There was something about the ocean tide that pulled a person's energy away with it.

Two hours ago, Alex greeted them happily at the entrance to the hotel, dressed in a vest with a platter in his hands.

"Quen and I are helping the caterers, so I'll be sure to bring you guys up some food," he explained, buzzing at Sadie's side. Jaylin had fallen behind while the others made their way toward the elevators. The last thing he heard Alex say was, "you guys probably don't wanna be a part of this thing."

That was when Jaylin piqued toward the ballroom. He wanted to know what this thing was that Quentin had tried so hard to keep them away from. He wanted to know the happenings behind that furtive red curtain.

So once the others had gained distance, he snuck off to the ballroom and ducked beneath the velvet drapes. He didn't step any further than that, his back to the the gentle billow of the curtain walls.

The ballroom had been made into an inviting lounge; slow piano music dribbling from the stage, where a woman in a red sequin dress belted out the classic sounds of Billie Holiday—a deep, fierce bass to her voice that made Jaylin want to reach out and touch the sound waves in the air. She was beautiful. Something from a noir painting—her rich, red lips tugging at the corner while she swayed to the eloquent, slurring melody of a saxophone.

Couches had been brought in—aligned beside corner tables with candles boxed in mesmerizing mirror frames. A brunette pair curled up in the corner of one, grinning as they fed one another chocolate-dipped strawberries and kissed beside the candle light.

On the other sofa, a man laxed back with a woman between his legs. His hands kept to himself while she danced for him, twisting and moving like a flame. And just beside him, two women curled together with their legs entangled, fingers drifting up thighs—lips on lips, on necks, on chests.

Jaylin had flushed when he'd seen it. He was feeling nearly obtrusive in a room so full of people. He'd backed himself up against the curtains, but Jaylin didn't leave just then. Because, at the farthest corner of the room was Quentin, offering platters of foods to the guests. He was graceful at this even, lifting his serving trays  out of the way just when he needed to, balancing them so easily on his palms—even when empty glasses were set atop to be taken back to the kitchen, he simply adjusted the weight and carried on. 

Those trays didn't so much as wobble—not until a woman nearly knocked them from his hands when she snagged him by the sleeve to fraternize, biting slowly into the cherry from her drink. Much too slowly.

Jaylin boiled a bit, if only because of the grin he gave her. God, he'd seen it a thousand times and it still made his heart sputter. He wanted it to himself. That was a stupid thing to want to himself.

Quentin had noticed him not long after that. Those dark eyes locking on—instinctual to his presence still, even though they couldn't feel one another anymore. From that dark corner of the room, Quentin smirked—that look like he knew just what Jaylin was thinking, his face a shadowed sculpture, resplendent with the flickering glow of the plentiful red candles scattered about.

He knew Quentin could probably see the tint of pink he'd turned, so Jaylin left after that, back to his room to shower and sleep off the exhaustion. And he had, for a short time. Maybe an hour, before he felt it.

Perigee. He felt it like a fire in him. He wasn't sure why it had hit him so much later than the others, but it set in the deepest parts of him like an irrefutable itch. Once that feeling grew too hot to ignore, Jaylin left his bed—Matt still asleep beneath the sheets—and wandered the halls in hopes that he'd tire from walking. That the agonizing impulses would fade away.

It was hopeless. He could smell the lavender of the hotel shampoo in his hair and Jaylin paced the corridor in bare feet, frustrated that everything in this place had to smell so much like Quentin. Frustrated that his hearing had advanced so much, he could make out every soft breath and sensual groan seeping through the cracks of the rooms he tiptoed past.

His phone felt too heavy in his hands to carry any further, and Jaylin stopped at a fork in the hall—where he at least had the privacy for a short conversation. He navigated to Quentin's contact, pretending the digits of his phone number weren't already engraved into his memory, and hit call.

The ringing stopped, and before Quentin could even say hello, Jaylin breathed into the line, "Are you still at the party?"

There was a pause, then Quentin replied, "I am."

"How do you make it stop?" Jaylin asked.

"What?"

"Perigee," he exhaled. "I can't sleep, I—"

"You feel it now?" Quentin asked. He could hear a distinct thank you in the background and Jaylin assumed he was still delivering food and drinks around on those big silver serving platters.

"Yes," Jaylin groaned. "Okay? Jesus. Yes, I feel it and it sucks, and Matt's asleep in my bed so I can't... you know. I can't."

"Go to my room," Quentin told him. But his words dragged low. That deep fringe edged his voice and the slow way he spoke suddenly made Jaylin want to shove open the hallway window and jump out, for the shame of how it flustered him.

He gathered himself with a breath. "You've been drinking."

"A bit," Quentin admitted. "Two-twenty-six; the door's unlocked."

