Chapter 58
FIFTY-EIGHT
The phone in my hand feels like a fucking bomb for the way it just exploded everything.
This isn’t good.
No, that doesn’t capture the reality of the situation.
This is a fuck up of colossal proportion, and Crystal is going to blame herself.
But it’s me.
I’m the one to blame.
I have to tell her, but now really isn’t the time. I can hear her in there, moaning and whimpering for Manny. She’s not going to be in a mindset for this conversation until this drug-induced heat is past us.
I feel like I’m lying to her, not telling her.
“Puck, man,” Maverick stumbles through the door to Crystal’s sparse bedroom, “why are you avoiding the nest?”
“I’m not. I just had to talk to the Lupine pack. I was about to head in there.”
“Then why do you look like you’re about to walk the plank?” He leans on the door frame, uncaring that he’s stark naked in front of me.
I suppose we’re all going to have to get used to seeing each other’s asses real fast.
“Because I got some shitty news from them, and I need to tell Crystal.”
“Not right now, you don’t!” he says with a surprising amount of bark. “Whatever it is can wait. We can’t upset her and risk whatever happened with Kieran happening again.”
Shoving to my feet, I start to pace the small space. “You don’t think I know that? But how am I supposed to keep this from her?”
“What happened?” he asks. Before I can get the words out, he holds up his hand. “Actually, no, don’t tell me. Is there anything we can do about it right now?”
I scrub my hands over my face. “No, not really. Lupine is on it.”
He claps his hands together. “Then there you have it! After this is all done, you can tell us at once, and if Crystal tries to get mad at you for not telling her, I’ll take the blame and say I stopped you.”
“You are stopping me.”
“Damn right, I am. If it’s not time-sensitive, then it can wait.”
I can’t argue with him over this. He’s right. Telling her now accomplishes nothing. He must see the change in my face because he throws an arm around my shoulder, ushering me out of the room. “So there’s this thing she really likes that I do with my tongue…”
* * *
It’s anticlimactic to climb into a nest of an Omega in heat and find her sleeping on another Alpha’s knot. But I’ve never gotten to watch her sleep before.
I’ve seen Crystal Manson in many ways.
As a mourning sister-in-law, devastated by the difficulties that lay ahead for her sister and unborn niece, she became a fierce protector the moment the opportunity arose.
As a terrified Omega, meeting the king of a criminal organization for the first time.
As the sassy, dangerous woman whom I couldn’t keep my eyes off of.
As an avenging angel.
But like this? In the arms of her Alpha, no tension at the corners of her eyes or in her spine?
This is my favorite Crystal yet.
I don’t deserve her. I never will.
It’s not self-deprecation if it’s the cold, hard fact.
There is blood on my hands that shouldn’t be there.
And now it’s on hers, too.
I was supposed to take the burden of killing Kieran. It wasn’t supposed to be her.
She shouldn’t have to live with those nightmares.
With the stain that won’t wash off.
But I couldn’t protect her.
I’m never putting her at risk again.
“Alpha?” Her voice is scratchy from sleep. She climbs off of Manny, who smiles and kisses her forehead. She doesn’t waste any time and shuffles over to me. “You came.”
I give her my half-drunk water bottle. She downs it almost immediately. “Of course I did. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She hums a happy tune and crawls into my lap, kissing the curve of my neck. Over her shoulder, I watch Manny climb to his feet and pull on his boxers. “Gage and Mav are making food,” I say to him. He shoots me a thumbs up and slips out of the nest, leaving us alone.
“Did I tell you what you smell like?” Her words are slurred like she’s had a couple of drinks.
“No, I don’t think so. If you did, I don’t remember.”
“Fresh cut grass and sunshine.” She sits up, grabbing my face in her hands. “Summers playing in the backyard. Chasing Hannah around and hunting for Easter eggs on the fourth of July.” My Omega presses a kiss underneath my eyes, one at a time, and then on the end of my nose. “Pure, unending joy.”
Joy.
My chest aches.
How can I be that for her when I don’t know if I’ve felt pure joy like that since Monica died?
“You smell like the shortbread cookies my sister became obsessed with after watching a stupid cooking show.” A sob I didn’t know I was suppressing escapes me. “I didn’t realize I was missing it until I smelled you. She would’ve loved you, Crystal. We never would have had a moment alone because she would’ve been up our asses all the time.”
She laughs as she gently wipes my tears from my cheeks. “You’ll have to tell me all about her when I’m not naked.”
“Fuck,” I laugh, “I kind of forgot.”
“Me too. Hey, Puck?”
“Yeah, Queenie?” The nickname slips out of habit. I wonder if she hates it and will ask me to stop calling her that.
She doesn’t.
