Chapter Twenty #2
I extended my palm. He looked up, confusion in his eyes. “Dance with me,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even on my agenda, far from it, but . . . if it distanced him from my brother’s wandering hands, I’d make an exception this once.
Dylan hesitated, but only for a second. Giving no verbal answer—as if his tongue wouldn’t form one—he slipped his fingers over mine, allowing me to guide him into the centre.
The couples already there dispersed, granting their leader and his mate a wide berth.
“I’ve never danced before,” he murmured for only me to hear.
I was already aware.
I hooked my arm around his waist, and slotted my fingers over his, steering him into position. “Breathe,” I encouraged. “You’re alright.”
He nodded once, purposeful, before glancing down. He followed my steps, sliding his foot backward as I pressed forward. The beat was slow, easier for him to mimic and mirror my actions. He only crushed my toe under his brogues twice.
“Look up,” I prompted.
He obeyed, focusing on a spot in the middle of my chest. “I’m not cut out for this. For any of this,” he mused, biting the inside of his cheek. His meaning was clear.
“You’re doing fine,” I responded, though it felt insufficient.
He lifted his eyes further, studying me intently. “Am I?”
“You’re . . .” I exhaled slowly, fighting my usual compulsion to remain silent. My voice was unrecognisable when I finally said, “You’re perfect.”
His eyes expanded a fraction. “I want to believe you.”
My thumb brushed the inside of his wrist. Subtle. “You’ll do what you please, regardless of what I say.”
He huffed a laugh, and a weight visibly dissolved from him.
The dust between us had settled, even if only temporarily.
A distant concern. I shifted him closer, absorbing his warmth, basking in it.
It felt gratifying having him so close. Natural.
Not forced or because of a contract. We had joined the performance, but with the two of us chest to chest, my heart against his, I could imagine we were there because we wanted to be. And nothing else mattered.
The air between us had an electric tone to it, a vibration.
I sensed it against me, through my fingers, on my skin.
It trickled through my body, coaxing a feeling of tranquillity deep in my soul.
It was gentle, comforting. A delight. It flitted up to my ears, a low hum that amplified louder and louder until it surrounded us. Until I realised its origin.
I stopped moving.
“What?” Dylan said, peering up at me, his brows creased.
“You’re . . . purring.”
He blinked, becoming aware of the sound himself. His breath caught, and it ceased, though the soothing effects lingered. “Fuck, I didn’t even realize.”
It was the sign of a truly contented omega.
Many tried to replicate the sound to please their partners, but the true marvel couldn’t be faked.
It was instinctual, like breathing, and I’d never expected to hear it in my lifetime.
Never thought an omega would ever feel so secure in my presence they would purr for me. Never wanted them to.
Now I’d perceived it, I would yearn for it every day for the rest of my life.
I looked at him. Fully. His expressive eyes. Those eyes that had haunted my every waking moment for two years. Had given me no peace, and yet perfect serenity. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes now reflecting a torrent of clarity.
My clarity.
“Caine?”
I had a choice.
I surrendered.
Dylan tensed as my lips captured his, but it was brief.
He sighed and circled his arms around my neck, mirroring my roughness, my desperation.
Kissing me as if it was his only purpose, his final act on earth.
I understood. My fingers threaded through his soft hair, unleashing the wild and rebellious strands from their restrictive knot.
Let them see you.
Let them see you as I do.
I anchored him in place, willingly drowning in his scent and taste, every demanding curl of his tongue against mine stoking my greed.
He moaned and I swallowed it, breathed it in, endeavouring to tempt out a litany of those euphoric little sounds.
To gorge until I was sated—would I ever be sated?
My pulse raced, adrenaline and exhilaration.
My chest tightened. I wanted to consume him, thoroughly and completely, just as he had consumed every part of me.
I wanted to infuse myself into every fibre of his being, as he had done for two fucking years.
I wanted him.
I needed him.
I withdrew, heaving, and for a moment we were frozen in place.
The music had dimmed, the voices and chittering opinions irrelevant.
They could all talk. They could shun me for my lapse in composure and propriety.
I didn’t give a shit. All that mattered to me right now was the judgement of this fierce, unapologetic creature.
I’d bleed out on this fucking floor if he willed it.
He could wield the knife himself, cut me down where I stood, and I wouldn’t dodge the blow. My fate was his to control.
My life and death were his.
But then he smiled. That honest and raw beam I hadn’t anticipated, nor fully deciphered, and a fleck of doubt swelled in me. Not for my pledge, but for the prospect of reciprocation. I hadn’t earned his tenderness. His compassion.
Did I even deserve it?