Jaylin turned to the direction he'd come from, feeling along the walls as he watched the numbers in the plaques decrease for each one he passed. "Why've you been drinking?"

A small, amused huff scuffed the speaker. "Perigee isn't my favorite night."

Finally, Jaylin found room two-twenty-six, and pushed his way inside, sealing the door shut behind him. "You seemed pretty happy fraternizing with that brunette."

"Who?" Quentin asked.

"The one having mouth-sex with a maraschino cherry."

Quentin let out another soft laugh and the background noise seemed to fade. "Amelia. Never know what to say to her. Never know what to say to any of them."

"Say no." Jaylin stood there in the darkness—admiring the way Quentin's room differed so vastly from his own. Everything was so lavish, so regal—down to the feet of the bed, the sizeable chandelier above. Jaylin wandered to the balcony door and stepped out into the moonlight. It glared there in the sky—swollen as he'd ever seen it, framed in sheer clouds and the faintest speck of stars. "Tell them you're mine."

Jaylin could tell by his voice that he was grinning. "Is this an executive decision?"

"Yes."

"Perigee influences confidence, you know."

"Maybe it's perigee," Jaylin said. "Maybe I just embarrassed myself so much last night, I don't care anymore."

"Do you remember last night?" he heard Quentin say. There was an echo to his voice now.

"I remember enough to swear off alcohol for a while."

"So you remember what you told me."

A gale bristled his skin, brushed his bangs over his eyes. Jaylin ran his fingers through and stood there, watching over the courtyard several feet below him. "I remember."

Quentin sounded as if he wanted to say something else, but he went silent for a moment. Then he took in a breath. "I'll give you your privacy. Lock the door if you—"

"No," Jaylin said. He felt like he was choking on his own words at first, but he swallowed that feeling down and gripped his phone a bit tighter. "I didn't come here to fuck myself."

He heard Quentin's breath brush the speakers. Heard a door shut softly in the background. And there was only silence. A warm kind of silence that made his arms shiver. "Jaylin," Quentin said, voice so low it bridled the flames in him. "I don't have it in me to keep my hands to myself tonight."

Jaylin couldn't help the grin it gave him to hear the slight shiver of restraint in Quentin's voice. He rounded the bed and sat back on edge. "Where are you?"

"The kitchen," Quentin said, cursing as something tinny clattered in the background—like a pan, slewing across linoleum. "They'll be pushing out dessert soon."

"Fine," Jaylin mused. "I get it, dessert's important."

"Jaylin." Quentin's laugh settled much too deep in Jaylin's stomach. "Wait for me. An hour, I promise."

Jaylin exhaled that burn. "Okay."

"Should I bring you anything?"

He shook his head, though Quentin couldn't see it, and laid back into the sheets. "Quentin," he said, that lump in his throat again. "About last night. I meant it."

Then he pulled his phone from his ear and clapped it shut, burying his face in the blankets until his heart settled in his chest. Then all that confidence he'd felt a moment ago lifted from him like a steam and Jaylin laid there on the mattress, crippled with embarrassment.

Eventually, he pushed himself back against the headboard and sat there at the pillows, watching the evening news replay. Fifty-five minutes. That was how long he counted—eyeing the clock every so often until the door cracked open and Quentin stepped inside, taking his things from his pockets and dropping them on the nightstand. His keys, his wallet, pocket change. Jaylin felt like hiding beneath the sheets. He wanted to beg the moon for that confidence back.

Instead, he tried with all he could to pretend he still had it. "You smell like a bar," he said, and Quentin turned to him with that grin. That grin that made him twist inside.

"Had a bit more," he confessed.

"You sure nothing's wrong?" 

Jaylin watched his reflection in the mirror—caught his grin fall a bit. Quentin unbuttoned his vest, shrugging it off of his shoulders, and he cast it aside with the rest of his things. "I need to talk to you about something."

Jaylin brought his legs in, crushed with instant anxiety. "If you don't want to, we don't—"

But Quentin turned to him and it was the sudden look on his face that made Jaylin bite his tongue. That shadow gaze, gouging him deep. He pulled the tie loose from his neck and tossed it aside. "Not want to?" he asked moving forward, hunching over the foot of the bed. There was that stark look in his eyes—the gaze he held in the library when they'd first met. The night he talked of oleander.

Jaylin opened his mouth to speak, but he was caught by the ankle, dragged suddenly beneath Quentin's build. The sheets bunched at his lower back and Jaylin found his breath catching as Quentin moved over his body, shifting into the space between his legs. His hand slid along Jaylin's thigh, stopping just beneath the hem of his shorts. "You don't know what you do to me."

He felt like he was on fire and Jayling looked up to him with a bleary, flustered kind of heat on his face. "Me or perigee?"

"You."