“I don’t think I’m in heat.” She burrows into my arms, and I squeeze her tightly against me. “My body temp from the heat spike may have burned off the fizz. I don’t think it worked.”
My heart sinks at her proclamation. I think she’s right. She hasn’t been behaving as an Omega in heat or even as desperate as she has the two times I’ve seen her on fizz. It means I’m not going to get to feel her in my chest.
She’s going to have time to change her mind.
Which she deserves, but fuck, I was looking forward to wearing her mark.
“I think you’re right,” I eventually say, trying to hide my disappointment. Her skin isn’t even fevered anymore.
“Hey, Puck?” she says again.
“Yeah, Queenie?”
Pain lights up at the base of my throat.
And then it fades, and I feel it.
I feel her .
She bit me.
“You didn’t think something like a heat would keep me from claiming my Alpha, did you?” Her eyes twinkle with mischief, a sassy, bratty expression twisting her lips. She scoots away from me and crosses her arms over her bare chest. “You should know by now. The Queen always gets what she wants.”
I chuckle and rip my shirt off before rising to my feet. “Oh, Queenie,” I purr, stalking towards her. “I’ll give you what you want. You’ll have to beg me to stop.”
“My safeword is red,” she says, looking up at me wide-eyed.
“Noted.” I bend down, hooking my arms under hers, and lift her, crashing my lips into hers. Our tongues battle for dominance in a feverish kiss, and she bites my lower lip several times in a way that has me groaning, my cock straining my pants. She wraps her legs around my waist as I stumble forward, eventually pressing her against one of the walls.
The first time we were together, I was lost in an anger-induced rut. This time, I’m fully aware of what’s going on, and now, with the bond, I can feel her reactions to me in a new way that has me desperate to be inside her.
“You’re mine,” I growl in her ear, my Alpha nature entirely in control. “You’re too good for me, and I’m messed up enough not to give a shit. I’m never letting you go.” I kiss and nip down her neck, enjoying every breathy sound that escapes those plush, pink lips.
“Joke’s on you, you’re the one stuck with me, Puck. You thought I was annoying when I worked for you? Get ready to argue with me over chores.” She pushes me away from her neck, and I stare at her, lust overriding every part of my body. My hands tremble on her ass as I restrain myself from throwing her hands off of me and rutting into her.
After a few moments, where we stare at each other with parted lips, her fingertips digging into my shoulders, her devious smile lights up the room. “Hey, Alpha?” she purrs, wiggling in my hands. “I think I forgot what your knot felt like.”
Something animal takes over me, an undeniable urge to fuck her so hard, wedge my knot so deep in her that she has no hope of ever getting rid of me.
Which I think was her goal.
I toss her onto the plush surface of the nest and dive on top of her, immediately latching onto her nipples and relishing in her squeal of excitement.
“Brat,” I say against her soft skin. “Goading my Alpha instincts into getting what you want.”
“You love it,” she replies, squirming beneath me.
“Yeah, I do. I love you, too.” I dive between her legs and bury my face in her pussy.
She yelps and tries to pull me away. “Wait, you can’t say you love me and not give me a chance to respond!” she says, her words interrupted by breathy moans.
I pull my face away from her swollen pussy and look up at her. “It’s rude to talk with my mouth full.” I slide two fingers inside her and rub the spot my knot is going to lock into.
The way she stretches around my fingers is gorgeous. I could look at it all fucking day and not get tired of it. Using my thumb, I give her clit some much-needed attention. Her slick drips down my hand, making a mess of the nest.
If this is Crystal not in heat, it will be incredible when she finally goes into it.
After coaxing an orgasm out of Crystal, I finally free my throbbing cock. I haven’t been this desperate to fuck before. It’s like my cock has a mind of its own because before I know it, I’m sliding into her warmth and groaning my pleasure into the crook of her neck.
“Puck,” she moans, fingers digging into my back. “Fuck, this feels so good.”
I slam my mouth on hers as I piston my hips harder into her. “You feel like mine,” I snarl against her mouth. “I’m never letting you go, Crystal. Ever.”
“I love you so much that I’ll kill you if you try,” she whispers, and I don’t know what it is, but that’s what makes me lose control.
I pound into her and then explode, coating her walls as my knot swells. She screams out an orgasm as I frantically rub her clit, and we fall to the floor of the nest, panting.
After a few minutes, when both of us calm down and our breathing slows, I cup her chin. “Are you going to become all bloodthirsty Omega now?”
She shrugs, burrowing further into my arms. “I’m sure some trauma is going to pop up from what I did, but he was a bad guy. What Pack Lupine is doing is important. And I think I want to be involved with it.”
I press her head into my sternum and bite my tongue.
The bad news can wait until my knot goes down.