Chapter Twenty-One | The Rope

                                           'You're drooling.' Jackson said.

Startled, I actually lift my hand to touch my lips to see if I actually was. I was not. I wanted to get mad at Jackson for fucking with me like that but I was more stunned that I actually believe him because at the back of my mind, it wouldn't have been crazy for me to believe that I was drooling. That was a scary thought.

What was even scarier is the sudden realization that I was bluntly checking him out. My eyes had been racking his body like it was a damn meal, I didn't know what to think. I had never looked a man like that, to suddenly be gazing at Xander like I...like I wanted him freaked me out.

To make things worse, I catch Xanders eyes that hold a glimmer of amusement and a knowing look. He fucking saw me. He saw me ogle him, he saw me check him out, he saw me check to if I was drooling over him. My face began to feel hot as embarrassment took over, the desire and the urgent need to smash my head against the counter overrided my senses but I refrained from giving myself the concussion that I really needed right about now. The last thing that I need is Xander thinking that I was even remotely attracted to him.

Not saying that I am.

'We're past the point of denial, Jay.' Jackson quipped.

Whatever, fine. I didn't want him knowing that I found him...attractive. If he knew, that's all the ammunition that he would need. I can't live this down.

"What the hell are you doing down here?" I blurt out, attempting to draw attention away from my eye groping of Xanders bare body.

The smirk never left his face as he let out a breathy laugh, walked to the opposite side of island that was diagonal to where I currently stood and leaned onto it with folded arms as his eyes took in my face.

"I can't get a snack?" He answered my question with a question of his own, one of his eyebrows arched.

At a loss for words, I just stare at him. Me, Jaylin Wilson, is at a loss for words right now. It was really beginning to feel like the world was coming to an end, the catastrophe caused by Xander King with his stupid nice body, great personality, good looking face, and hands...wait, hands?

His hands reached out, before I could register what he was about to do, he did it. His hands cupped the side of my face with the pad of his thumb gently stroking my cheek. It was a soft feeling that made all of the muscles in my body relax as tingles spread all over my body and began to the macarena as they danced on my skin. The eye contact between us never broke, those gentle and calm brown eyes of his entrapped me.

Abracadabra. Just like that, I felt like I was under his spell again. I exhaled breathlessly, the lingering feeling grazing his face. I watched as he shivered, his tongue darting out to lick those lips on his. My mind filled with memories of that one single kiss we shared when I had just got here, my lips begin to tingle subconsciously. I'm in a daze, a daze that I wasn't even trying to fight right now.

"I need to...I'm going to...go." My words are almost inaudible, my words kept drifting off into a silent whisper.

He can make out what I was saying, I know he can. As if to demonstrate that he heard what I said loud and clear, he moves over to where I am without hesitation and at a speed that made me consider if he had some kind of teleportation power that I was unaware of.

I couldn't dwell on that, my mind was much too preoccupied with the feeling of his arms on either side of me as his hands rest of the island, keeping my back resting against it with my eyes still locked on his. I wasn't even mad that he caged me in like this. I wasn't mad that I had to stare up at him. I wasn't mad that he just broke two of my rules again. Truthfully, I knew he'd never actually follow the rules, I just thought that it'd be worth a shot. I was more focused on the vulnerability that shone in those eyes of his that looked down at me like I was something....precious.

There was no way.

"Don't look at me like that." I demand. It was a weak demand, it sounded more like I was pleading with him.

"Like what?" He whispered, looking all over my face before his eyes caught my own again. "Like I want to hold you to prevent you from running away again? Like I want to pull you under me and do whatever the hell I want to do with you?" I swallow at that. "Like I want to beg you to...to fucking accept me?"

I felt my heart stop as I immediately look down, unable to make eye contact with him anymore. He looked so hurt, the expression he was making made my heart feel like it was shattering inside my chest. I just didn't understand it one bit. Everything that he's feeling, everything that he's saying, everything that he wants with me are all just a product of the mate bond. I knew that but then why did it feel so hard to breathe right now?

The rational part of my brain was trying to reason with me that had it not been for the mate bond, Xander would be doing his own thing right now. If not for the mate bond, he would not be focusing on me, he would not have any desire for me, and he would not want me. That's just another one of the reasons why I need him to realize that all of this is just a fiction of our imagination, created by the Moon Goddess. Why did it feel like it was getting harder and harder to do so nowadays?

