Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
CALEB
B rielle’s sitting on the porch of the guest house when I stop the truck on the gravel drive. Her hair is down today, the strands resting along the deep v neckline of her dress, a few pieces falling across her arms as she stares out at the mountains in the distance. She’s traded her typical jeans and oversized shirt for a pretty sundress, the blue linen rustling in the breeze. Her feet are bare, a small gold anklet draped around one dainty ankle.
She’s stunning . She always is, though. She could be freshly woken up and her hair a mess, and she’d still leave me in this half-hard, breathless state of awe. And wearing only my shirt?
That might just be my favorite.
My phone vibrates with a new message, pulling me from the moment. I scowl. And then my stomach drops as I read the name. Sam is absolutely not the person I want to hear from today. Or the rest of the summer, really. I’ve never been irritated with the fire season as much as I am right now.
Official notice, man. Another one broke out. They’re overriding resets. Arrive by 2300. Northwest of Cheyenne. I’ll send you the exact location.
I send him a quick response before shoving out of the truck, tightening my hold on the bouquet as I stash my phone back in my pocket.
Is bringing flowers to a widowed Omega on her anniversary something a new love interest should do? According to the internet, absolutely not. Though there was a dearth of information that added the context of said widowed Omega being your scent match, so I’m taking it all with a grain of salt. Besides, the reality is that the thought of her spending any part of today alone and sad wrecks me. Especially when I’m literally wired to be the perfect balance to her.
So here I am.
I pause at the bottom step. She doesn’t notice me, her eyes unfocused, so I rap my knuckles against the support beam. Her gaze flicks to me. A heartbeat later, her cheeks flush. I swear I smell lavender, but the breeze sends it away from me before I can really breathe it in.
“Hey,” I offer, leaning against the beam and shoving my empty hand into the pocket of my jeans.
“Hi.” Her voice is shy. Her eyes drop to the flowers in my hand, and her teeth dig into her lip. “Melissa told you?”
“Mom did.”
“Oh,” she whispers, her eyes still locked on the flowers.
“Can I join you?” I ask.
She adjusts on the swing, moving until she’s pressed up against one arm. She motions to the newly opened spot beside her. I settle next to her before handing her the flowers.
“They made me think of you,” I offer when she turns a questioning gaze toward me. “And purple is your favorite color.”
Her cheeks grow even darker, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She murmurs a thank you as she grabs them, her fingers brushing mine in a touch so intimate, it takes my breath away. Her chest flushes. She glances away as she lays them across her lap.
I let the silence linger, not rushing for a topic of conversation. As the minutes pass, she relaxes next to me, adjusting in the smallest increments until she’s turned toward me rather than the view, her hair resting over one shoulder and her feet tucked up under her, the skirt of her dress hiding her legs.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I feel like all I’ve done this year is talk about it.”
Yeah, I remember that feeling. Everyone pesters you, wanting you to just open up as if it’s as simple as popping the lid off a can.
“I remember that part,” I murmur.
I blow out a breath and spread my arm along the back of the swing, letting a piece of her hair twine around my finger. She pulls her gaze away from the mountains, her face a master class of concentration. I let my eyebrow rise and my thumb run along the nape of her neck. She shivers under the attention, and my dick twitches.
Damn, bad move. The last thing I want right now is to be stuck with a painful erection.
“That’s why you always phrase it as a question, isn’t it?” she asks after a while.
I offer a quiet affirmative. She nods, then lets the sounds of a ranch in the summer reclaim us. I relax into it, letting my thumb continue its light tracing of her shoulder and neck. This time, I can smell the underlying aroma of her scent, the lavender calming and arousing all at once.
I lose track of time.
Her voice pulls me from the quiet, and I focus on her.
“I hate him,” she says.
Confusion fills me.
I frown. “Ethan?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never hated Ethan. Not even when it would have been easier,” she whispers. And then, even quieter, “His name was Brett.”
Oh, fuck, her husband.
“He died in a car crash. The only person to not survive. I… I think people expected me to be distraught over that, so they didn’t find it odd when I was angry at his funeral.” She’s quiet for a long moment. I twist more of her hair around my hand. “I’m glad he’s dead.”
Unease sours my stomach. Everything I’ve learned about Brielle over the last few weeks is at odds with her being happy over someone’s death. She’s so soft, so empathetic. What had happened that she’s glad he was killed?
“Why is that?” I ask.
Her hand tightens around the flowers, her knuckles whitening. She takes a stuttering breath, and then her shoulders relax.
“You smell like Christmas,” she whispers.
I chuckle, and she cuddles closer, running her open hand down my leg. Her scent spikes, and it has a bit of that acidic edge to it. She’s still not quite over being touch-starved. I let go of her hair and trace my hand down her waist before palming her hip. Slowly, her scent sweetens again.
“He had a mistress,” she says out of nowhere.
I freeze. “What?”
She swallows. “Yeah, that was my reaction, too. His business partner’s assistant. It was an open secret that I was too naive to figure out. Until she texted him while his phone was on the counter right before we were about to host everyone for Thanksgiving.”
I have to breathe through the rage. Her words come faster but quieter, like she can’t bear to keep them in but they hurt even as she says them.
“They were nudes. I went digging when I saw the first one. Turns out that she’d been fucking him nearly the entire length of our marriage. The first message was time-stamped three months after we got back from the honeymoon.”
The growl rumbles through me before I can hold it back, and my scent gains a sour edge to it, poisoned by my rage. Brielle sits up, focusing on me.
