Chapter Eleven – Noelle
Sometime during the movie I must fall asleep, because the next thing I know, it’s dark and I’m being carried to my room.
Based on the smell of the chest my head is leaning on, I determine it’s Matteo’s arms around me, and it helps that comfy, cozy feeling remain even while he walks up the stairs and down the hall.
I’m sure he and the others had a quiet argument over who would get to bring me to my room, and naturally, the über alpha of the pack won.
I don’t mind. Something about Matteo’s scent drives me crazy, but at the same time, makes me feel so at peace. The world could be ending and I could still be sleepy, as long as I’m in his arms, surrounded by his scent.
Matteo steps into my room and makes a beeline for my bed, where he tugs down the sheets before setting me there, being so gentle with me. My head is set on my pillow, and the moment he stops touching me, I feel the loss deep within my soul.
“Goodnight, Noelle,” he whispers, smoothing out my hair. His tall frame leans over me, and he places a single kiss on my forehead. Just a peck that lingers, but it’s enough. It’s enough that, when he straightens himself out and turns to leave my bedroom, I call out for him.
I… don’t want him to go.
“Wait,” I say, my voice soft. The moment that word leaves me, I can see his massive frame halt in the darkness of my room.
My heart speeds up in my chest, pounding so loudly I can hear blood in my ears.
For some reason, even though I’m his omega, I’m still nervous to ask him to stay.
I’m not used to speaking up, saying what I want. This is new to me.
Matteo turns around, and his long legs bring him back to the side of my bed. “What is it?” he whispers. “Do you need something?”
For some reason, I’m incredibly nervous when I say, “Will you stay with me tonight?” It’s a good thing the lights are off, because I’m pretty sure my skin is flaming with embarrassment.
It shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be so nervous to ask one of my alphas to stay with me. They’re mine. I’m theirs. That’s how this works. It’s as official as something could be without any bonding bites between us. Being nervous at this point is just silly.
Matteo doesn’t answer right away, and I wish I could peer into his thoughts and know what he’s thinking. Is he worried that, if he stays with me tonight, something will happen between us? I’d be lying if I say I’m not nervous about that, too, but… at this point, I think I’m ready.
Finally, he breaks his silence and says, “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” I reassure him, sitting up somewhat and holding out a hand toward him.
He’s slow in taking it, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles.
I roll onto my other side and scoot, giving him room, and soon enough he crawls onto my bed with me.
He spoons me from behind, and it only takes a few seconds for me to realize that he must have taken his shirt off.
His chest is a furnace, warm and enticing, and when he wraps his arm around me, it’s over.
Although, to be honest, I think it’s been over for a while.
Laying there with him in the darkness, with his arms wrapped around me, it’s like I finally came home after a long journey abroad.
I saw all the sights I wanted to see, did everything I wanted to do, spent so much time out there in the world, discovering everything it contains, but throughout that time, I only ever wished for one thing.
To come home. To find where I truly belong. To be at peace not only with myself and my omega nature, but also with everything in a much broader sense.
Matteo holds me from behind, and to his credit, I don’t feel anything stir beneath the belt, so to speak.
He’s not wearing a belt, but you know what I mean.
He must have a fantastic sense of restraint, to lay with me and not get hard.
That, or he’s thinking about anything else, literally anything, just to get his mind off the omega in his arms.
Having him here with me is a comfort. He soothes my high-strung nerves, wordlessly calming me down. I don’t know that I ever felt more at ease than I do in this exact moment. Silly as it might be, I never want it to end.
“Can we stay in this cabin forever?” I ask, though I already know the answer. “It can be Christmas year-round.”
His arm tightens around me. “I don’t know that nature will get the memo. It might not seem like it now, but winter will end and spring’ll come. What kind of Christmas would it be if there’s no snow?”
“The southern states don’t get snow,” I whisper.
“Some of them don’t even get that cold. They still celebrate.
” Even as I say it, I know he’s right. All the movies, all the Christmas TV episodes—how many of them have snow and cold, and how many of them take place where the sun still shines and people don’t have to wear thick coats just to walk outside?
I can’t recall any off the top of my head that fit the latter scenario.
“If Christmas is every day,” Matteo whispers, “it won’t be as special.”
“You’re right. It’s a nice thought, though.”
“Why do you love Christmas so much?”
I shrug. “Why does any kid love it? No school, no responsibilities. Just hanging out, relaxing, and getting a present or two. My parents don’t spend much money on presents, but they always do their best. Even when I was a kid, I never wanted Christmas to end.”
“Yet you wanted to come up here this year, why?”
“Dad’s been working lots of overtime,” I say.
He might be their groundskeeper during the warmer months, but when it’s cold, all he does is shovel and plow snow, and spread salt, which doesn’t take too long, so he does lots of other people’s driveways and sidewalks, too.
The more he does, the more he gets paid.
“Mom has, too. I think they’re trying to save up for me. ”
“For you?”
“Yeah, for when I find my pack. It’s kind of old-fashioned.
What’s it called?” I wrack my brain for that word, drawing a blank for the longest time before it finally comes to me: “A dowry.” The moment I say it, Matteo chuckles softly behind me.
“Since I’m not a blueblood like some people—” I make it a point to pause, pointing out that the alpha behind me is, in fact, one of those rich-blooded people.
“—my parents thought they’d have to make me more enticing to alphas.
They never thought… they never thought this would happen. ”
I don’t like talking about it, mostly because I never liked the idea of me being married off to a strange pack of alphas. The thought that my parents had to work extra just to make me a better candidate for a pack fills me with disgust.
