Chapter 23 #2
Julia swallowed hard. “Besides the fact that Omegas should never be treated the way I was treated by Miller in town the other day? That they shouldn’t feel unsafe doing normal, everyday things?
” She reached out, her fingers blindly playing with the edge of my sleeve, fingertips grazing over the hemline cutting across my bicep.
“It’s for Addy. The friend I told Colt about.
I know he filled you all in.” Her chin trembled, and she pressed her lips together to steady it.
“She texted me on our way back from town. She’s throwing in the towel. ”
In an act of trust I hadn’t earned, she pulled out her phone, scrolled to her friend’s text chain, and held it out to me. I took it, my attention falling to the messages as I read every word that had devastated my Omega.
Addy:
I always knew a pack like that was too good to be true for me, Jules. But I’m so glad they found you instead. It makes it hurt less knowing it’s you. Please be happy.
And don’t worry about me. There’s a pack in Montana. We’re not a match, but they need someone. I think it will be better than staying here. I leave at the end of the month.
My jaw tightened. Omegas were rare. Precious. And this woman who meant the world to Julia was essentially planning on being no more than a knot warmer for some pack she had zero connection with.
Julia looked forlorn. “She’s going to let the OMA place her with whatever random pack will take her, just to get out of the facility.
She was supposed to be your Omega, and then I scent matched with you, and now I’m out of time.
I have to get this patent filed so I can show her there might be another way.
” She sighed, tense and sad. “The lotion works. It’s real, and I can prove it.
But I’m also developing faster delivery methods that would work better for her.
A daily pill that should hide an Omega’s scent for most of the day and a sublingual lozenge for emergencies.
Something an Omega could take if her lotion failed in public or her pill wore off at an inopportune moment.
” Her jaw tightened. “No Omega should ever be vulnerable, especially Addy. Life has already been so unfair to her. I just know if she bonds with a pack she’s not even sympathetic to, it’ll end her, and it’ll be my fault. I know I can fix this. I have to.”
Understanding crashed through me. The sleepless night. The secretive phone calls. The sadness that had blown the doors off her scent-blocker in the truck.
I had looked at a woman desperately trying to save someone she loved and accused her of the worst, and I had no idea how I’d ever atone for that grave misjudgment.
“I wasn’t looking for a way out, Stetson,” she whispered, finally lifting her eyes to meet mine. “I was trying to secure everyone’s futures.”
The unwavering loyalty in her eyes gutted me.
I had spent my life trying to carry the weight of this pack alone, and she was standing here trying to carry the whole damn world.
I reached out, my hands framing her face.
My thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, feeling the soft, tear-streaked skin beneath my callouses.
“I don’t deserve that kind of protection,” I admitted, the truth bitter on my tongue. “Not after how I treated you.”
Julia didn’t let me wallow in the guilt. Her hand slid from my sleeve, traveling up over my shoulder to tangle in my hair. She dragged me down, closing the final inch between us, and pressed her mouth hard against mine.
It wasn’t a gentle, forgiving kiss. It was a collision.
A desperate, heavy snapping of every single wire we’d been pulling taut since the day she stepped out of Gideon’s truck.
The second her lips parted against mine, my iron-clad restraint obliterated.
I groaned, the rough sound tearing out of my chest, and swept my arms around her waist, hauling her flush against my body.
She tasted like cherries and figs and something spicier that was all her.
Surging upward, her hands gripped my hair, holding my mouth exactly where she wanted it.
I backed her up, pressing her spine gently against the doorframe as my tongue swept along her lower lip, frantic to prove with my physical presence what my words had almost destroyed.
Julia jumped, wrapping her legs tight around my waist. I caught her thighs instinctively, my hands sliding to her round ass to keep her pinned against me.
I loved the way she fit against me, small and curvy and so damn sexy.
I turned us away from the doorway, carrying her deeper into the suite, her legs still locked around my waist. With the panic in my blood finally settling, my scent returned to normal, mixing deliciously with hers, giving me a high I never wanted to come down from.
I angled toward the bed and set her gently on the mattress.
Now that we were done fighting, I was ready to show this Omega just how much she meant to me.
