Knot Her Shot (MVP: Most Valuable Pack Book 2)

Chapter 27

chapter

twenty-seven

I thought I liked silence.

But the fact that not one single sound has come from upstairs in three hours is making me crazy.

I’ve tried working out. Reading. I’ve even cleaned. And Damon helped.

Things around here are fucking grim.

I’ve read the same two pages eight times, and I can’t remember one single word. Damon left for a workout with his trainer an hour ago, and I’ve been sitting here ever since, pretending I’m not glancing up at the ceiling—and the omega suite—above me every ten seconds.

It doesn’t help that, for the first time in my adult life, I’m horny as hell.

I spent years trying to muster any sort of enthusiasm for sex with the random puck bunnies who threw themselves at me, and my Alpha never so much as glanced up. But now? Just knowing that Remi is here, inside the house, has me adjusting my sweats every three minutes.

Smith sighs from his place at the kitchen table, tapping at a spreadsheet on his iPad. “Cass,” he growls, pausing me. “Leave it.”

I curse him out under my breath, muttering my disagreement. He lowers the paper clutched in his left hand and pins me with a severe look.

“It’s her first night here. We asked her if she wanted dinner, and she said no. We asked her if she wanted anything, and she said no. You offered to stay with her, but she turned you down. Leave. It.”

But here’s the thing: these specific desires may be unprecedented, but the urgency isn’t new for me. I’ve felt this way before. Ten years ago. When I woke up to the patter of footsteps.

Something is pulling at me, tugging me toward the stairs. And I’m about 60 percent sure it’s more than some pathetic desire to see her face. Or the ache in my knot.

“Because you’re such an expert,” I snap back at him, ditching my book and rolling to my feet. “Fuck this. I’m going to check on her. You want to come?”

He starts to get up before he forces himself back down. “No,” he grinds out, almost like he’s scolding himself. “She’s fine, and you’re being ridiculous.”

I shrug. He might be right.

Except not really, because when I get upstairs, Remi’s suite is sealed up, and there’s no light under her door. It’s only eight—is she really asleep already?

She told me she hasn’t been sleeping well recently, so I doubt she could pass out this early in a new place. Still, I try to move silently while I close in on her door and try the handle. It’s locked.

My first thought is that she’s gone. Climbed down a tree like the flighty little ninja she’s always been. But my alpha instincts tell me she’s still close by.

Where would she go, if she’s not in her room?

I stomp down the hallway, even more agitated than I was moments before. Turning for the stairs, I almost miss the faint sound coming from the other end of the long upstairs landing.

It’s quiet, but the second I hone in on it, my instincts fly at me. My feet move without permission, bringing me to?—

My own room?

That’s where the noise is coming from. A soft, feminine voice. Singing.

Is that… ABBA?

A painful pang sinks through my chest. I remember her humming the same tune a lot back in the group home. She used to tell me that one of the best ways to feel happy was to act happy. I would catch her singing stereotypically upbeat pop music whenever she felt scared or stressed or sad.

I shoulder into my bedroom, moving slowly and carefully so I don’t scare her. Only, she isn’t anywhere I can see. My bed—God, don’t look at it too long while she’s in here, or you’ll rut her into next year—is empty. So is the leather club chair shoved against the bookshelves.

The balcony doors are shut. My bathroom looks just like I left it.

Which means my butterfly must be in my closet.

“Rems?” I rasp, tapping on the door with two knuckles before I pry it open. “You in here?”

Her singing stutters to a stop just before I see her, curled into a ball and sandwiched between my shoe rack and a few spare pillows. The walk-in is the smallest one in the house, but it’s still big enough for me to step inside and turn around. Even so, she’s picked the most cramped corner to hunker down in.

I can’t really see her face without the light on, but when I move to flick the switch, she whines. My hand falls back to my side.

She begins to apologize, her voice tight. “Cass! I—I’m sorry. I—I was?—”

When I sink down to my knees, I can finally lean close enough to see her face. Without her usual makeup, her eyes look tired and her skin seems too thin. Almost translucent.

But, God, is she beautiful.

I reach over and smooth a thumb across her cheekbone, feeling her trembles. “It’s okay, butterfly,” I murmur, moving closer. “Did you need a dark, cozy spot? Is something wrong with your nest?”

She hesitates, biting her lip before she finally nods. “I’m sorry. I tried to use the bathtub in my room, but there’s only a shower stall in there and?—”

A cold sort of fury grips my lungs. “Your bathtub? Why? The omega suite has a full nest in it.”

Her teeth sink down harder, leaving her pink lip nearly white. “Smith didn’t want me in there. He gave me a guest room, which is great! But, um, I think you guys must have been using it for storage because the closet is full of filing cabinets and storage bins. I couldn’t fit in it.”

What. The. Fuck?

Am I going to have to kill my own brother?

My teeth grind together. “He locked you out of the Omega Suite?”

Remi’s shoulders bounce on a shrug, shifting the fit of her enormously oversized hoodie. “I didn’t check the lock.”

But I did.

That motherfucking asshole.