Jaylin searched his eyes—usually so dark he couldn't see the color. This time the moonlight pooled in them. "Which Quentin are you?" he asked.

Quentin's hand moved down his leg, back up again. Jaylin felt it in his stomach. "There's more than one?"

"Yes." Jaylin reached up, gingerly, just to touch the stubble on his chin. "You're different when you drink. Like a split personality. Which one are you now?"

"Which do you prefer?" Quentin asked.

"I don't know," Jaylin confessed. "Which one likes me more?"

Quentin leaned in closer. Just close enough that Jaylin shut his eyes to feel the brush of his nose... his words on his lips when he said, "They both love you."

There was no breath left in him, but somehow Jaylin still exhaled, "Okay."

Quentin grinned, leaned in closer. "Okay?" he whispered, and Jaylin nodded, though he didn't know why.

"Okay."

Then he felt Quentin's lips press into his own and Jaylin lurched up into his kiss like he'd been beneath water all this time. Like Quentin was the surface, the air—everything that kept his heart beating. 

Matt was right. It was fireworks.

It was in every way that Quentin moved—against his mouth, against his body. Rough fingers gripping into his thigh, lips possessing him like a sin, melting him at the touch. They moved down his jaw, and Jaylin felt that kiss on his neck. The same one as before, the kiss that sent his stomach fluttering, that gripped his chest until it ached. 

And as Quentin's mouth moved around the compass of his neck, kissing the lump in his throat that wouldn't go down, Jaylin worked his way through the buttons of his shirt. Twisting open one and then the next until there were no more, and all he could feel beneath his palm was the smooth skin of his stomach, the muscles sliding beneath.

It was without reason that he raked his nails back up—slowly, hard enough to feel those muscles tighten, to feel the skin chill beneath the sure red lines he'd left behind. Then Quentin's hips ground down against his own, and this time Jaylin gasped out as those lips found the other side of his neck. As they bared down, sucked into the flesh until Jaylin was gripping him by the lower back. Squeezing hard at the skin beneath his shirt, begging him to move his hips that way again.

When they pushed against his own that second time, it was like gasoline to the fire in him. He needed to slow down. He needed to contain it.

He dug his fingers into Quentin's hair and worked out a shivering breath. "Quentin," he shuttered. But the slip of his tongue was a whole different drug and Jaylin couldn't form words. Instead he used his strength to throw a leg over Quentin's hips. To flip him onto his back until Jaylin straddled him down at the stomach.

He hadn't even realized he had Quentin's arms pinned to the sheets. Not until he was letting go of his wrists, sitting up with his hands on the smooth, bare skin of his chest—that dress shirt fallen open at his sides. Sometimes he forgot how beautiful a man Quentin was, until he was glowing in the moonlight.

But there was a bewilderment in the expression he wore. The same breathless realization Jaylin was feeling. This was perigee. This insatiable thing he felt blistering in him. Quentin really couldn't control himself, either.

He didn't care. He wanted it, he wanted Quentin, but he needed to know first. He needed to know it wasn't only perigee.

"How do you know?" he asked, breathless. His shirt collar suddenly too tight around his neck. He shed it off over his back and cast it aside. "How are you so sure you love me?"

Quentin's eyes fed on his bare skin, the slightest shade of heat on his face—his breath still a tangled mess that heaved in the firm, flat stomach beneath Jaylin's hands. "How could I not love you?"

"Maybe you think you do. But the last person who told me they loved me left me beaten in a cemetery."

Quentin reached down and took one of Jaylin's hands, sliding it up the slight slopes of his abdominals, up between the strong muscles of his chest. Pressed it flat against the center of his heart.

It beat beneath Jaylin's palm, almost as quickly as his own. A steady flutter. A desperate cadence.

"Do you know why you can't feel it anymore?" Quentin asked. "Why I can't feel yours?"

"No," Jaylin whispered, letting that metronome pulse through his fingers.

"I'm not your alpha anymore," Quentin told him. "You're not a part of my pack."

Jaylin didn't understand. He watched Quentin with a dip to his brow, never taking his hand from his heartbeat. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked. "Is this about the crowns? I thought we agreed Cora made a mistake."

"You didn't do anything wrong. And she didn't make a mistake." His heartbeat slowed when he said it. Then Quentin shifted up on his forearm, the movement rocking Jaylin with it. His fingers curled against Quentin's chest. "But whether I am your alpha or not," Quentin told him, "I am never going to let anyone hurt you again."

He wanted to believe it—Jaylin never knew how badly he wanted to be cared for until the sound of that promise. He leaned forward, knocking foreheads gently with Quentin. The heat between them was nearly unbearable and he ran his fingers back, up his neck, into his hair. "What would you do if they tried? If someone tried to lay a hand on me, what would you do?"

