Mated To My Cheating Ex's Powerful Alpha novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Slow

Freja lets the Apex in and sets her terms: slow, no bite, never his Alpha voice on her; he takes the couch, and the bond walks her to her bedroom door where he is already waiting.

I opened the door.

He stood in the hall in the same suit, with his tie gone and his collar open.

He looked tired, and he looked like he had been standing out there a while.

The pull behind my ribs eased the moment I saw him, and I hated how much I noticed that.

I stepped back and let him in.

He stopped in the middle of my living room and looked at everything once.

The secondhand bookshelves. The mug I had left on the coffee table. The kitchen sink, black with ash.

"You burned something."

"The dress. Rhett bought it." I crossed my arms. "I didn't want it anymore."

"Good," he said.

I blinked at him. "Good?"

"You don't keep anything from a man who used you for show."

That was more accurate than anything I had managed to think all night.

"Why are you here?"

"You know why."

"Say it anyway."

"You're my mate." He said it flatly. "I felt it on the terrace and so did you. I won't stand here and pretend I didn't."

"I don't want a mate."

The words came out harder than I meant, and his expression went careful.

"I wanted him," I said. "I wanted him for eight years. Tonight I was poured on and told I was nothing, and then I stood on a stage while he picked someone else. So no. I'm not in the mood for what the universe has arranged."

"Someone poured something on you."

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

His voice stayed quiet, but the glass on my bookshelf rattled once in its frame.

I looked at him properly then.

He was holding himself very still, and that stillness had a lot of anger in it.

"You don't know me," I said.

"I know enough." He didn't smile. "I was in that room. At the back, by the east door."

"The whole time?"

"Yes."

I let that sit.

He had been in the room.

He had stood there and watched Rhett tell me to leave, and he had not moved.

I put that away to look at later, in a place where I couldn't see it.

"If this is going to happen," I said, "it happens my way."

"Tell me your way."

"It goes slowly. Very slowly."

"Understood."

"You don't bite me. You don't claim me. Not until I say so, and I might never say so."

"Understood."

"And you never use that voice on me. The Alpha one. If you can make me do something, you don't."

He didn't hesitate.

"Your choice. Always."

I waited for the catch.

There wasn't one.

"That's it?" I said. "No terms of your own?"

"One." He looked toward the couch. "Let me stay tonight. Down here, in my clothes. I'd like to know you aren't alone."

"You could just order me."

"I could," he said. "I won't."

It was the strangest thing anyone had said to me in eight years, and I believed it.

"Fine," I said. "You can have the couch. You leave first thing in the morning."

"Understood."

I got him a pillow and the folded blanket from my closet.

I handed them over.

He held the pillow in both hands and looked at it.

It smelled like fabric softener.

"Why did you tell me to run?" I asked. "On the terrace. You could have just done it, there, right then."

"Because your heart had just been broken." He met my eyes without looking away. "Because I would have been claiming a stranger at the worst moment of her life. You deserved better than that. You still do."

Something in my chest loosened.

Not all the way.

"The bathroom is down the hall," I said.

"I'll find it."

"And the couch is too short for you."

"I'll manage."

I almost smiled.

"Goodnight, Your Majesty," I said, and I put every bit of sarcasm I had into it.

"Goodnight, Freja."

I went into my bedroom and shut the door.

I lay in the dark and listened to the sofa creak as he settled into it.

For a while it was only the radiator ticking.

Then it began.

A warmth rose low in my chest and spread out through my arms and down my stomach.

I told myself it was nerves.

It got worse.

I could feel him through the wall, fifteen feet away, every breath of him.

I sat up.

My feet were on the floor before I decided to stand.

I crossed the dark room with my palm out and put it flat against my own door.

Just to check he was still there, I told myself.

That was a lie, and I knew it.

I turned the handle and pulled the door open.

He was already standing on the other side, with one hand braced on the frame and his head bowed.

He looked up.

His eyes were bright silver in the dark.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend