Try Not To Moan This Time
881 Words
“I talk in my sleep sometimes,” Devon said, stretching like a beast awakening from hibernation. “In case you were planning to record me and sell it.”
He sat up in bed, golden eyes glowing faint in the moonlight, chest bare and smug as sin. The towel from earlier had been replaced with black sweatpants riding low on his hips, teasing the curve of V-lines that should’ve been illegal in student housing.
Kill me now. Or knock me out with a book. Either one.
“I wasn’t listening to you,” I lied flatly, turning to fluff my pillow aggressively. “I value my brain cells.”
“Really?” he drawled. “You kept squirming every time I said your name.”
“I didn’t—wait, you said my name?”
“Cain,” he repeated with an infuriating grin. “Unless you’ve got another name you’re not sharing.”
My spine stiffened. I rolled away from him. “I’m not in the mood, Devon.”
“You never are. It’s tragic,” he said, rising from his bed and padding across the room barefoot. “But I’m persistent.”
He was too close again. Always too close. The bed dipped slightly as he sat on the edge, facing me.
“I have a question,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck like he was genuinely thinking.
I hated that it made him look more human. Hated that I noticed.
“What now?” I asked, keeping my tone bored.
“Have you ever actually seen a d**k in person?”
The silence that followed could’ve killed a small bird.
“I—what—why—”
He grinned. “I’m just saying, your face earlier? When I dropped the towel? You looked like you’d seen the second coming of the moon goddess herself.”
“I did not!”
“You froze. Blinked twice. Jaw dropped. Took mental measurements. I should start charging for the show.”
“You’re delusional.”
He leaned down, just enough to make my lungs feel like they were in a chokehold.
“Wanna prove it? I can drop it again. Slowly this time.”
I grabbed the nearest thing—his book—and smacked his arm with it.
He laughed. Actually laughed, like this was all just foreplay. Maybe to him it was.
“God, you’re uptight,” he said, standing. “But it’s cute. Kinda makes me want to see how long it takes to break you.”
That. Right there. That’s why he can’t be my mate. My mate is supposed to calm me. Not make me want to throw myself out the window.
He paced to the mini fridge, pulling out a water bottle and chugging it like he’d just walked out of a fire. I turned away again, shoving my face into the pillow and praying to the moon to curse him with fleas.
When I peeked back, he was watching me.
His gaze was quieter now. Still intense. But not mocking.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured. “Earlier. In my sleep.”
My breath caught.
“No, you didn’t. You were unconscious.”
“Don’t need to be awake to feel a pull.” He ran a hand through his messy dark hair, lips twitching into something soft—something I didn’t trust.
“I’m not your anything, Devon,” I whispered.
His expression didn’t change, but something in the air thickened.
“That’s the problem,” he muttered. “You smell like mine.”
I stiffened. My heart betrayed me, thumping a little faster.
He stepped closer again, kneeling beside the bed now, right at my side.
“But your scent…” he leaned in slightly, voice dropping, “…it’s off. You hide it too well.”
“I have nothing to hide,” I said quickly.
He leaned even closer, nose almost brushing my shoulder.
“Then why do you flinch when I breathe you in?”
Because I feel it, too. Because you smell like everything I was told to kill.
I shoved him again, harder this time. “Go to sleep, Devon.”
He stood. “Fine. But if you wake up with me sniffing you, don’t freak out.”
“Why would you—”
“Because I think you’re hiding something, Cain,” he said, now standing in the middle of the room, voice lower, sharper. “And I’m really good at finding things out.”
I turned my back. My pulse roared in my ears.
He walked back to his bed, the mattress creaking. “You snore, by the way. It’s cute.”
“I hope you choke on your ego in your sleep.”
He chuckled darkly. “That’s not the only thing I choke on.”
“DEVON—!”
But he was already half-under the covers, grinning into his pillow.
This can’t go on. He’ll figure me out.
And worse…
If he keeps talking like that, I might want him to.
⸻
Cliffhanger Ending:
“Goodnight, Cain,” he said lazily. “Try not to moan this time.”
I froze.
I hadn’t told him I’d had a dream.
How the hell did he know?
- Writer
