A fresh wave of total humiliation rolled over me and washed me under.
“There really isn’t.” It took me a second to realize he was continuing the thread of what he’d been saying before. And I still disagreed, strongly. “Brook, I’ve had sex before. A lot of sex. Super fucking awkward sex, like the time my date to my high school prom threw up while she was trying to give me a blowjob.”
Laughter rose up and choked me, my diaphragm spasming. My head spun, and then spun some more as Dimitri lifted me effortlessly with the arm underneath me, pulling me up to lean against his chest and patting my back with his other big hand.
The chokes subsided, trailing off in a couple of helpless giggles. For the girl in the story, I had nothing but empathy; I probably felt right now the way she had then. But imagining that happening to Dimitri had me beside myself.
Maybe that made me a bad person, especially since he’d told me that story to make me feel better.
Meh. I could live with it.
“Sorry,” I whispered, getting my voice to sort-of work at last. “I’m okay.”
Dimitri’s chest relaxed under me as he let out a long, slow exhale. “Okay. That’s good. You believe me that it’s no big deal? You really think I’d be more worried about how bad we are at getting ourselves mated than about you having a fucking seizure, Brook?”
Getting my sluggish thoughts in order proved as much of a challenge as getting them to come off of my tongue, which felt like a sausage. A dry, overcooked sausage.
I should’ve pulled away and lain down on my own, or…really anything that didn’t mean staying there in his arms, soaking up his heat and strength and support. But it felt so damn good. Maybe my father had been right all along, and I was a weak, pathetic loser.
Finally I managed, “Why would you care? I mean, you’re, we’re. We’re not mated. Even if we were. It’s not real.”
A long silence fell, broken only by Dimitri’s even breaths. Mine were still too quiet, still a little suppressed. The last time, that’d gotten better after a couple of hours, and I’d been totally fine after a good night’s sleep, with only a lingering grogginess that a triple latte dispelled easily enough. I could only hope the same would hold true this time around.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve got to tell you, you paid me to do a job,” he replied at last, as if he’d been having the same trouble finding words and pushing them out of his mouth. “The job’s to be your mate. Even if it’s not real, like we fell all fucking in love or some shit like that, it’s going to be real, like we have a mate bond. And we’re working together for a goal. Your mate takes care of you. That’s how it’s supposed to be. A mate doesn’t make fun of you or walk away when you’re sick or you need somebody. I never planned to get mated, ever, but I swore if I did I wouldn’t be a fucking asshole like—”
He cut off abruptly, leaving me stunned. He had told me more than once that he’d honor our agreement, but to me that’d meant cooperating by wearing what I told him to wear, going where I told him to go, and trying to impress my parents with what a classic alpha he was. Not…genuinely looking out for me.
And not to mention, he’d left me wildly curious, figuratively on the edge of my seat for the next couple of words—which didn’t come.
“Like who?” I slurred, choosing to address that rather than wading into the minefield of his shocking, unexpected, and possibly undeserved turn for the caring and kind.
“Someone I used to know,” he said, with quelling finality. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, if I ever got mated, I was going to treat my mate well. You’re going to be my mate, because that’s my job. I’m going to treat you well, just because. Stop assuming I’m going to be a total prick because I’m an alpha and I look like a thug.”
I managed to twist my head back against his shoulder, melting a little when he instantly accommodated me by tipping his arm at what had to be an uncomfortable angle so he could hold my head up without my neck getting hurt.
Still, I had to take issue with that last part of his statement. I raised my eyebrows pointedly, and he let out a wry chuckle.
“Yeah, okay. I look like one because I am one. You got me there. Still not the kind of prick who abuses his mate when he’s not feeling well.”
I studied him for a minute: the slight quirk to his lips, the steadiness and sincerity in those gorgeous gray eyes.
Abuse? Staying with me, holding me, comforting me, trying to reassure me, promising me that he’d take care of me…that fell pretty far from the abuse tree. He might’ve scared me when we met and antagonized me ever since, but looking at him now, and feeling so safe in his arms, it was hard to imagine him abusing anyone, ever. Especially someone he’d promised to take care of. That stubborn, determined set to his jaw suggested he might take what he saw to be his duty and responsibility to ridiculous lengths.
“What if I went crazy and tried to kill you?”
That slight smile widened into a grin. “Triedis the operative word there, Brook. Good luck with that. I guess I’d pin you down and sit on you until you stopped trying.”
Right. Such an abusive prick.
How had I, who’d screwed up my personal life in every possible way, managed to go through a seedy fixer to set myself up with a criminal for a mate and still stumble on someone as decent, underneath all the offers to murder people, as Dimitri?
And honestly. Offering to murder Blake, shock value aside, didn’t take much of the bloom off the rose for me. That seemed like such a sensible, normal reaction to Blake’s existence. Most people who’d met him and many who hadn’t had no doubt considered it.
I really had misjudged him. Completely. And now I had to move forward and try to do better on my end. No more needling him over bullshit. No more interpreting everything he said in the worst possible spirit. If he pissed me off, I’d remind myself of this moment, when he’d offered me more by way of comfort and sympathy and actual help than all of my nearest and dearest relatives combined had done, ever.
“Do thugs get their not-quite-mates a glass of water and help them stagger to the bathroom? Is that part of the Dimip—Pechor,” I stopped, the stammer tripping up my tongue. He waited patiently. I swallowed hard and tried again. “Dimitri Pechorin service package?”
“Thugs-R-Us. We beat people up and we do in-home care on the side, because we’re flexible like that and we really need the money,” he said dryly, drawing a laugh out of me. “Come on. Let’s get you sorted out and back in bed. You’re going to sleep for a while, huh?”
