leaving no space between us, his mouth at my temple, both of us laughing slightly at ourselves-

That’s when the gate text arrives on my phone. I feel it buzz in my pocket and ignore it, unwilling to give any of this moment away to anything else.

The footsteps in the hallway are what tells us what a mistake that was-the sound of the west wing door, the sound of someone who has been waved through by Mikhail because he lives here, moving through his own home.

Jaxon appears at the end of the hallway. He stops, takes in the scene-me, Nicolai, our general state of undress, the undeniable way we’re still connected.

I watch his face. Brace for it. The reaction I’ve been afraid of since the first time I understood what we were all trying to do. The anger, or the hurt, or the familiar cold withdrawal.

Instead Jaxon is very still, reading our faces, the obvious worry on mine. Then he says, “I’m not going to fall apart. It’s not the first time I’ve seen you like this.”

Nicolai goes alert. His hand at my waist, staying. “What do you mean?” He growls.

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“The office,” Jaxon explains. “A while ago. I came to ask you something. The door wasn’t latched.” He meets my ves, something amused in his. “I saw you. I didn’t-I stayed longer than I should have. And then I left without saying anything.”

The hallway is very quiet, like we’re defusing a bomb. “And?” I say carefully.

“And it destroyed me,” he admits. “At first.” He looks between us, a wry smile tilting his lips. “And then it- didn’t. Not because I stopped wanting you. But because I understood that the way he is with you-” He looks at Nicolai. “The way he looks at you. That’s the thing I failed to give you for three years.” His voice is steady. “And I can be jealous of it or I can decide that seeing it doesn’t break me. And I decided. Besides, it was fucking hot, watching you come apart for him that way. I’ve fucked my hand to that image more than once.”

Nicolai is watching him. I am watching him. And all I can think is “What is happening?”

“You came back early,” I say stupidly. Because apparently all intellect has fled the building.

“I couldn’t stay,” he shrugs, still staring at us. “I missed you too much and I didn’t want to wait”

He walks down the hallway toward us. Stops close. His eyes on me.

“Is this okay?” he asks. Just me. Just the question.

I look at Nicolai. Nicolai’s jaw is doing the thing. He is clearly working through something. But his arm around my waist doesn’t change its pressure and he doesn’t step back.

“Yes,” I say to Jaxon.

He cups my face in his hand. The bond does its warm, certain, undeniable thing at the contact. And he kisses me.

Gentle. Deliberate. Nothing rushed. My hand finds his wrist-holding, not pulling away.

When he pulls back, I’m still in Nicolai’s arms. I look at Nicolai. His expression is-complex doesn’t begin to cover it. He’s feeling things, several of them, not all of them comfortable.

But he’s here. Still here. His arm still around me, his cock still inside me, Heat flashes through me from head to toe at the thought of them both touching me this way.

Nicolai looks at Jaxon. Jaxon looks at him. I feel the two Alphas reaching out, pushing against the other, but neither makes a move.

Nobody says anything.

But nobody leaves either.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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