Icy Nights: Mated to the Three Alphas

Almost

POV: Jessie

Something is wrong with my ribs. Not pain, exactly. More like a pressure building behind the bone, low and insistent, the way your ear feels right before a plane lands. I press two fingers against my sternum. The pressure pushes back.

The Welker stairwell door slams on its closer. Wet wool and floor wax hit me. Outside, Minnesota wind still screams against the wired glass.

I swallow. The pressure doesn't care.

Then warmth. Rising from below. Pear skin. Pink pepper. Something soft underneath, like clean laundry pulled off a dryer rack.

My shoulders drop before I tell them to. The pressure in my chest dulls to something manageable. Stupid. My body already knows who's coming.

A boot scuffs concrete.

Jonah rounds the corner. Golden Wolves warm-up jacket, zipper halfway, hair still damp from the showers. That lean he does, chin up, mouth already loading whatever nonsense he's about to hit me with.

Then he actually looks at my face.

His mouth shuts.

"You look like hell," he says. "Like, actual hell. The frozen kind where nothing grows."

"Thanks. You always know exactly what to say."

"I'm serious, Marlowe."

He climbs the last three steps. The stairwell is four feet wide. His shoulders eat half of it. Nowhere to look except the track of his zipper and the hollow of his throat.

"I'm fine, Jonah."

"You're not." He pulls his hands from his pockets. "Your hands are doing that thing. The shaking thing. And your eyes keep going somewhere I'm not standing."

"It's just the weather."

"The weather didn't do that to your face." He tilts his head. Hazel eyes catch the fluorescent overhead. Gold flecks in them look darker tonight. "You okay? Like, actually okay. Not the 'I'm fine, Kline' version."

My jaw works. I almost snap something back. Keep walking. The radiator above us gives this violent metallic groan and whatever I was holding cracks open.

"I don't know what's happening to me."

The words come out before I can grab them. I want them back immediately.

Jonah goes still. Completely still. Like someone hit pause on him.

"Jessie."

He lifts his right hand. Slow. Giving me every single second to step back. To turn around. To walk up the stairs and disappear into Welker and pretend this isn't happening.

My heels stay locked on the concrete lip.

His thumb finds the hinge of my jaw. Right below my ear. Warm. Rough from stick tape. Lighter than it has any right to be.

My jaw unclenches. I didn't decide that. It just happened.

My fingers loosen inside my gloves.

His pulse jumps under his own thumb. I feel it. A quick, hard stutter against my skin.

He breathes out. Short. Sharp through his nose. "Your heart's going stupid fast right now. You know that?"

"You're standing really close."

"Yeah." His thumb moves. One inch along my jawline. Slow. "I am."

Neither of us moves away.

"Jonah."

"Mm."

"You don't have to."

"I know I don't have to." His voice drops. Rougher now. "I want to. That's different."

The radiator clanks above us. Somewhere in the wall a pipe knocks. I hear all of it. None of it matters.

Inside my chest the pressure shifts. Stops being thin and high. Drops into something heavier. Something with actual weight, pressing outward against my ribs like it wants more room.

I look at his eyes. Then I look at his mouth. His lips are parted. Breath hits my chin in small warm puffs.

Don't, I think. Don't do this.

I lean forward. Two degrees. Maybe three. The gap between my coat and his jacket disappears. My stomach drops. I moved. I actually moved toward him.

He keeps his free hand curled at his side. Refuses to close the last inch. His jaw works. A muscle ticks.

"Jessie."

Just my name. Rough. Dragged through something.

"What?" My lower lip brushes the warm air coming off his. I feel every shift of his breath.

His thumb presses a little firmer against my jaw. His eyes drop to my mouth. Then back up. Checking. Asking without asking.

I tilt my head. My eyes close.

"Kline."

The word drops from above. Not yelled. Doesn't need volume. It echoes down the cinderblock shaft and lands like a blade on tile.

Jonah freezes. His thumb stays on my jaw.

"Now."

Martins.

Cold air rolls down the steps. Crushed pine resin. Wet stone. It pushes the pear and pepper aside until the whole stairwell belongs to him.

I jerk backward. My shoulder hits cinderblock. Cold bites through my coat. The pressure in my chest snaps back into something high and thin and stressed.

Jonah's jaw locks. The muscle in his cheek ticks. Once. He pulls his hand away. Doesn't look at me. Stares up at the yellow-green landing light like it owes him money.

"Yeah." Thick. Bitter. Dragged through his teeth. "Got it, Captain."

He looks at me once. Just once. Then turns. Takes the stairs two at a time. His boots clatter until the fire door slams below.

Silence.

Then footsteps above. Slow. Unhurried.

Martins appears on the landing two flights up. Dark team parka. Hands on the steel railing. He doesn't come down. He looks at the narrow space where Jonah stood. Then at my mouth. Then at the salt rings on the step.

His expression doesn't change.

My throat locks up anyway.

He turns. Walks back down the second-floor hallway. His soles thud quiet against tile. A door clicks shut.

Gone.

I stand alone in the stairwell. The fluorescent buzzes. The radiator gives one more metallic sigh.

I lift my hand. Wool-gloved fingers touch my lower lip.

It's trembling.

I press harder. Knuckles dig in.

He didn't kiss me. Nothing happened. Nothing happened.

But my chest disagrees. The pear and the pine still fight in my nose. And deep behind my sternum, the pressure drops. Low. Thick. It rolls once. Slow.

A growl.

Mine.

I press my fingertips against my mouth. Can't stop the warmth still sitting under my skin where his thumb rested. The sound stretches out again in my ribs. Lower this time. Patient.

And completely awake.