Chapter Twenty-Two – Bradford
Hayden showers, puts on a fresh set of clothes that doesn’t look like he just rolled out of bed, and gets going. He takes my card with him, and he swears up and down before he leaves he won’t go overboard.
Right. It’s a good thing I don’t care about wasting money. At this point in my life, there is little I do care about. I could probably list them off on one hand.
One finger, actually.
While Hayden is gone, I set up the living room with Kayla. She acts almost like she’s nesting, wanting to move the couch and set up a cushion-filled area on the floor, full of pillows and blankets. Whatever she wants, she’ll get.
She still wears her pajamas, and I have to say she looks… she looks good in them. Cute. Adorable, even. It almost pains me to describe her using those words, because I’ve never used those words in my life, but they’re the only ones that fit.
She has more energy. She has a stronger scent. Her eyes are more alert than they’ve been all week even though she still wears that bruise around her neck. All in all, she’s more herself than she’s ever been.
This is closer to who she should be, how nature designed her. The way she moves, I can tell she’s lighter on her feet, and the corners of her mouth seemingly tug into soft smiles every so often, even when she’s not saying anything. I can’t help but watch her.
And that scent? I noticed it the moment she came to the kitchen this morning. A soft, rose-tinted scent, laced with something else. Almond, maybe? A unique combination that brings to my mind nothing but sweetness.
The thing is, she smells good. Great, even. She smells better than anyone’s ever smelled. The way her scent fills the air, even with feet between us, makes my mind roam and my body feel stifled in this suit.
I’m not joking, either. The suit becomes tighter as the day wears on, the collar around my neck choking. I’ve never had a problem wearing these layers before, but being around Kayla makes me feel as if I’m overdressed and overheated in the worst way.
When the room is finally set up the way she wants it, she plops down in the center of it and sprawls out, giggling softly to herself.
“There’s so much room here. I love it.” Based on that, I can safely assume she’s not used to having so much space, and it makes me wonder just what kind of life she’s had up until now.
Not a good one. One full of abuse and pain. It’s miraculous she’s still here, even after years and years of starving herself and denying her inner omega.
I think about sitting down with her, but lowering myself to her level, on that mound of blankets, feels too personal. Like we’d be way too close. So instead, I move to sit on the couch I pushed aside when I say, “You can have all the room you want.”
With the way I’m spending money on her, with how eager I am to please her, you’d think I’m used to doing things like this, but I’m not.
This is new to me. It’s all new, and yet it feels so damn natural.
If this is how people feel when they form packs and find their mates, I can understand the appeal.
Kayla sits up and looks at me. “You’re so far away, though.”
I don’t say anything to that, but I do turn my head to the side and stare at the wall.
If I look at her too long, my thoughts might just run wild—and I don’t know if I could handle something like that.
Needless to say, when it comes to a woman and craving that sort of touch, it’s not something I’m accustomed to.
A moment later, she joins me on the couch.
She sits as close to me as she can without touching me, and I hate the fact that I tense up out of habit.
It takes me a long moment to relax, to turn to look at her, and when I do, I find those big eyes of hers gazing up at me, wordlessly begging me for things I both have no right to give and literally can’t.
I’m not an alpha who’s made to take a mate. All my life, I’ve been safe from that particular desire, but it’s like the very second Kayla came to this house, everything was thrown out of whack. Everything changed. The urges and desires I thought I was safe from bubbled to the surface.
“You don’t always have to be so far away,” she whispers, tucking her legs under her ass, as if that’s how she sits all the time. A little ball on the couch next to me. “I won’t hurt you.”
I don’t know why she says that last part, but when she does, something in my chest tightens, constricting until I realize what it is: my heart. That thing I always assumed was long-dead. Clearly, it’s not, not if it comes to life when she’s near.
My throat suddenly feels dry, but I manage to tell her, “I’m surprised you want to be so close to me.
I’m not exactly the most welcoming person around.
” In reality, I was pretty judgmental and mean to her, especially that first day.
I judged her too harshly when I should’ve immediately recognized the fact she was in need of help.
Her thin shoulders rise and fall once. “Me, either.”
