Teach Me How to Please, Alpha

(14) EVERYTHING I TOUCHED BURNED

Isla

“Don’t talk to me like a child!” I cried out angrily. “You think I want to do this? Beg you to touch me?” I asked. “I’m so out of my depth right here…”

“You are?” He asked. “Could have fooled me.”

“Ryder,” I called out frustrated.

“Isla,” he retorted, his face blank. “Hear yourself!”

“I am, loud and clear.”

He frowned. “Then I’m going to give you a response then. Spoiler, it hasn’t change. No.”

“Please.”

“Still no,”

“What if I never find someone to love me ever again?” I sobbed, finally whispering out my fear.

“Isla, you’re just 19, you haven’t met everybody that is going to love you,” he said with a sigh.

“And how are you to know? It’s simple for you to say because you’ve never been in love,” I accused.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “You think this conversation is easy?”

“I also want to be confident and dump him too.”

“Then do that.” He sat up. “You can also find less destructive ways to reinvest yourself. Like makeup. Girls love that s**t. Remove the unflattering clothes and trade it in for something less big? Do something with your hair?”

“You think my dressing is the problem?”

He was quiet for a while. “The truth?”

I nodded.

“Even with your loose clothes and unstyled hair, like you’re trying not to be seen, I see you. And what I see is very very attractive. And if your boyfriend has any sense, he’d think that too because it’s true and it’s such a shame that you don’t see it. ” Then he jerked to his feet and tucked his phone into his pocket. “With that being said, this mentally unstable person would go take his meds now.”

Then he leaves while I just gape into space.

Ryder thinks I’m very very attractive?

Ryder

I grabbed the bottle of green colored suppressants next to my bedside the moment I entered my room, fisting my hand around it.

It took every ounce of self control for me not to send it crashing against the wall.

I hated this. Hated that I needed to take them to function.

Hated that regardless of how much I’d protested Isla’s idea, looking at it made me remember just what she was offering.

If just mere seconds in her arms were the reason I’d been able to tolerate my father’s presence as much as I did today, then sleeping in her arms for hours… would easily solve all my problem.

It’d mean momentary freedom from these green poison I’m forced to choke on for probably the rest of my life.

I could finally shift and feel the earth under my feet without fearing for my father’s life.

It was a great deal. Perfect even. And that was the problem.

It was perfect for me.

But Isla? She has gone mad. I think she needed her own prescribed medication.

And it wasn’t that she was opting this path because she wanted to. She was doing it because she thought it was the only way she could be deserving of some scumbag.

And that was the issue. Paired with the fact that I liked Isla.

This version of her that wore ugly clothes and listened to erotic music, believed in love and soulmate.

If any other woman who had the same soothing effect to my wolf had made such an offer, we would already be busy.

Sex in exchange for peace?

I’d accepted prepositions with lesser benefits.

I was the man that women go to when the man they love wasn’t making them scream.

Married women, mated women and even in some cases, I’d accepted to be a future’s bride last boon before marriage.

So my refusal was not as a result of morals. It was not like I believed in committed relationships or I was keeping myself for a mythical mate.

But everything I touched burned… and Isla was asking me to do more than touch.

I opened the bottle and took a tablet. The pain was instantaneous as my wolf fought against it.

My jaw locked so tight it ached, but it was better than letting a groan slip out.

Better than Isla hearing.

As the worse of the agony ebbed away, and I could finally managed a steady breath, the glow from my phone caught my attention.

C: Want to hang out? He just left.

I held my head. Was this Carmine or Camilla? Both of them had a he. One had a husband while the other, a mate. I needed to stop abbreviating names when it was such a pain to remember who was who.

A knock resounded on my door. “What do you want for dinner.”

I eyed the door. This was yet another thing she didn’t do. Isla made whatever she wanted.

Seems like I’d just have to figure which C had texted me or just go to the house of probably a D. Diane seemed like a good enough option.

Leaving this house was more urgent.

Me: Coming over.

I grabbed my car keys and opened the door. Isla was still at the threshold of my door. Hair tousled by my hand, green eyes shining.

“I wouldn’t be back home tonight so no need to make dinner for me,” I told her and then I was taking the stairs two at a time not waiting for a response.