Page 46 of The Alpha’s Heir

I should’ve left it at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before I could put the car in park, Meg pushed open the door. “Thanks for taking me out. I had a good time today.”

I should’ve left her alone. She’d done enough for me. For all of us. I’d promised myself to stay away unless orders dictated otherwise.

Three seconds was all I lasted before I pushed open my own car door and followed her up the stairs. “What else do you smell, Meg?”

“It’s really nothing.” She entered the house.

Not my house. Not my threshold.

Yet I chased her across it anyway, straight up the grand staircase that wasn’t mine, following a woman who wasn’t mine to follow.

All rational thought was fleeting, and I needed to know what she meant. “Is it something bad?”

I imagined that was why she ran. Why she couldn’t look me in the face.

Meg stopped at the top of the stairs, glancing over her shoulder at her bedroom door, and seemed to come to some sort of decision as her shoulders fell. “How long has he been like that?”

Her question brought me straight back to the night I’d found him on the floor of our one-room flat after another late night at work. I was sixteen. Not old enough to be considered an adult. Young enough to bawl my eyes out in the hospital room when they told me he might never recover.

“Nine years,” I whispered, as if not speaking it out loud would soothe some of the pain.

Meg nodded. “And you’re… paying to keep him like that?”

“It’s complicated.” My jaw clenched.

She didn’t understand what she was asking, and she sure as hell didn’t know how scientific advancement worked. Sure, he was in a stasis now, but any day the doctors would break through with a new discovery. The treatment would work better. He’d be okay.

“I do understand.” Her hand rested on my forearm and I felt that warmth rush through me again at being touched by someone who seemed to care.

Meg’s worried eyes searched my face. “I’d do anything for my family. You’re a good son. I bet your father loves you as much as you do him.”

I don’t know what possessed me.

I watched it happen as if it were someone else’s story. A main character taking what he wanted. The urge so strong it forced my muscles to act.

My fingers laced through the back of her hair and my other hand grabbed her hip, needing to hold her close with an intensity I’d never felt before.

I hesitated with my lips hovering just above her lips, finding a moment of clarity when she gasped at my sudden touch.

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t…”

“Stop apologizing,” Meg growled, her eyes blown with a desire that made me forget every piece of training I’d ever endured and forced me weak in the knees. She laced her hands behind my neck and closed the distance between our lips.

I stole her breath as mine for a moment that I wanted to pause in time.

Then her sweet taste exploded on my tongue as I kissed her, drinking deep and pouring my soul into that kiss. It left no doubt of what I wanted. And, curse science, I wanted this woman more than I had any right to want anything.

My fingers fisted her hair as I pressed us closer together, needing to feel every inch of her touching me. Damn it all. Damn the consequences.

The consequences…

Meg broke our kiss as if she could sense my thoughts, breathing heavy as she clung to the front of my shirt. “That was… Wow.”

Blood pounded in my ears.

“Wait. Don’t go,” Meg pleaded, still holding on to me.