"You don't actually want me, Xander. That's just the mate bond talking and you know it. If we weren't mated, you'd be out sleeping with whatever girl caught your interest." Just saying that hurt and it stung like a bitch. "Us being mated doesn't change anything. You don't have to force yourself to want to be with me — "

"Is that what you think I'm doing right now? Forcing myself to want to be with you because of the mate bond?" He asked with grievance.

Chewing on my lips for a moment, I lick my lips and nod firmly. "It's true."

"No, it's wrong. You're wrong." He denies fervently. "You must think that less of me if you truly think that I'd be able to ignore the fact that we're mates and go out to sleep with other people or that I'd be going after you just because of some damn mate bond."

"I don't think less of yo —"

"You have to have if that's what you really thought, Jay." He said sharply.

His fingers grab my chin and force me to look up at him, to look up into those brown eyes that were once calm but now they're stormy. I could feel a storm brewing inside them. There was a ragging tsunami of emotions in those eyes of his, all mixed in together violently to create a wave of emotions that swallowed me whole, leaving not a crumb leftover. I was suffocating but somehow still managing to breath at the same time in a state of time that felt endless.

"I care about you, Jaylin. More than you will ever know. I have cared about you since the day I laid my eyes on you, and I will forever care about you as my best friend and as my mate. Hurting you is the last that I would ever do and you know that. Mate bond or no mate bond, what I feel right now is genuine and real. I want you, Jaylin Wilson." He said earnestly, his face the most serious I've ever seen it.

My heart skipped a bit, and my throat felt stuck. Maintaining eye contact with him started to become difficult, his stare was overwhelming. The feeling that I was starting to drown began to rise up and I didn't know if I was going to make it out alive.

When I didn't say anything, he said, "I will say this every day if I have to, if this will get you to listen to me and finally let me in."

My heart and my wolf were both screaming aggressively for me to buckle, to give into him and accept him. A part of me was past the point of even trying to denying the way Xander made me feel, he made me feel like I was in some kind of fairytale dream. A dream where he was my Prince Charming or something of the sort who was there to win me over in the end and we'd have this beautiful happy ending with flowers being tossed at us as we rode off into the distance on a white horse.

A dream that is just that, a dream.

That wasn't reality, I knew it wasn't reality but being this close to Xander, smelling him, feeling his touch on me even if it was the faintest touch or embrace, and being able to hear these words that filled my heart with so much joy made me feel the most content I ever have in my entire life. There was this build up of emotions and feelings that I kept trying to push down, to ignore, and pretend didn't exist but my attempts were futile.

They were useless.

No matter how much I tried to act like the feelings that kept growing day by day in my heart were not there or were a simple figment of my imagination, they were very much there. They were real, they were trying to resurface and break free to claim what they really wanted and what they wanted was the very person I tried so hard to just remain best friends with. The very person I tried to keep a distance from. The very person that drove me crazy, made it hard for me to concentrate, and turned my coherent and logical mind into one that was incapable of forming a complete thought.

Looking into his eyes, I now realize that I am indeed fighting a losing battle. There is no question about it.

Gnashtons voice begins to ring in my ears.

"It's just nature. It's in our DNA to want to be with our mate, to crave them, to want them, have that carnal desire for them. There's nothing you can do about it so...."

He had said it with such intensity in his eyes that I recoil now as my breathing becomes unstable.

"You will end up being with Xander King."

The words echo in my head repeatedly as I stare at Xander, unsure of what to say and what to even think right now. Giving up made me feel weak, made me feel like I was essentially giving up my initial stance, made me feel like I was submitting to me.

The other part of me made me clutch onto the slippery and thin rope that was refusing to go through with this mate shit. Despite how slippery and thin the rope was, despite the fact that I was slowly losing grip on that rope, I still cling onto it tightly. My hands are sore from my hold on the rope, the lines dig into the palm of my hands leaving red marks to remind me of the internal battle. I'm struggling as I try to pull myself up but as I look up I see Xander staring at me from above and my hands grow weak.

The Xander before me, the one that wasn't in my imagination, leans forward and presses his lips against my own, swallowing my sigh as my body grows lax.

The rope snaps and I fall.