Chapter Twenty-Three – Gideon
I don’t know exactly how we ended up the way we are, how she came to stand so close to me, with her hand on my face, nor do I know why I didn’t have enough sense to resist cupping the hand against my face with my own and turning into it.
Breathing her in is instinctual, and though the majority of her scent is muddled thanks to whatever she applies, I can still detect a hint of raspberries, of sweetness.
Raeka tries to be tough, I don’t doubt she wants her scent to be sour, to put off any and all alphas—and until now, maybe that worked, but I can’t deny the way her true scent tugs at something deep within me, something I thought didn’t exist. This omega calls out to a primal part of me, a part I was content with letting die while I raised Colter.
I thought it was too late for me, but she didn’t agree. I’m not foolish enough to think there is any underlying meaning to her words, but at the same time, how on earth can she smell this good, and it’s only a fraction of her scent?
My chest hums with appreciation. Raeka stands between my knees; I’m practically on the edge of the chair, her body so close to mine.
Within my reach. I want nothing more than to pull her in closer, to feel her chest rise and fall against mine, to bury my nose in her neck and see if I can get a hint of her true, unhindered scent.
So that’s what I do.
I drop my hand off hers and bring both of my suddenly needy hands to her waist, drawing her in as close as our position would allow. Her chest collides with mine, and I lower my nose to her neck, the animal in me coming to life for the first time.
The need is so strong in me it’s undeniable. The urge to have her, to claim her, to bite her and bond us together swells within me, to the point where my canines ache with that unmistakable desire. She’s driving me out of my mind.
She’s not here for me. She’s not supposed to be mine. I need to let her go, otherwise mistakes might be made tonight. She’s not my omega, and I am not her alpha.
Strange. Never before have words rang so hollow.
“Raeka,” I murmur her name against her throat, causing her to inhale sharply as my hands curl around her sides and hold onto her back. I pin her against my chest, and she doesn’t put up an ounce of a fight.
If this is anything remotely close to how Pax felt downtown, then I completely understand why things escalated the way they did. I know how he felt, because I feel the same. How could I not?
Again, I say her name, “Raeka,” but it comes out differently this time. This time her name is whispered in a lower octave, reverberates from my chest with an accompanying growl of hunger I can’t stop.
The sound she responds with is a mixture of a feminine sigh and a whine, and she turns her head in slightly toward mine, leaning her cheek against mine while I nuzzle against her neck, brushing my lips over her scent gland.
Everything has been so hazy, so fuzzy and unclear, and now it’s as if the fog is lifting, and she’s the reason. Nothing has been clearer to me than my need for her is right now.
I move my face, resting my forehead against hers. One of my hands cups the side of her face, my thumb running gently down her cheek, to the corner of her mouth. She parts her lips, her eyelids fluttering shut.
“Gideon,” she whispers my name in a way no one else ever has, and it sounds like a prayer. A prayer, pleading with me to help ease the pressure she surely feels deep within her— I’d know, because I feel a similar pressure in my lower half, a burgeoning heat between my legs that can only grow.
“You’re not supposed to be mine,” I whisper back. “But I want you. I… I need you.”
She whimpers against me, and an unmistakable sweetness fills the air, a scent that’s so strong it causes my already-hard cock to turn to steel in my pants.
Though I’ve never smelled anything like it before, the animal in me knows precisely what it is: her slick.
Her panties must be dripping wet now, and I’m dying to see for myself, to smell her without any fabric hindering the scent, to taste her slick and memorize everything about her.
Fuck. How am I ever supposed to go on?
“I—” Raeka sounds… unsure. Nervous. Scared, even. “—I can’t. I need to… to go.”
Letting her go would go against every instinct I have. It would disappoint the alpha in me. It’d hurt. It’d be like tearing myself in two—but she’s right. This shouldn’t happen. It can’t happen. So, I do the only thing I can.
I pull back from her and let her go.
She doesn’t meet my eyes. She turns away faster than you can blink and hurries from me, like she’s late for an important meeting at this ungodly hour. Watching her retreat from me is like sticking a knife straight into my heart.
It’s not right. She shouldn’t go. She should stay here, with me.
It doesn’t make sense. I can hardly think straight. I need… I need her back here with me.
I get up and go after her. Getting her in my arms is all I can think about; I’m a one-trick pony. It’s all I want. It’s all I need. I make it to the hall and turn to go toward her room. Raeka must’ve moved quickly. I don’t see her, only her closed door further down the hall.
My legs take me to her room almost faster than humanly possible. I lift a hand to knock, but I manage to stop myself mere seconds before my knuckles connect with the wooden door. She wouldn’t let me in if I did knock.