“He married me because he could trust me with the money,” she says, her eyes not straying from mine.
There’s a desperation in them, like she needs me to hear the entire story even though she knows it’ll only stoke the flames of my rage. I swallow back my growl, forcing it to quiet. She flattens her hand against my leg.
“We started dating my sophomore year of college. We had a class together, but he was a year ahead of me.” She swallows. “We got engaged the summer before my senior year and then married shortly after I graduated. I made him move our original date because of Melissa’s dad dying.”
The pieces fall into place all at once.
Holy hell. Ethan had never moved on from her, not really. Not until he must have seen an invitation somewhere. Melissa’s house, maybe? That was the summer he finally agreed to register as a pack with the Council so we could try our luck at being matched with an Omega. Less than a year later, we’d had Kayla.
Her nails dig into my thigh.
“I served him divorce papers a couple weeks after I found the pictures. They weren’t finalized by the time he died, though,” she says, skipping over her marriage. “It took me finding those texts to realize just how much I’d changed, how much I’d let him take from me.”
She sighs and looks down at the flowers.
“I don’t really know how to feel today. Last year, I thought I’d be starting a family by now. But all I can feel when I think of him is bitterness and anger.”
“I’m sorry,” I offer. Her gaze flicks back up to mine, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I lean into her, cupping her face, running my thumb along her cheekbone. “You deserve to be cherished exactly as you are. He was an asshole for not seeing that you’re perfect.”
Her lips twist into a mocking smile. “I’m not perfect,” she says.
“We’ll disagree on that, then.” I shake my head and kiss her once.
Her lips push into a pout, and I run my thumb over them. After a minute, her body relaxes, and she gives me a real smile.
“Sorry to put all of that on you,” she says. She adjusts until she’s leaning against me again, her cheek pressed into my shoulder.
I shake my head. “I’m glad you told me. Now I don’t feel conflicted over bringing you flowers today.”
She turns her face into my chest, breathing deeply. She perfumes in the next moment, her lavender smell a siren’s call to me, and I groan.
“Maybe we could make better memories,” she whispers.
Before I can decide exactly the types of memories she means, she sits up and kisses me. Cinnamon explodes around us, blending beautifully with her scent. My dick is hard in a heartbeat, straining against my jeans. I hum and palm her hip again.
She smiles against my lips, and then she’s crawling into my lap, the flowers forgotten on the bench beside us. She pulls up the skirt of her dress as she straddles my hips, and I see a flash of black lace against the creamy warmth of her skin. She hums, her teeth biting into her lip, as she pulls at the waistband of my jeans.
“These aren’t loose enough for that,” I whisper against her lips.
She whines, low in her throat, and undoes the button and zipper, dropping her hand beneath the waistband and palming my dick. I grunt and push up into her hand.
“Caleb,” she says, her voice a breathless plea.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” I ask. I need to hear her say it, need to hear her ask for it.
“I need you.” She palms my dick again and rocks her hips forward.
I run my hands up her sides, the fabric of her dress soft under my touch. Not as soft as her skin, though. My scent explodes around us again, and she whimpers.
“You have me,” I say with a smirk.
Her lips draw into a pout as she sits back, her hand stilling against my dick. Her lips are swollen, her cheeks red, and that sad, haunted look has disappeared from her eyes.
“That’s not what I mean.”
It comes out a whine, and I smile. It takes all my control to hold in the laugh, but her eyes narrow like she can tell anyway. I spread my hands along her waist, letting the tips of my fingers brush the undersides of her breasts. She shivers, and her scent overlays mine, thicker than before.
God, I want to fuck her. Pull aside those panties and push up into her until she moans loud enough that Emily can hear her across the open space. But not yet. Not until I hear her ask for it, beg for it. Just once.
“Tell me, sweetheart,” I say again, running my hands down her thighs and then back up, pushing the skirt of her dress up to her hips. “Let me hear you ask for it.”
“I need your knot,” she says, pushing my shirt up my stomach. Her lips are hard and demanding against mine, and I let her control the kiss, tasting her every second she lets me. “Please, Caleb.”
I grab her thighs and stand up, pulling open the screen door even as she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me again.
I’ve never actually been inside Emily’s guest house. It’s decorated in soft greens and yellows, the warm colors blending with the dark walnut stain that trims all the windows and doorways. The kitchen is a light oak that contrasts perfectly against the darker wood.
I cross the living room, bypassing the sofa for the promise of the bed I can just see inside the room farthest from me. This room is also done in muted earth tones. It reminds me, of all things, of Ethan’s tattoos, like she took a picture of them and recreated them in linens and textures. This room has more personal touches than the living room, small pieces of artwork and a broader, unnameable presence that makes it feel more intimate than just a bedroom. There’s no missing that this is where she’s nested.
I hesitate at the threshold, not wanting to intrude.
“You all right with me being in here?”
She nods, running her lips across my jaw.
“Please,” she whispers against the shell of my ear. I shiver and hold her tighter. “Mark it. Give me your scent.”
I groan and close the door behind us, a byproduct of living with a preschooler. Her lips are more frantic against mine now, her tongue moving against my own in a way that tells me exactly how she wants this to go down. Lavender drowns the space, so overwhelming it’s practically a drug.
She bites my bottom lip, and my control falls away from me. Cinnamon explodes around us as I drop her to the bed, burying my hands in her hair before she can move away from me and lay back on the pillows.