“Forgive me,” I uttered, withdrawing from his space. “We should leave.”
A sweep of disappointment broke his pleasure.
He nodded.
Dylan stalled at the bottom of the stairs, gazing over his shoulder with hopeful eyes.
I retreated to my office, adding his rejected expression to my laundry list of sins.
I locked the door, striding toward my desk and uncorking the decanter of whisky.
Three fingers were poured into a crystal glass and I swallowed it down, the blaze in my throat a welcome distraction.
I poured another before collapsing into my chair.
I ripped my tie from my neck, tossing it onto the floor and unbuttoning the top of my shirt. Why hadn’t I followed him? Why had I fled like a coward?
Because you are one.
On that dance floor, before I’d kissed him, I’d realised what he meant to me. How much of my existence he’d woven himself into and become an integral part of. It was a bolt of lightning, staring into those black eyes as I had numerous times before.
And I ran.
I left him again.
I had to. For his sake. I had to contain myself and deliberate without the pressure of my monstrous reflection staring back at me from those dark depths. I’d kissed him in front of my pack; I’d splayed myself open like a book. I’d lost control.
Another swig of whisky tempered the unfamiliar nerves rattling my bones, the frantic energy tilting me sideways.
It was laughable. My entire life I’d acted the epitome of composure, emotionless, a fortified nightmare as my father had trained me to be, and those walls had all come tumbling down because of one stubborn man.
He was more than that.
Behind his defiant exterior, he was soft, sensitive, and he loathed showing it.
He was kind, courageous, a man who wanted to love and be loved in return, but he’d suffered too much to display his heart openly.
He’d closed it off, focused on our daughter, neglected himself and his needs.
He was resilient. He was clever, perceptive.
Strong. Everything I’d refused to see in the beginning.
He was lonely. He yearned for a pack, for a family, but assumed it wasn’t a possibility.
Not after everything he’d lost. Not after everything he’d endured because of me. I hadn’t given him a choice.
I was a hypocrite. A fool.
I’d spent my life resenting omegas, their scent reminding me of my affliction, of my father trying to coerce a cure.
To “fix” me. They hadn’t cared for my pain; they were thrown to me like bones to a dog, slaves to their instinct.
Money, power, that was all I’d thought they wanted, oblivious to how they were victims too.
I hadn’t cared, solely immersed in detesting the notion that if my father had his way, I’d be stuck in a vortex of agony. Forced to conform, to lose myself.
I hated knowing my only option was obedience.
As did Dylan. He was just as infuriated being backed into this corner.
But he’d shown me it didn’t have to be that way.
It could be different. My experiences weren’t gospel.
Not all omegas were interested only in their own gain, they didn’t all bow and accept mistreatment.
The arrangements I’d evolved around were the rarity.
I’d believed mating was purely a custom.
A mutual benefit, no real feelings, no real affection.
Though Dylan had proved it didn’t have to be about convenience.
It could be more.
I could have a mate, a family, and not comply with my father’s wishes.
This wouldn’t be what he wanted. It wouldn’t imitate what he’d had with my mother.
It would be . . . better. It would be ours.
It would be our choice. He hadn’t won. Dylan wasn’t my sole desire because of convention.
A transaction. It may have started that way.
I’d offered the contract with only those prejudiced ideals in my head, but now . . .
I wanted him because life was incomplete without him.
Until he was under my roof, I hadn’t noticed how lonely my existence was.
How much I craved the company I’d squandered my years refuting.
There had been no other choice. I hadn’t known an alternative.
Hadn’t particularly cared for one. Dylan had changed that.
He’d barrelled into my life, knocked it upside down like a fucking hurricane, and I never wanted to return to how it was before the destruction.
I had no reason to.
Despite his stubbornness, he was patient.
He’d allowed me to change. To learn. To recognise what I’d denied for so long.
I’d strived to detach from it, convinced myself the gravitation towards him was a product of instinct and proximity.
But how could it be? I hadn’t bitten him.
There was no bond between us, no permanent tie, so even if my theories were correct, how could what I felt be false? It couldn’t. It wasn’t.
Dylan had clawed his way into my soul, burrowing deep under my skin, into my veins, my blood.
So deep I’d have to carve him out to be free of the sweet torment.
I had no inclination to be free from it.
I wanted it all. I wanted what we had to be genuine, not a traditional front to appease the masses.
I wanted everything he was willing to give, and to offer him the same in return.
I wanted him to be content, safe. Happy.
I wanted his pleasure, to take his pain as my own so he never suffered again.
My chest ached with a sensation I’d felt before but hadn’t understood. A throbbing tightness, inducing a sense of apprehension and elation in equal measure.
Was this . . . love?