Chapter 23
At Jayden’s insistence, Kira takes his bed.
Though she told him, in semi-flirtatious tones, that it would be okay for him to stay, Jayden merely turned pink around the ears and fussed around finding an extra blanket and some clean towels for her to use in the morning, before running out of the door and hurrying to sleep on the couch.
Jayden is an enigma in his human form. At times, Kira sees the Alpha, driven by his wolf in the way he commands the people around him.
To others, he’s awkward, and he looks young, eyes wide and innocent and so often confused.
The duality is engaging.
How much of that softer side does he show to the rest of the town? Not much, she thinks.
She sleeps well in Jayden’s bed. The first time that she woke up there, she was so aware of the hard mattress it hardly reacted to her bodyweight, but then she supposed that she was much lighter than Jayden.
This time, it seems steady and firm, rather than stubborn.
She remembers meeting Jayden the first time too, and how much she was put off by him, too cocky, too confident, too socially dominant.
Now all of that is what makes her weak in the knees.
Kira can smell him on the pillows. She usually sleeps with one between her legs to align her spine, but even in the privacy of the bedroom, sleeping with Jayden’s scent between her legs seems outrageous, so she resists.
Morning comes too early. Light streams in through the shutters to the foot of the bed and Kira groans, rolling into her front.
The late-night excursions are draining her, but no more than the all-nighters that she had to pull to finish her essays on time.
School drifts in front of her vision, but she blinks it away.
After hours with Jayden, she barely remembers what she used to study anymore.
The city seemed far away, not only in miles but in her mind and her heart.
She isn’t allowed to sleep in too late, because Jayden arrives with coffee and food an hour after dawn.
Kira has begun to wonder if he ever sleeps, but Jayden tells her about the pressure he’s under, the fact that he can never truly rest.
Frowning to herself as Jayden plants himself on the end of the bed and gives her the tub of warmed leftovers, Kira wonders whether Jayden would be able to sleep if they were in bed together.
He’d have another wolf close by, someone who could at least protect him long enough for him to wake up if something happened.
If Jayden needs to feel security then she’ll give him that.
Kira is good at taking care of people, even if she isn’t always so good at taking care of herself.
“Do you ever sleep?” She says, trying to make her voice dry.
“Did I wake you?”
Kira doesn’t want to make him feel bad, so she sighs and throws herself back against the pillows with a glare at the shutters.
“The sun woke me.”
“Then let me fight the sun for you.”
Heat creeps up Kira’s neck. There is something very straightforward about Jayden that she finds appealing.
He flirts openly, even if his ears turn scarlet when she responds.
He’s upfront and shameless in his liking for Kira, but somehow blanched at the thought that Kira might ever like him back.
He says grandiose romantic things such as this, but his gestures are understated and quiet, a hand to her lower back or a breakfast brought to her in bed where no one else will see.
Even if it’s leftovers.
Kira can’t cook very well, having relied on Will for a long time, and in a town with Noel’s mother’s cooking, she sees no reason why Jayden should have learned to cook either.
“Thank you for showing me your special space,” Kira says.
She pulls the blankets up around her face shyly. It has been a long time since she last stayed over with a man after a date, and whether they ended up in the same bed doesn’t affect the feeling inside her chest.
This, like the cave last night, is Jayden’s private space, and she has been invited to share in it.
She won’t take advantage of that privilege. “It was beautiful. I felt safe there.”
“Wolves are inclined to find dens,” Jayden smiles.
In daylight, he looks embarrassed.
“If I go back to the City, then I’ll show you some of my haunts too, though I can’t promise that any of them will be so lovely.”
“If?” Were Jayden in his wolf form, his ears would perk up, and Kira wished she hadn’t noticed that.
When she thinks about it, Kira doesn’t know how the word slipped out, but it feels natural.
She looks down, fiddling with the scratchy blanket.
“Well you know.I like it here in town. I have my degree to think about and my friends are going to be missing me, but at the same time, it’s like... I’ve never made a choice just for myself. Sticking around for a while could feel like a gift I’m giving to myself.”
Jayden’s eyes sparkle with excitement, but he reconstructs his face into a neutral expression not reflected in them.
“You know we’ll all support you whatever you decide?”
“Like you don’t want me to stay,” Kira laughs softly, shaking her head.
Jayden nodded. “Of course, I want you to stay. But everything you’ve said since you got here is right: you aren’t like the rest of us. You didn’t grow up with this. I talk big talk, but I know this isn’t your home. It isn’t in your heart yet. But I could make it a home for you.” He implores Kira with his eyes even as his lips stay flat, and he must be biting his cheeks to keep the expression so inoffensive.
“I could build a home for you.”
“I know that,” murmurs Kira.
“You’ve already been doing it, over at the old Wilder house.”
“Not just a house. I’d make a place for it here,” Jayden whispers, and he leans over to press a hand across her heart.
The spot that he touches burns with her body heat.
Kira would never need a blanket in his embrace.
Kira laces their fingers together and brings his hand back to her lap.
“You’re not at all like the guys I’ve dated before, Jayden.”
“Tell me about the guys you’ve dated before,” he says, with a smug grin.
Before she answers, Kira pulls a face of monetary consideration, and then she smirks.
“Ask me anything else. They don’t compare.”
Jayden doesn’t press the issue.
He hums. “What can I do to make this town feel like home for you?”
Kira was expecting a question about her favorite color or candy.
She pauses, taken aback, but gathers herself quickly.
“Be here.”
Taking that as an invitation, Jayden leans over and catches her lips in a gentle kiss.
How he can be the strongest in the pack, the most intimidating Alpha, and yet kiss as though Kira is the delicate petal of a flower, is a mystery.
He cups her jaw, tilting his head back to deepen the kiss, and Kira thinks she could never tire of kissing him.
Energy crackles where their skin touches and Kira tries to blame her wolf, but in truth, she’s growing more aware that her human has fallen hopelessly for Jayden.
“I’ll be right here. You know I’ll never leave.”
Leave him? Leave this town. The latter is more resolute. Kira knows that Jayden is tied up here in a way even the rest of the pack are not.
He’s the Alpha. His place is here, in these woods, leading his people. He couldn’t follow her back to the city.
He couldn’t even if he wanted to and Kira didn’t know if he would want to.
She doesn’t know where she lies on Jayden’s priority list. Dating the Alpha means accepting that her place in his life may always come second to his devotion to the pack.
The realization makes Kira look down, but at the same time it invigorates her, a quiet buzz in her bloodstream.
Being the center of someone’s universe would make her nervous. In occupying a position alongside Jayden’s other commitments, she thinks she’d be much happier.