“You say that, but… I don’t think that’s true. Look at where you are: here, wearing the pajamas I paid for, waiting for Hayden to return with snacks aplenty instead of trying to run out of here. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
She leans on the back couch cushion, resting her cheek on her arm as she steadily gazes at me. “It’s funny you say that, because you don’t give yourself enough credit, either.”
I harrumph at that. “You don’t need to kiss my ass, Kayla. We’re not working right now.”
“No, I mean it.” She lifts her head and puckers her lips as she stares right through me. “I don’t say things I don’t mean. You’re more than you think you are. Maybe you don’t see it, but I do. You’re really not a bad person. You’ve made some mistakes, yeah, but I don’t think they define you.”
She coughs a bit and rubs her throat before she continues, “And I don’t think what happened in your past defines you, either. I think you’re a better man than you believe you are, and knowing you don’t think so highly of yourself… it makes me sad. You’d be a great alpha.”
It’s like she hooked me up to a defibrillator and brought me back to life. It takes everything in me to not suck in a hard breath when I hear her say it. If the suit felt stifling before, it’s downright suffocating now.
I’d be a great alpha. How can she say that? How could she say it with such certainty and such sincerity?
And can someone please tell me why I am inclined to believe her? It goes against everything I used to think about myself.
I want to be a good alpha. I want to be good for her, to her. I… I want to make her mine, even though something like that could never happen.
A slow breath escapes me before I whisper, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to be.”
And isn’t that the crux of it all? My issues, as deep as they run inside of me, are rooted in the fact that I’m afraid. Afraid I’d hurt my mate like my father hurt me. Afraid I wouldn’t be enough to protect them from the terrors of the world, including my father.
Just so goddamned afraid.
“Maybe you can’t see it, but I can,” Kayla whispers back as she leans closer to me. Closer, but still not quite touching. Only an inch or so separates our bodies on the couch; she’s careful not to press herself against me.
This is where I’d normally get up and put some distance between us, cough and turn away. But I can’t move. I don’t want to.
Out of everything I could say, I say perhaps the most inappropriate thing: “You smell… amazing.”
Heat creeps up her cheeks, and she bites her bottom lip and turns her face away from mine—wait, no.
She doesn’t turn away from me in an effort to deny what I said.
No, she angles her head in a way that exposes her throat to me, offering me that poor, bruised neck and thereby a closer whiff of her scent. Straight from the source.
It shouldn’t be as tempting as it is. It should be an easy denial, especially considering I’m the one she’s offering that neck to.
But it’s not. How could it be? I tried smelling her before, when she was starving herself, and my inner alpha was utterly disappointed at her lack of scent. And then, when I came upon her dozing off at her desk, I smelled her again—and that time I was rewarded by a faint scent.
Here and now? Her scent is already so much stronger than it was before. I don’t know that I could stay sane if I accept her invitation, lean in, and inhale her into my very soul.
At the same time, though, how could I possibly refuse? How could I pretend I don’t see the omega gesture and act as though my inner beast isn’t drawn to her? It’d be like fighting fate, pointless until the end.
I don’t know what comes over me, but the moment I realize what she’s doing and how badly I want to be hit with her full scent, I lean over her and lift a hand. I don’t touch her skin, but I do sweep her hair off her shoulder, exposing more of that neck to me.
Kayla swallows hard, her nervousness palpable. She’s afraid of denial. Even with her eyes closed, I can feel it in the air. She doesn’t want her invitation to be met with a refusal.
I lower myself to her neck. It’s not the easiest thing to do, leaning over her while bringing myself down to her level, all without touching her. Even now, I’m still afraid to lay a hand on her, too petrified to have her touch me.
What kind of alpha could I possibly be if I can’t hold my omega?
My eyes close when my nose nears her neck. I don’t touch the skin above her scent gland, but I do know exactly when I’m near it, because her scent practically explodes in the air, so thick and strong I can taste it.
Mm-hmm. Rose. Rose and almonds, a surprisingly sweet and almost fruity scent thanks to the latter. The kind of scent I could lose myself in for days.
No, scratch that. Years.
My chest rumbles in what must be appreciation—appreciation or pure, desperate longing.