JULIA
My back hit the mattress, and Stetson followed me down before I could take a single breath without him. There was no hesitation in him, no distance, no restraint. The man who had spent all his time guarding his territory suddenly consumed every single fraction of mine.
His knees bracketed my hips, the rough denim of his jeans dragging hot friction against my bare thighs.
I stared up at him, my pulse thrumming wildly.
The lines of his jaw were set, his eyes dark and dilated with a hunger he wasn’t trying to intercept or bury anymore.
The weight of his focus pinned me to the bed before he even laid a hand on me.
I reached for him, aiming for the buttons of his work shirt, but Stetson caught my wrists mid-air.
One large, calloused hand wrapped around both my forearms, pinning them securely into the pillows above my head.
The grip was an unbreakable vise, and it sent a rush straight between my thighs.
I didn’t try to fight the restraint. I arched into his hold, chasing the heat radiating from him.
“You’re staying,” he rasped. It wasn’t a question. It was a gritty, territorial demand that made my stomach flip and my pussy flutter.
“I’m staying,” I swore, meaning every word.
Stetson dropped his head, bypassing my mouth to press his open lips against the frantic pulse at my neck.
He scraped his teeth over the sensitive cord of muscle, pulling a needy whine out of my throat.
Releasing me, he caught the hem of my shirt, dragging the cotton up and over my head with an impatient pull.
A second later, his thick fingers found the front clasp of my bra, snapping it open and stripping the lace down my arms to toss it away.
Cool air hit my bare chest, and Stetson went still above me. His eyes tracked slowly down my throat, over my collarbone, to the swell of my breasts, and the hunger that crossed his face made my skin burn everywhere his gaze touched.
“Jesus Christ, Julia,” he breathed. His calloused thumb traced the curve of my breast, achingly gentle for a man who’d just kissed me like he wanted to consume me whole. “You have any idea how long I’ve been thinking about this?”
“Probably as long as I have,” I whispered, my voice shakier than I wanted it to be.
Because this was it. My first time. With anyone.
The toys didn’t count, and the fantasies were nothing compared to the living, breathing Alpha kneeling over me with his pupils blown wide and his hands against my skin.
His jaw flexed. He sat back just enough to shuck his shirt in one rough motion, and the sight of him stole the air from my lungs.
He was broad, golden, sculpted by years of hauling feed and breaking horses, with a dusting of dark hair that trailed down his abs and disappeared beneath his belt.
I reached for him before I could stop myself, pressing my palms flat against his chest.
“Yes. Touch me,” he ground out, covering my hands with his and pressing them harder into his skin. “I need your hands on me, Julia.”
I dragged my fingers down the hard planes of his stomach, tracing every ridge, and he shuddered. Stetson Tate, the man who controlled everything, shuddered under my touch. The power of it went straight to my head.
Then he lowered himself over me, and the coarse hair on his chest dragged directly across my bare nipples. The abrasive contact had slick soaking my panties as my back bowed off the sheets and a sharp gasp punched out of my lungs.
Stetson swallowed the sound. His mouth crushed down on mine, hot and hungry.
He tasted like dark coffee with the perfect hint of sugar, and I sucked his tongue the second he pushed it inside my mouth.
I parted my thighs wider, locking my ankles over his lower back to drag him deeper into the natural cradle of my hips.
He growled against my mouth, the sound vibrating through his ribs as he drove his hips forward. The length of his erection pressed perfectly into my slick, swollen center, grinding down with a relentless pressure that made my vision blur.
The grinding friction of denim against my aching core was maddening.
I arched up, desperate for closer contact, my fingers automatically tangling in the thick hair at the nape of his neck.
Stetson tore his mouth from mine, leaving me aching.
His bare chest heaved against my sensitive breasts as he shifted, releasing my wrists and sitting back on his heels.
He didn’t waste another second, dropping his large hands straight to the waistband of my soaked panties and tugging them off.
I was exposed and vulnerable, but embarrassment didn’t have any chance to grow with the heat burning in his green eyes.
Stetson stayed kneeling between my parted legs, looking down at me like a starving man who had finally stopped denying himself a feast. The wild look in his eyes was unapologetically possessive, making me shiver in the best way.
“Mine,” he rasped. The single word wasn’t a question. It was a vow.