It shouldn’t be about money, but that’s how this world is run. Money owns the world. The people in charge care for nothing else. If you’re not born to a rich family, you’re pretty much screwed. You can never hope to be on their level, no matter how hard you work in life.
Take Matteo’s family, for example. He and his brothers work, but they certainly don’t have to. I’m sure their inheritance can cover all necessities, and then some—while most of the money can continually accrue extra wealth in the stock market or whatever. It’s how the rich stay rich.
“Well, your parents don’t need to kill themselves to fund a… dowry for you,” the alpha behind me whispers. “We’ll take care of you, and we’ll take care of them, too. They’re family now.”
Hearing him say that makes me smile in the darkness. “I still wonder what they’ll say when we go to them.”
“Hopefully they’ll welcome me and my brothers into their family, just as we’ll welcome them into ours.” He pauses, then adds, “And with any luck, they won’t be too upset that Miranda played matchmaker.”
“Oh, yeah. We’ll just blame her for this. She did keep it from all of us that we were coming here.” I stifle a giggle as I think of blaming my best friend—surely my parents won’t be too mad at me for coming home with a pack if it’s all on Miranda’s shoulders. They love her. They always have.
It’s a moment before Matteo says, “Enough about my sister. Let’s talk about you and me right now, omega.” Just the way he says that final word, it’s unlike the others, spoken in a whispered growl, teasing me with its laced dominance.
All I can do in response is shiver against him, which causes his chest to rumble in appreciation.
“Keeping myself away from you all these years,” he murmurs, burying his nose in my hair and inhaling deep, “has been torture. Hell, even when you’re gone, I could still smell you in the house. Your scent drives me mad. Just one whiff of you and I lose my mind.”
I close my eyes as I listen to him, feeling every spoken word in my soul.
“For so long, I thought it was just me. My brothers lose their minds, too, but not like me. When I smell you, Noelle, when I breathe you in, I can only think one thing.” Though I already know, he still says it again: “Mine.”
There’s something so sensual about that word, how he says it. It washes over me in a way no other word ever has, taking hold of my soul and intertwining it with his. It’s a brand on my heart, but it doesn’t sear and burn. No, it only warms my core in the best way.
“You’re mine,” he goes on. “You’ve always been mine. You’re my scent match, omega, and I’m never going to let you go.”
A scent match? If I wasn’t lying down with him, my world would probably spin. A scent match is like a fated mate. Almost supernatural, to the point where some people don’t even believe in them. Most people go their whole lives without finding theirs.
Resisting a scent match would be like tearing down a twenty-foot high brick wall with nothing but your hands and no tools at your disposal.
Legend says it’s impossible, that, when you find your scent match, even if you don’t recognize it, some deep, primal part of you knows.
The animal inside of us recognizes its mate and goes crazy until said mate is in its hands.
How many times did I go to their house and feel like I was losing my grip on reality when I got a whiff of them?
When I saw Matteo and the others… I thought it was just a crush.
Three crushes, the kind omegas always have on alphas.
I should’ve known it was more real than that, that the feeling of losing my mind wasn’t normal.
It was me, resisting the natural urge to go to my scent match and his pack.
Matteo says what I’m thinking, “All that wasted time… I’d rather not think about it anymore.
All I want to do is make up for it.” His arm is like steel around me, his hand moving until it finds my neck, and his fingers curl around my throat in a way I can only describe as possessive, but deliciously so.
“I want to make you mine.” His wide, bare chest thunders with a growl, with an almost whining hunger that only I can fill.
When he says that, I feel the stirring of something behind me, something pressing against my lower half. The alpha is curled around me, playing the big spoon with his hand on my neck, and I am loving it. I’m loving it and I need more.
Matteo bends his head and nuzzles into the back of my neck. “I want to make you mine so you smell like me. I want everyone here to know you’re mine.”
“Won’t Felix and Nico get jealous?”
The response flows out of him easily, “Let them. Let them be jealous for a little while. They’ll be with you soon enough, but right now it’s just you and me, omega, and I’m begging you to let me have you. Give me everything. Let me drown in you like I’ve always dreamed of.”
I don’t know any alphas that would beg for anything, but that’s what makes it so sexy.
I might not be able to see him, but even though he’s behind me, I can picture him saying all that while on his knees, giving me a smoldering look that drives my inner omega out of her mind with need, to the point where I don’t know what’s up and what’s down.
A begging alpha is a sexy alpha, apparently.
I grin. “Say pretty please.”
The alpha behind me growls as he shifts his position, rolling over me so his large, muscular frame pins me down on the bed. He lets go of my neck so he can grab both wrists and bring them over my head. Just like that, I’m flushed with heat.
“Pretty please,” he says, his voice husky, the words accompanied with a growl in that wide chest of his. Never before have two words sounded hotter, and I clench my thighs together, unable to stop myself. He lowers his nose to my neck and inhales before he kisses the skin over my scent gland.
I squirm, a soft moan escaping me the moment those kisses arrive on that tender skin.
“What do you say, omega? Will you let me make you mine tonight?” Even now, worked up as he is, Matteo is asking permission, for consent, even though we’re both half out of our minds already—and it’s hot. It’s so damn hot.
I know if I say no, he’ll respect the decision. It might be the most difficult thing he’ll ever have to do in his life, but he will respect it. He won’t push, won’t fight me on it, won’t be upset at me for deciding I’m not ready.
But I am ready. I want him so badly it’s stupid. I can’t tell him to stop, I can’t say I’m not ready. This is what I was born to do. Matteo, Felix, and Nico were always meant to be mine, and tonight, I’ll make it a reality, at least with one of them.
So, in the end I say the only thing I can. It’s only one word, one single word, and with it, my life is about to change… and my world is about to be rocked.
“Yes.”