Page 66 of The Forgery Mate


Font Size:

Heat pulses through my body, the rush of warmth traveling down my spine to pool in my groin. I grip the workbench, knuckles white as my stomach cramps, the emptiness in my body aching. My boxers stick to my skin, damp with the slick my body produces in desperate preparation for an Alpha.

I need to be touched. To be filled. To be seen.

Stumbling to the bathroom, I avoid the tub where I turned Ezra’s sketches to ash. I had scooped out the remains and stuffed them into a jar that now sits on the windowsill by my easel. The floor, too, I swept, though the broom with the shattered glass still leans against the wall.

The tap runs cold over my wrists, but the relief lasts only seconds before my temperature rises again. When I lift my head, fragments of the mirror reflect flushed cheeks and pupils blown wide with need.

Is this Ren Mercier? This hollow-cheeked, fevered creature with desperation written across his features? Can anyone be whole when pieces are missing? Or does wholeness come from accepting the gaps, the empty spaces where future growth might take root?

My phone vibrates in my hand, and my heart lurches. The screen illuminates with a notification, but it’s only a weather alert of an approaching storm.

Not Ezra.

Not yet.

The disappointment cuts deeper than it should. I’ve spent years alone during my Heat, suffering through symptoms with suppressants and isolation. I should be stronger than this bone-deep yearning for someone else to fill the emptiness.

But that’s the truth I’ve been running from, isn’t it? The real ghost haunting every canvas and sketchbook, the fear that I’m not enough on my own. That without someone to witness me, I might as well be invisible.

Outside, the shadows lengthen as the afternoon bleeds toward evening. The air in the loft grows heavier with my pheromones, sweet and thick with my Heat. Soon it will be strong enough to reach the street below, to call to any Alpha passing by.

But I don’t want just any Alpha. I wantmyAlpha.

I drag myself back to the window, leaving damp footprints across the floor. Prickles of sweat bead across my skin, my body a furnace burning hotter with each passing hour. Soon I’ll be past coherent thought, past anything but animal need.

And Ezra will either come or he won’t. I’ve offered the one thing I’ve never given anyone, not because I’m healed or certain, but because I’m tired of being fragments, and I can’t be whole without him.

The lock clicks.

My body reacts before my mind processes the sound, spine straightening, muscles tensing, breath catching. No one has keys to this place. No one but me.

The door swings open without a knock. Ezra steps inside, the stairwell light framing him in gold for a breath before the door closes behind him.

His pheromones roll over me, the unmistakable musk ofAlphaflooding my senses and setting my skin ablaze.

He stands in my entryway as if he belongs here, as if he’s walked through this door a hundred times before. The casual certainty of his presence steals the air from my lungs. He wears no suit today, just dark jeans and a black Henley pushed up to his elbows, revealing the tattoos that wind around his strong forearms.

My mouth dries, my pulse hammering at my throat, my wrists, my groin. The fever I’ve been fighting all day spikes with his proximity, turning my blood to liquid fire. The thin cotton boxers do nothing to hide the flush of my skin, the painful hardness of my dick, or the slick dampening the fabric where it sticks to my ass and thighs.

“What took you so long?” I demand breathlessly.

“I had to help with cleanup.” He takes in the chaos of my loft, the discarded identities piled in the trash bin, the scattered art supplies, and footprints tracing my restless pacing. “I trusted that you were safe.”

His nostrils flare as he inhales the concentrated pheromones of my Heat mixed with painting supplies and turpentine that fillthe enclosed space, and his pupils dilate. “Your Heat is further along than I expected, though.”

“Didn’t your collar tell you how far gone I was? Why didn’t you come earlier?” I can’t stop myself from grinding the heel of my hand over my straining dick. “Why Aaiden and not you?”

“Because you didn’t ask me to come sooner.” He catalogues my disheveled appearance, the dark circles beneath my eyes, and the tremor in my hands that I can’t suppress. His attention lingers on my neck, where his collar guards my nape for him. “Jade was already on his way and got to you faster than I could have.”

The floorboards creak beneath his weight as he crosses the room, each footfall bringing him closer. I expect him to reach for me and satisfy the desperate ache to be filled, and my body leans toward him without conscious command, drawn to his gravity.

Instead, Ezra reaches into his jacket pocket and produces the biometric key to the collar. “Turn around.”

I turn slowly, presenting my nape to him, a surrender more significant than anything I’ve offered before. The floor sways beneath my feet, dizziness washing over me in waves. Ezra’s hand catches my elbow, steadying me, and the warmth of his palm burns through my skin, igniting nerve endings already raw with need.

My pulse throbs as his breath warms the back of my neck, and my eyelashes flutter as a needy whine escapes me.

The key slides over the metal collar, and a soft click sounds through the thunder of my heartbeat. The light pressure around my throat eases as the titanium band parts.