Remi senses my rising aggression and makes herself smaller, swallowing a whine that I barely catch the end of. Forcing myself to focus on her, I shake my head and drop down beside her, somehow wedging myself between her side and the wall. “My closet is the smallest one, huh?”

She nods again, gazing up at me without one speck of guile. “And it smells like you,” she whispers, “I… Your scent makes me feel the safest.”

Jesus.

Fucking stab me in the heart. It’ll be quicker.

The next thing I know, I’m stripping off my shirt and pulling her into my naked skin. “Come here.”

She instantly scrambles closer, whining some more while she rubs her cheek into my pecs, my throat, the underside of my chin. I groan, relishing the way her scent sends electricity through my veins.

My hands clench fistfuls of her sweatshirt. It’s black, just like the one I gave her back in the group home. Actually, it’s about the same size, too. And it has the same bleach stain on the shoulder.

“Rems,” I mumble into her hair. “Did you keep my hoodie all this time?”

She whimpers as her scent darkens in shame. “Yes.”

I hug her harder, concentrating on not crushing her. It’s hard to focus when I feel breathless. “Why?”

She cringes in my arms. “The day you gave it to me was the day I… had to leave.”

Because her designation came through. I recall the other girls whispering and giggling about it that night in the mess hall. It was the only time in my young life I’d ever considered fighting a group of chicks.

Remi stares, willing me to understand some unspoken confession. It takes me a moment, but I finally snap the pieces together. “It was—You reacted to the sweatshirt? To… me?”

Her entire body sags with relief and dejection. She drops her gaze down to my chest. “Yes. And I felt so guilty and embarrassed about it, I just wanted to leave before I saw you and it happened in front of you. It all feels so stupid, now, but at the time, I honestly couldn’t think of anything more humiliating or violating than perfuming for you and forcing you to have to acknowledge it.”

She leans back and bites her lip, apprehension all over her pretty face. Hell. Does she want me and worries I don’t feel the same way? Is she scared I’ll reject her for some reason?

I see the way she holds herself around Smith—all prim and proper, every expression pleasing or passive. I hate the thought of her putting on some sort of act for me.

Fuck that shit. We didn’t need it back when we were friends, and we’re not going to do it now.

I cup my hands around hers, holding them between our chests. “Rems, I just want you to be yourself. And, in case I haven’t made myself clear—I want you. I’m hard because of you—not just your scent or any of the alpha-omega stuff. It’s you.

“If I’m being honest, I always had feelings for you that were… more. I was just an idiot. And we were young. But the way I feel about you has never had anything to do with you being an omega or me being an alpha. Pretty sure I knew you were it for me the second I saw that pink, sparkly butterfly clip in your hair.”

Crystal tears spill over her cheeks, splashing down onto my pecs. I let the purr strangling my lungs come out, unleashing the full force of the deep rattle for the first time in my life.

It feels… good. Really fucking good when she whimpers and scrambles into my lap.

Nothing has ever felt like this, for me. Is this what people are going on about? Why Damon always hit it with as many puck bunnies as he could get his hands on?

I thought there was something wrong with me. A missing piece.

Maybe it’s her.

The way I feel about her. This aching smolder in my middle every time our eyes meet. It warms my blood and fires my nerves until every place her skin brushes mine leaves simmering pleasure behind.

And, God, I want her. My body craves hers in a primal, carnal way I’m unfamiliar with. I can’t explain it—all I know is the thoughts running through my head are new and all-consuming.

How tight and slippery would she feel around my cock? If I made her come, would I be able to feel it, squeezing me? Bringing us even closer?

She tucks her chin into her chest, hiding her face while she whispers, “Can I tell you a secret?”

It’s only fair, since I have a feeling I’ll be confessing a few of my own before the night ends. “Of course.”

“I’ve thought about you,” she whispers. “Every time I have a heat, I—imagining you there with me was the only way I could get through the fear. I always felt safe with you and the pain?—”

She breaks off on a squeak that slices my heart. “—you were the one thing that made me feel better. And then, after it had been years, I thought about what you probably looked like, now… and it always turned me on.”

Her whispered words hit the hollow at the base of my throat and sink down. The feeling—this soaring, bursting, bleeding feeling—in my chest almost overwhelms me.

It’s too much, too soon. To go from years of empty nothing to this…

I breathe hard, bracing myself to tell her what needs to be said. “Remi…”

Jesus.

I never expected I’d ever have to tell anyone this. Never expected anyone would care. But I know Remi does. This will mean something to her, and that’s what matters.

“I never wanted anyone else,” I murmur. “After you left, my alpha and I didn’t even notice other girls. Or guys. And I couldn’t seem to force it, so I just—let it be.”

I look at her, and she stares back. A thousand words fill the silence between us, all of them unspoken but, somehow, understood.

She only says four, but they’re perfect. “You waited for me.”

And, yeah. I really did.

Because I was always meant to be hers.

All this time. All these wasted years. I grind my teeth, swallowing the hoarse lump in my throat.

Remi’s tears glisten in the low light. An ache reverberates through my depths, down into my fucking soul. It turns my purr into a pained, serrated rumble.

“I’m yours, now,” I tell her. “But I don’t think that’s a new thing, butterfly. I was always yours. I always will be.”