Page 40
Colin stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind him.
Ruari came through, drying his hands on a tea towel. He was shirtless beneath his apron, flour dusted over his chest and into the dark hair below his collarbones. His pupils were blown so wide that the pale grey-green of his irises had been reduced to a thin ring. He smelled of whisky.
Colin leaned on the counter and tried to see what Cassian found appealing in this alpha.
It wasn’t difficult. Ruari Thorne was a handsome man, blunt-featured, strong-jawed, and built like he’d been assembled from old-school action movie heroes. He moved with a crackling, restless energy that Colin recognised in Cassian. He had the same rapid-fire speech and inability to stay settled on a single task.
“How are you, Ruari?”
He hadn’t thought to ask. He’d been so focused on Cassian that he’d automatically relegated Ruari to the problem alpha rather than a person who needed checking in on.
Ruari’s face split into a grin so wide it showed his back teeth. “Never better, Colin. Honestly. Knee’s behaving, got a new car situation sorted, and I’ve got the prettiest omega in London on my arm.” He spread his flour-caked hands and gestured at the kitchen behind him. “Everything’s clicking, mate. I can feel it. I’m baking better than I have in months, I’ve got ideas coming faster than I can write them down, and Cass — Colin, he’s something else. He’s the real deal.”
“I’m going to talk to you straight, Ruari.”
“’Course. I want you to do that, Colin. Always.” Ruari returned to the counter, pulling a tray from the cooling rack with his bare hands, not flinching at the heat.
“I don’t appreciate what you’re doing with Cassian. It’s ridiculous that you’re buying him a car when he doesn’t have a provisional licence! You just walked him into a dealership and dropped cash on a Mini Cooper like you were ordering him a drink at the pub.”
“He loved it, Colin. You should’ve seen his face—”
“I saw the photo, and I know he loved it. What I’m asking you is whether you thought about it for longer than it took to find your wallet.” Colin folded his arms. “You’ve been with him, what, a few weeks?”
Ruari set the tray down and turned to face him.
“When you know, you know, mate.”
Colin breathed out through his nose. He’d heard that line before, from Stephen at seventeen, from Lysander at nineteen, and from a plumber in Barking who’d proposed to his girlfriend after six dates and been divorced by Christmas.
“Right. Beyond that,” Colin went on. “I could smell alcohol on you when you walked Cassian through my door tonight. Which tells me you drove him home after drinking.”
Ruari’s grin slipped. “I had a couple of glasses of champagne at the dealership,” Ruari said, waving a flour-dusted hand. “It was cheap plonk that was basically Ribena.”
“Ribena doesn’t impair your reaction time while driving a Range Rover with my boy in the passenger seat.”
Ruari started to speak, and Colin cut across him.
“And you had sex with him tonight without protection. You didn’t even think to put a condom on. Cassian doesn’t know enough about his own body to make that call. He spent twenty-two years in a compound where they taught him absolutely nothing about sex. Only that he’s meant to receive alphas joyfully. There can never be a repeat of that, Ruari. You need to be careful with him.”
The alpha’s grin dropped. “You’re right,” Ruari admitted. “Fuck. You’re right, Colin, I should’ve — yeah. I should’ve thought about that. I should’ve stopped and asked, and I didn’t. That’s on me.”
“If something’s off with you, Ruari, now’s not the time to start anything with Cass.”
“It’s already started, Colin.”
“Then you need to shape up because he deserves better than what I’m looking at right now.”
Ruari’s hands came down flat on the counter, and he tipped forward towards Colin.
“Watch me, Colin. I know what Cassian came from. I’ve done my research, and I’ve read about the case, the compound, what his fucking husband did to him. I watched Hamish’s documentary twice, and I sat up reading the Royal Commission transcripts until my eyes nearly bled.” His voice was climbing in volume and speed. “I’m going to be better. I have to be good to him, Colin. He’s the best thing that’s walked into my life since I opened this shop, and I’m not going to be another alpha who lets him down.”
Colin let the torrent pass. “Then you start it all tomorrow,” Colin said. “You use condoms with him, always. Cassian has baggage about sex that he doesn’t even understand himself, so you have to listen to him and control yourself when you’re with him. And you are to never, ever drive him anywhere after you’ve had a drink. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
Colin reached across the counter, grabbed a fistful of Ruari’s apron, and pulled him in until the alpha was sharing his breath. “You talk to me, Ruari. If there’s anything I can do to help you, you tell me. That’s a condition of you being around Cassian.”
Ruari lit up again, and clapped Colin on the shoulder with enough force to shift him sideways.