He felt Quentin's breath on his lips. "I'd take every finger."

"A pacifist like you?"

"Every finger," he repeated. "If anyone tries to hurt you again, Jaylin..."

But Jaylin pressed to his lips before he could finish—burying every raw emotion into the feel of his mouth, that slightest taste of moonlight on his tongue. He felt Quentin's grip on his lower back, pulling him in, coercing his body to move hard and slow against his lap—and Jaylin rolled his hips as he demanded, kissing him until he felt the flush on his neck, that dizzy heat behind his eyes. Then he drew back, just enough to speak, a soft, melting huff against his lips, "Condoms."

Quentin shook his head slightly, their noses just brushing. "We don't catch diseases."

Jaylin pulled back a bit, to look him in the eye, fingers raking up through the back of his hair. "Have you done this before? With a guy?"

Those black brows furrowed and Quentin nipped into him with that deep gaze. "Not like this. Does that bother you?"

"I have," Jaylin admitted, his fingers slipping down his nape—fond of the chills that passed beneath his touch. "Does that bother you?"

Quentin's gaze moved down to Jaylin's lips, his chest rising, falling with uneven breath. "Why would that bother me?" 

"It doesn't bother you that I've been with someone else? It doesn't make you jealous, because earlier I wanted to fight that girl with the cherry—"

"Jaylin," Quentin said with that grin of his. "I never said anything about being jealous."

Jaylin reached between them, rising to his knees to manage Quentin's belt—to rip the buckle open. And Quentin sat up further—took him by the waist to kissing the scar on his ribs, up his sternum, then to his collarbone.

Jaylin shivered out a breath. "It doesn't bother you? That I've done this?"

A hand sliding down Jaylin's chest, passing all those heated spots still burning at his skin. "Why do you sound so afraid that I don't want you?"

Jaylin could only watch him there—that slight, sure curl to his lips, that scar on his collarbone. There were so many reasons. There was Anna, there was Tyler, there was the disgusting way Olivia made him feel. There were the girls at college—the ones meant to distract him from reality. From Quentin. There was being him. A latchkey kid from a slipshod town with no talents or trades to his name. The lines didn't meet up.

Quentin took him by the chin, forced Jaylin to look him in the eye. "Do you know why you're so dangerous?" he asked.

Jaylin didn't reply—he lowered himself back down onto Quentin's lap,  and he was scooped in around the waist as Quentin pressed a kiss to his shoulder. He felt his breath move up, felt his lips brush his jaw, felt his words warm on the cartilage of his ear. "You are dangerous. Not because of the lichund In you. But because when I think about you, I am so distracted from reality, I wouldn't notice the world burning to the ground until it was ashes around me."

That fire in his core flared. Jaylin didn't have the breath to breathe—he didn't need it. Quentin was consuming his neck again, kissing the skin in ways that produced sounds Jaylin never meant to make. God, he couldn't remember wanting anything this badly.

"Wait," he panted over Quentin's shoulder, fingers digging into his hair. "Quentin, wait. I get you haven't done this yet, but—" his lungs released all they had, the feel of Quentin's tongue rattling the breath from him, "—this... having sex with a guy... " His mouth moved up, teeth scraping against the skin. Jaylin felt like he was losing himself again. He found his bearings and shoved Quentin back against the bed, his breath cutting thin. "It takes preparation."

Quentin had that look on his face again, surprised by himself. By the absence of control he usually had such a grip on. He let out a hard breath. "Preparation..."

"Lube," Jaylin clarified.

Quentin turned his head to the side and reached out, giving the top drawer of the nightstand a tug open. Inside was a small mesh bag, red as the color of a rose. Jaylin reached out and took it in his hands. A "Lover's Package" as it read—left by the hotel. Full of things like packets of lubricant, sensual gels and rubbing oils. On any other occasion, Jaylin knew he'd go red, but he was so, so beyond that. In a haste, he ripped the ribbon off with his teeth and he felt Quentin's chest move beneath his palm with a laugh.

"Jesus," he said, as Jaylin dumped the packets out on his chest. "I really do love you."

an; No, I'm not fading to black. I promised smut, I will deliver. But the next chapter will likely be a "private chapter", meaning you will have to follow me to read it — just a heads up. I might also post to a different story instead and rate THAT mature. I haven't decided yet. Worst scenario, I just post it here and change perigee to mature. But that means those of you who AREN'T over 18 will no longer be able to read it and since the "smut" is going to be wattpad exclusive (not even featured in the final MS) that's kind of dumb to risk turning my entire book Mature and cut out my  youth readers over a single dirty scene that I wrote for the heck of it.

Eh, I'll figure it out. I just want you guys to know that the smutty chapter will likely be posted separately for the sake of my younger readers. ♥ I want you all to be able to read Perigee to the end.