With a growl, Edison pulled his fingers from inside of me and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “I will be right back.”
But as soon as the door was opened and he began speaking in a hushed tone to Rhodes, I watched his shoulders stiffen and heard him sigh.
Edison shut the door and turned to me, his expression completely blank as he reached down to snag his chest holster and jacket.
“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up in my nest and watching as he redressed himself.
“Apparently,” Edison said, snapping the chest holster in place and sliding an arm into his jacket. “Our guests don’t know how to behave themselves and I have to go play parent.”
As he turned to leave, my eyes caught on the little wet spot on his pants that I’d left earlier when he pulled me onto his knee. “Wait—you’re not going out there with that still on you, right?”
Edison glanced down at it, warmth returning to his face for just a breath before it was gone again. “I am. Maybe it will help my relatives realize just what they’ve interrupted tonight. Don’t wait for me, pet, I don’t think I’ll be back.”
With that, he turned and left the room, passing a stone-faced Rhodes who shot me a quick nod before reaching inside and shutting the door, leaving me all by myself in my bridal nest.
Fifteen
“And why do you have to be this close to me at all times?” I asked Rhodes, irritation filling my voice as we crossed the bustling quad to my next class.
It was my first day of classes and it was everything that I ever imagined it would be… except for one small detail.
When Edison agreed to let me go to college with the agreement that Rhodes would guard me, I figured that the other alpha would sit outside of my classes, or even wait for me in a cafe or something.
There wasn’t much danger that I could see going to school and the only pointing and shooting happening was in the two photography classes that I was taking alongside my prerequisite lower division classes.
But no. Apparently, the two alphas had decided that Rhodes would follow me like Casper-the-scary-fucking-ghost and make it nearly impossible for anyone to approach me.
I wasn’t sure how they’d worked it out, but none of my professors questioned Rhodes’ presence in any classes even though he brought no laptop, no camera, and looked like the epitome of a mobster as he stalked behind me dressed in his usual uniform of leather jacket, dark blue jeans and a dark henley that did little to disguise the shiny pistol tucked under his arm.
He looked dangerous, which despite my best efforts I found completely hot. Curse my stupid brain that must have been permanently scrambled by radiation during treatment.
But that was beside the point. There had been several times during the day when I was trying to talk to a classmate and as soon as they saw Mr. Tall-Dark-And-Scary they ran for the hills.
“Because I’m here to protect you,” was Rhodes’ only answer. The same one he’d given me several times when I tried to scold him for hovering too close.
With a grumble, I pulled out my phone and tried to call Edison again. My new husband had made himself scarce after that first night and I hadn’t seen him since, not even for mealtimes.
I was trying not to let it hurt my feelings, but after all of the touching we’d done, it was growing increasingly harder the longer he was absent.
My call to him earlier hadn’t been answered and I fully expected this one to go unanswered as well, so when the line clicked on and I heard his voice I nearly tripped over my own feet.
“Perrie?”
Rhodes’ arm wrapped around my waist, keeping me from completely eating shit in public and he released me almost as fast as he’d touched me, like I was some kind of leper.
“Perrie, did you mean to call me?” Edison’s voice prodded in my ear again.
I shot Rhodes a withering look over my shoulder before turning to focus on the phone call. “I did. I’m sorry to bother you when you are clearly busy, but we need to talk about Rhodes.”
There was a pause. “What about him?”
“He’s too close! All day people have been avoiding me like the plague because he looks scary as fuck. How am I supposed to go to school and make friends when I’m being followed around by the damn Terminator?”
Edison huffed out a gravelly laugh that sounded rusty, like he hadn’t done it for a few days. “Perrie, he’s there for your protection. Be lucky I don’t have an entire team following you around.”
I gaped at the idea of being surrounded by the suited security guards that frequented the estate. I’d have to quit school entirely.
“Isn’t there anything I can do about him? He sticks out like a sore thumb.”
There was a sigh of exasperation and I could hear someone on the other end calling his name. “You can make him change if you like.”
“I can make him? I’ve been trying to tell him to leave me alone all day and he won’t.”
“Hand him the phone.”
“What’s that going to do—”
“Hand him the phone, pet.”
Grumbling under my breath, I turned and held the phone out to Rhodes who looked less than pleased with me as he put the phone up to his ear. “Yeah?”
I watched him listen to whatever Edison had to say, his lips pulling down into a grimace. “You’re serious? Fine, but you owe me.”
He hung up the phone and handed it back to me, his dark eyes a bit thunderous as he took my hand and started to pull me in the direction of the student store.
I sped up, trying to keep up with his long-legged strides. “Where are we going?”