She doesn’t want me, not like that. She was just being kind. The slick was simply a bodily function she couldn’t control; it didn’t mean anything.
Still, even as I tell myself that, as I stare at her door through the darkness while fighting every urge in me to go to her, it doesn’t ring quite as true as I want it to.
Though my cock is still throbbing with the need to bury itself between her legs, though everything in my mind has gone hazy, I manage to take a step back, away from her bedroom door.
Fighting the animal inside, resisting the natural urge to claim what my inner beast deemed as mine, is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Swallowing hard, I turn away from her room. My intention is to return to mine and try to snap out of this haze, but the moment I turn, I see Pax standing there. He must’ve heard and come to see what was happening.
Damn it.
I don’t look at him as I pass him. In fact, I might hang my head lower than I should, but I can’t help it. Not going into Raeka’s room, not tearing off her clothes and making her mine… it’s not right. It goes against nature. It’s practically a crime.
And it’s all made even worse by the fact that I shouldn’t feel this way for the omega I brought into the house for my nephew.
I barely make it to my bed before I collapse.
I sit on the edge, lean my elbows on my knees, and bury my face in my hands.
Not once in my life have I ever wanted someone like this.
It’s new to me. It’s bizarre. Even now, the only thing I can think about is Raeka and how perfectly her body fit against mine, how she whispered my name… the overpowering scent of her slick.
We almost crossed a line tonight. I should tell Colter, but how? Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it was a one-off. Maybe it’ll never happen again.
No. That’s a lie. Impossible. Anytime I see her, anytime I’m near her from now on, all I’ll be able to think about will be how badly I want her.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Pax’s voice makes me look up at him.
He stands in front of me, which means he must have followed me in here after he saw me in the hall.
The alpha has a nose of his own; he already knows what her slick smells like.
He can put what almost happened here together on his own.
When I don’t say anything, he comes to sit beside me, his muscular frame leaning forward as he mimics my position.
After a minute, I manage to speak, “I didn’t think…
my intentions were pure when I gave her the offer.
When I met her at the Omega Garden, I thought she was just a peculiar omega, but afterward I couldn’t shake her.
I thought she could get what she wants and I could help my nephew all in one shot.
No normal omega would accept an offer to court a beta, let alone a mute beta who has a history of self-harm and doesn’t ever leave the house. ”
Pax doesn’t say a thing; he must sense I’m not quite finished.
“She made me flustered from the beginning. I assumed my reaction to her was simply because I don’t have much experience dealing with omegas, but…
” My shoulders go up and down in a shrug.
“Now, I don’t think that’s it. Now I’m worried I misread everything.
What if I wanted her to be mine from the beginning? ”
I turn my gaze to the alpha beside me, finding he watches me silently. His expression doesn’t read furious or concerned; if anything, he’s understanding, which isn’t what I expect. A part of me assumed he’d be upset.
Then again, how could he be upset when he crossed a line with her, too? We are both drawn to her, that much is clear.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Pax tells me, “you’re not alone.
That girl—” The corners of his mouth quirk upward in the faintest smile, although that expression doesn’t last long.
“—I knew from the first moment I met her that she was trouble. I didn’t think she’d be trouble for me.
I focused on work my whole life. I have three brothers, so even though I’m the oldest, my parents never pushed me to find an omega. I didn’t want to, until…”
I nod and whisper, “Until her.” It’s an odd thing, to feel exactly the same way as the alpha beside me. Pax and I couldn’t be more different, but at the same time, we’re more alike than I realized, especially when it comes to Raeka.
“Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t want me gone after the incident downtown,” he goes on. “If you wanted her that badly, you should want me out of the picture.”
“She seems to like you,” I say.
“She seems to like you, too.”
We stare at each other for a few moments, neither of us saying anything else right away. An unspoken understanding passes between us, and I realize we’re on the same page. Neither one of us is ticked off at the other; neither of us views the other as competition.
And that means… what, exactly? I don’t know.
“What happens now, Pax? What do we do?” I whisper, needing guidance.
The talk with him helped me to get my mind off of my hard dick; thankfully it’s now losing its gusto in my pants.
Soon enough it will be forgotten, but what happened earlier, what led it to become rock-hard in the first place, will never be forgotten.
“Maybe,” the über alpha pauses, “we should let our omega decide.”
Our omega.
It shouldn’t sound so right coming out of his mouth, but it does, and I can’t argue about it.
Our omega. Yes, that sounds right. It wouldn’t sound half as true if we were talking about any other omega in the world. Only Raeka Whittenhall.
The only problem is she doesn’t want to be any alpha’s omega, let alone belong to two.
And then, of course, what about Colter?