The least you could do is be better than her therapist.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, babysitting a runaway gold standard. Now she’s doing this, breathing cheap, sour whiskey and purebred entitlement onto your neck like a bad memory, using your collarbone as a stress ball.

She clings to your shirt like a pathetic, power-drained barnacle, the kind that got scraped off a hero’s hull with a wire brush.

Suddenly she has a perfect, crystal-clear recollection of events. Okay, in retrospect, maybe allowing her to press her forehead into the precise spot where your pheromones are strongest was a spectacularly stupid idea. Her breath hitches against your jugular like a broken sob, a grating sound that makes those stupid, useless Alpha instincts (the ones that only surface around her) scream to smooth out the trembling in her spine.

She’s a mess. A delightful shiver runs down your spine, not from any actual danger but from the realization that this is what $500,000,000 of God-U's finest actually looks like off-script; needy, clingy, and completely fucked without your grounding presence. It’s probably just her Omega instincts kicking in, dragging her toward the only thing that feels real enough to stop the noise. Definitely. She’s not taking a secret delight in the fact that there won't be any more girls slinking out of your dorm room, not when she’s already using you up, mentally and emotionally.

"I tried to be good today," she whispers, her voice frail against your skin, like spun glass ready to shatter. "Smiled for the cameras, recited the whole script, played the perfect supe." Her hand slides up your side, her fingers curling gently into your back like she's mapping out constellations that only exist when she’s about to break. It’s a pathetic move, really, this need to be touched first before she completely shatters. "I'm so needy, I need you to fill me up," she mock-smiles, the expression thin and brittle. "It must be the heat."

For a moment, she seems almost innocent; eyes wide and dark, lips parted, breathing coming in short, gasping intervals as if she can’t decide if she wants to melt against you or just apologize for her whole existence. Oh, she looks like a pathetic needy puppy needing a strong hand and a warm mouth. She's exhausting, and you know you wouldn't trade it.