The sound comes off as almost a growl, a growl mixed with a purr.
The sound itself seemingly comes out of nowhere, and it makes me pull back from her and apologize, “I’m sorry.
I don’t know what came over me.” I scoot away from her, leaving half a foot between us on the couch.
And then a possibility hits me: what if she’s only acting like this because she’s overcome with a need to find an alpha?
Would she have offered herself to any alpha if they were here?
That thought cuts me deeper than anything has ever cut me before, and that’s saying a lot, given the scars on my back.
“No,” Kayla whispers. “I’m sorry. That was… I don’t know why I did that.” She gets up and moves to sit in the center of the padded mess on the floor, giving me her back, her shoulders slumped.
My chest tightens. I don’t want her to feel like she’s not enough. I don’t want her to be upset. The problem here is me, not her, but how can I convince her of that when I know she won’t believe me?
Fuck. I’m too messed up for this.
I open my mouth to say something, anything—because surely anything would be better than nothing at this point—but no words come out of me. I’m silent as stone, and I can’t bring myself to speak a single word.
Let’s just say it’s an eternity until Hayden returns.
When he comes into the room, he instantly spots Kayla sitting on the floor amongst the pillows and blankets, and he coughs to alert us of his presence—even though I’m fairly sure she knew the moment he appeared, because those shoulders of hers didn’t seem to dip quite as much.
“Bradford,” he says, “want to help me bring everything in?”
Considering the fact I’ve been sitting in silence ever since the whole smelling her neck incident, yes, I would be glad to help him.
It’s not so much that I want to put distance between me and Kayla; it’s more so that I need time to calm myself down.
Time to think. Time to wonder just what the hell got into me back there.
No omega has ever affected me like this. What makes her so different? Why do I want to go to her the moment I stand up? I’m losing my mind here.
I follow Hayden downstairs. I head to the front door, thinking everything is still in his truck, but Hayden stops me by saying, “I already brought everything to the kitchen.”
My feet stop, and I turn toward him as I say, “Oh.”
He glances up the staircase. “That, uh, whole scene in there. You’re aware that looks exactly like a nest, right?”
“It occurred to me, yes.”
Hayden rubs his neck. “What if she’s close?”
I’m so out of my mind from earlier that I don’t quite pick up what he’s putting down, and I ask, “Close?” Like a complete fool. Seriously, there’s only one thing he could be asking about right now, something that goes hand-in-hand when you have an omega around who’s of age.
And Kayla? She’s been of age for years now.
“Close to having her heat. I imagine, if she keeps eating, her body will have enough energy to actually have one. That probably means she can’t go home.
She’ll need to keep staying here. Are you okay with that?
I could always take her to my place, but it looks like she’s already made herself comfortable here, so… ”
I did a little reading about omegas who’d been starved and what happens once they start fueling their bodies the way nature intended.
It’s a toss-up on how long it takes for them to turn the corner, so to speak, for them to go through their heat.
Sometimes it happens fast, other times it takes a few weeks. It’s different for everyone.
If that really is a nest up there, and it wasn’t just her getting ready for an afternoon of movies, then… then her heat is probably going to come sooner rather than later.
“I have the room,” I say.
Hayden doesn’t take that as an answer. “Would you be okay with it, though? Having the room and being okay with housing an omega in the throes of her heat are two totally different things. It’s okay if you’re not, but we need to figure out a plan B if that’s the case.
” He is oddly understanding and nonjudgmental.
It takes me a while to say, “I don’t think I’d like it if she was somewhere else. If she’s going to go through her heat, she’ll have it here.” I remember how I nearly lost my mind when she offered me her neck. “But I can’t be close to her when it happens. I can’t—”
“It’s all right,” he tells me, taking on an air of authority.
“I can do it. I can make sure she gets everything she needs—if she wants me to.” Hayden acts like he’s going to say more, but right then his phone rings, and he pulls it out of his pocket, sees who’s calling, and tells me, “I need to take this.” Then he goes to the front door and steps outside for privacy before he answers the call.
It’s fine. All that talk of Kayla and her heat was making me feel things I shouldn’t.