All Chapters of The alpha's forbidden desire: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The next day. At school. Silius was sitting on his seat when Rile walked towards him and sat on the seat next to him, dropping into the chair with the easy familiarity of someone who'd claimed that spot beside him a thousand times before. Rile's eyes swept over the classroom once, scanning the door, the window, the usual places, before settling back on Silius. "Where's Mathew?" Rile asked. Silius glanced up from his desk. "When we were walking to class, a girl asked him whether she could talk to him for a minute," he said, already feeling the weight of the story he was about to tell. Rile's brows lifted. "And he agreed?" "What do you think?" Silius said, tone flat, like the answer should already be obvious to anyone who'd ever met Mathew Volkov. Rile studied him for a moment, something knowing creeping into their expression. "You really don't know," they said slowly, "or are you pretending like you don't know?" Silius didn't answer right away. "....." was all he managed, starin

"I mean… it's not like you're ugly or anything," Silius said, the words slipping out before he'd fully thought them through. "You're quite handsome and—" he continued, only to stop himself a beat too late, already sensing the trap he'd just walked into. Mathew's grin spread slow and satisfied. "You think I'm handsome?" he said, leaning in closer, close enough that Silius could feel the shift in the air between them. "Is that the only thing you heard?" Silius demanded, cheeks already betraying him with warmth he couldn't will away. "You think I'm handsome, huh?" Mathew repeated, clearly not planning to let the compliment go anywhere. "What else do you think?" "You think I'm hot?" he pressed further, eyes glinting with the particular mischief that always meant trouble. "Wait….." Mathew's grin widened into something far more dangerous. "You wanna see my abs and feel them out? I bet that's hot too." He punctuated the offer with a wink, entirely too pleased with himself. Before Siliu

Rile and Silius sat on the steps near the ground, watching the football team practice. Silius laughed at something Rile said, completely unaware of the eyes burning holes into the back of his head. Mathew kept glancing their way between plays, his jaw clenched and fists tightening every time Rile leaned in or said something that made Silius smile. Whatever else was going on, Mathew didn't care. Rile was still stealing his time. Silius had come here to watch him, not sit around and chitchat with someone else, like he wasn't the one sweating his soul out on the field just to impress him. Every pass he made, every drill he ran, some part of him was still tracking the two of them out of the corner of his eye — the way Rile's shoulder bumped against Silius's, the way Silius tipped his head back laughing at whatever joke had just landed. It shouldn't have mattered. It was just Rile. But Mathew's grip on the ball tightened anyway, and the coach's whistle cut through his focus one beat too l

"Sometimes?" Mathew said, leaning back with an easy grin. "I act that way around you all the time." "*Sigh*" Silius didn't bother responding to that directly, just filed it away under the growing list of things not worth arguing about. *(There's no point in arguing with him.)* He tapped his pencil against the open textbook instead, changing the subject before Mathew could get any further mileage out of it. "Can you tell me how to solve this problem?" "Yeah," Mathew said, already leaning toward him, close enough that his voice dropped low and warm right against Silius's ear. "Sure." "*Pinch his thighs*" Silius reacted instantly, fingers finding the soft give of Mathew's thigh and squeezing hard enough to make a point. "Stop messing around." "I really wanna have good marks on this exam," he added, more serious now, some of the earlier annoyance sliding into something closer to actual worry. "You already have good marks," Mathew said, tilting his head, genuinely puzzled by the conce

"*Sigh* Anyway," Silius's mother said, settling herself more comfortably onto the couch beside him, the earlier interruption already smoothed over. "How's your studies going?""I.. it's going great," Silius said, straightening slightly, already bracing for what usually followed that particular question."Ughh.. don't tell me you're still in second place," she said, a note of disappointment threading through the words before he'd even confirmed anything."…" Silius said nothing, which was, in its own way, confirmation enough."If you had put more effort into studying," she continued, "this shouldn't have happened.""I… I'll try my best from now on," Silius said quickly, eyes dropping to his hands."You better do that," she said, and though her tone stayed light, there was an edge underneath it that Silius had long since learned to recognize."*Look down*" was all he offered, unable to meet her eyes.His mother's expression softened, just slightly, and she reached over to touch his shou