Chapter 11 DENIAL AND BODY TALK (2)
WILLA'S POV
“And you could?” I retorted icily, my grip on the pint of ice cream tightening in anger. “Oh, don’t make me laugh, Gallahan. You are the last person in this world who would know about compassion.”
Thick and heavy silence enveloped the entire room right after. One could’ve heard a pin drop with how deadly quiet we became as we glared at each other.
My chest was rising and falling in quick succession, my breath growing mildly labored. Whether it was due to my emotions running high or due to the second wave of my heat being a hair’s breadth away, I wasn’t entirely too sure. Perhaps it was both.
“I’m fucking leaving,” Gallahan declared suddenly, his long legs working quickly to get him out of the room.
But I was swift on my feet too. After I hastily left the pint of ice cream on the bedside table, I was immediately on his trail, chasing after him with little to no care about how I was beginning to feel hot and sensitive as the second wave of my heat began in earnest.
“Where the hell are you going?” I asked, raising my voice slightly as Gallahan scurried to the kitchen without sparing me a single glance.
“Where do you think?”
I did not appreciate the sarcasm, so I yelled impatiently, “Answer me properly!”
“Away from you,” he said, heading for the bed tray that still had our dirty dishes. It was clear he intended to make himself busy to avoid talking to me. “So just go back to the bedroom on your own.”
I was almost seething in anger as I slammed my hands on the island counter and asked scathingly, “And why the fuck would you leave me on my own when my heat is about to wreck me once more?”
He had brought the dishes, forks and glasses over to the sink. His back was now on me, and the island counter stood in between us. The square of his shoulders were tensed, and the thin fabric of his fitted shirt couldn’t hide how straight like an iron rod his spine was.
“Gallahan!”
“Because I don’t need you to spell it out for me, Willa. I already know.”
“Can you be straightforward with me? For fuck’s sake! Talk to me properly.”
“Because!” Gallahan bellowed, ceasing his vicious scrubbing of the faultless plate and dropping it harshly on the sink so he could turn around and face me. “You sure as hell no longer want me to be there for you, right?! I bet there is no way you want to be held by the hands you think are stained with the blood of your beloved humans. Right, Willa? Right?! You can’t stomach me now that you know who I am.”
Gallahan was slightly red in the face, and a vein on his neck protruded during the entire stretch of his outburst that had completely taken me aback. It left me staring at him with wide eyes, my heart hammering wildly in my chest.
“Right? I do not need the rejection. I already know. So just go.”
His hands were clenched tightly, quivering in barely suppressed frustration and anger.
I didn’t know what took over me in the next moment. Maybe it was pity, or maybe it was my heat messing with my rational mind. Or perhaps it was because my soul and my inner wolf couldn’t bear the growing rift between Gallahan and I.
But whatever it was, it got me marching to Gallahan, rounding the island counter, so I could do what I wanted to do despite the insanity and wrongness of it all.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered as I invaded his personal space. Then I pulled him by the collar of his shirt and pressed my lips on his.
A growl rumbled out of his throat, and next thing I knew, my mouth was being ravaged by his tongue and I was lifted and made to sit on the island counter. My legs spread to accommodate Gallahan, whose hands were already working on the tie of the dressing robe I was wearing.
“Han…” I murmured once his lips departed from mine and began to trail kisses down my neck. “Can we… Can we forget for a moment?”
“Just for a moment?”
I badly wanted to say, ‘for eternity,’ but we both knew that this thing between us could only last for as long as the world permitted.
But the fact was that our world, our reality, didn’t permit us even a moment.
Still , we would selfishly steal one anyway.
So I said, “Yes. Even just for a moment.”
Gallahan nodded, chastely kissing me on the forehead. “As you wish, sweetheart.”
And then his lips were back on mine.
Gallahan took his time with me, dragging every single second for as long as he could, finding eternities within the moment we had agreed on, until I was blabbering and begging for him to knot me.
But even with a mind that was hazy with the pleasure and my heat, I remained quite cognizant through it all. It was as if my brain unconsciously wanted me to savor each second I spent with Gallahan—all the searing touches he graced my body with, all the lingering kisses he was gifting on the patches of skin his lips could reach, and every slide of his cock inside of me.
Tears managed to escape my eyes, and I deeply hoped that as he kissed every salty drop, he took it as a sign of immense pleasure, instead of the heartache that was plaguing my chest despite the blissful heaven his cock was sending me to.
He knotted me once again, leaving me full of his seeds. Then, after nearly an hour since his knot subsided, I made my great escape while he remained deep asleep and oblivious of the betrayal that awaited him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled just before slipping out of the room.
I just couldn’t bear to fight him anymore. Not when the two of us already chose to stand firm on our beliefs.
But more than that, he was right. I couldn’t stomach choosing him. I couldn’t even dare to imagine having a happy life with him, knowing that there were those whose lives he had cut short.
Despite this, I also couldn’t stomach rejecting him. I couldn’t stand to stay for any moment longer, afraid of getting even more addicted to his warm and safe presence. I couldn’t endure having to see his face fall or turn cold once we fought over our differences once again. And most of all, I couldn’t bear to say that I didn’t want him, because deep inside, in spite of the fact that he was the wicked Gallahan Wick, I still wanted him.
So I took the easiest way out. Because as much as I could brave any battle of this war, I couldn’t actually brave the heartache of having to turn my back on my fated mate.
“Needs must,” I murmured as I thought hard about the cause I was fighting for. “Needs must.”
With that as my last mantra, I shifted into my wolf form and ran away.