Chapter Twenty-Four – Kayla #3
I shiver a bit, and I try not to get too in my head. Overthinking right now would be a terrible thing to do. Since this is all new to me, overthinking would be an easy out—but just like what he said before, I meant it, too.
I don’t want to get out of this. I don’t want to go back to the way things were, to what I was used to. I want something new, something nice and permanent, a life where I don’t have to constantly worry about watching my back because I can’t trust anyone around me.
I want love. Real love. True love. The kind of love that songs are written about, the stuff I never thought I’d have. I want the kind of love I still don’t think I deserve.
Hayden’s thumbs hook into my panties, and he slides them down, too.
Once I’m free of it all, he remains on his knees as he helps me step out of them, and he pushes the slick-covered clothes away.
With the growing sunlight shining through the windows on the far side of the room, there’s more than enough light to see the way his azure eyes eat me up from his position.
Out of pure habit, I want to hold my arms over my most private parts and try to hide, but I resist that urge and let him look at me for as long as he wants.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers as his hands move to my hips, his thumbs running over my hip bones.
“You’ll always be beautiful to me.” As he says that last part, he pushes me back somewhat, and I have to sit on the edge of the bed as a result.
He pries my legs open from the knees, spreading me wide, and he doesn’t need to say anything else for me to know what his intentions are.
My thighs are still slick thanks to that dream, but the old slick isn’t what draws him in. No, it’s that small mound of flesh at the apex. His tongue snakes out, flicking it once and making me throw my head back and moan.
I’ve never been touched there before at all, let alone with a wet tongue, and I have to say, it’s not too bad. It’s not too bad at all. A girl could definitely get used to it.
“That’s right,” Hayden whispers against me as he makes himself comfortable between my open legs, hoisting them both onto his shoulders. “Make some noise for me. Tell me without words how good it feels.”
If that’s what he wants, then that’s what he’ll get.
Hell, I don’t know if I could be quiet even if I tried.
The very moment his mouth attaches to my clit, I just about lose my mind.
Moans flow freely from me as he edges me closer and closer with each passing second.
He sucks, he licks, he runs circles around it with his tongue, and everything he does sends my body into overdrive.
I’m primed and ready, raring to go. That dream was only the beginning, apparently.
I need both hands behind me to keep my top half propped up while Hayden feasts on me, but my eyelids fall closed as I lose myself to the pleasure surging beneath the surface. I moan as the pressure inside becomes too much for me to handle, and right when I think I’m going to explode, I do.
The pleasure in me explodes outward like a tidal wave, causing my lower stomach to tighten and my thighs to clamp around Hayden’s head as the muscles in my legs spasm. Not only that, but a fresh wave of slick gushes from me, but I’m too lost in this, in him, to feel any sort of way about it.
Hayden, on the other hand, is more than ready for the slick.
The moment it oozes out of me, his tongue abandons its work on my clit, dipping down to catch all the slick he can.
His chest thunders with a moan of his own, and he gobbles me up like I’m the only food source he’ll ever need.
He must think I’m delicious, because I don’t think he lets a single drop spill onto the bed or floor.
I’m out of breath by the time he pulls his face away from my thighs, and the grin he gives me right then is unlike any other grin I’ve ever seen on him before.
He’s the Cheshire Cat who finally got what he wanted, smug and satisfied all rolled into one, complete with dimples and a set of pearly white teeth.
“You taste even better than you smell,” he murmurs, lifting his body and leaning over the edge of the bed to pin me down. It doesn’t take much effort on his part; my body is pliant and pretty much like goo. He zapped my strength when he made me come like that.
As he buries his face in the crook of my neck, my entire body hums, thrumming beneath him. The way he talks about me and my scent, you’d think I’m some kind of new drug he can shoot directly into his veins.
Hayden lifts his nose from my neck, his face hovering above mine. I reach up and lightly run one of my hands down along his jawline. The beginnings of stubble tickle my fingertips, but beyond that, he’s warm. So warm. Warm and gentle and everything else I want.
Everything I need.
I really am tired of fighting this. Tired of everything.
I thought, one day, the sheer exhaustion of survival would be my end, but I’d much rather find my end in the men in this house.
I thought I’d have a quiet death where no one would mourn me, because no one really knew me; I’d gladly march to the end now, knowing I don’t have to be alone.
I’ve been alone for so long, so unbearably long. If this is what fate has in store for me, who am I to keep fighting against it?
“You,” I whisper softly as I caress his face, “make me feel everything I never thought I’d feel, and you make me want the world—something I never dared want before. You, and everything you are, scare me.”
Before he can say a word, which he surely would given what I just said, I plow on, “You scare me, you thrill me, you make me happy. It’s impossible for me to think straight when I’m with you, and I don’t think I want to.”
The expression the man gives me is one of pure adoration, and it fills me with such hope for the future.
“If you weren’t pretending to be a beta… I’d say I want to be yours,” I murmur.
His chest hums, and he leans his forehead against mine. “Hmm. Well, maybe, if it stays between us—” He nips at my bottom lip. “—I can drop the beta act, so that makes you mine.”
Hearing him say that causes my heart to skip a beat and my skin to be set aflame.
“Is that what you want to hear, Kayla? That you’re mine? That you belong to me? It’s true. It’s been true this whole time, we both know it. You’re mine, omega, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving it to you. I love you.”
It’s so early for him to say those words, but the moment they’re whispered so urgently, I know they’re true. How could they not be? Love, real love, true love, the kind of love I never had before in my life—I have it now, and I’m never going to let it go. I won’t let him go.
I want to tell him I think I love him, too, but the words don’t come out. This is all so fast.
Hayden presses his lips upon mine in a soft kiss before he says, “It’s okay if you’re not ready to say it back.
I can wait. I’ll wait an eternity if I have to, as long as I’m by your side.
” One of his hands roam up my body, between my chest, to my neck, where he gingerly touches the bruise my brother left.
I flinch in spite of it all, which causes him to say, “And I swear to you, I will never let anyone hurt you again. You won’t go back there, Kayla. The asshole who did this to you won’t ever be able to lay a finger on you again.” He is fervent in his promise to me, and he moves his hand off my neck.
“Now,” he says, “the question remains: do you want me to keep worshipping you as you deserve, or is there something else you want?”
Not going to lie, my mind is alight with possibilities, all the different things I could say.
I could tell him I want him to tear off his clothes and make love to me, show me all the wonderful things a body can do—things an alpha and an omega can do together—or I could say I want his masterful mouth back between my legs. Put that tongue to work again.
He’s very good with that tongue, let’s just say.
But, even though I wouldn’t mind doing all those things and more, I settle for saying, “I wouldn’t mind laying together for a while, if that’s okay?”
Hayden smiles at me. “You don’t have to ask me twice.” He helps me up the bed, and then he lays down beside me, wrapping an arm around my back and pulling me against his chest. Even with all his clothes on, he’s a furnace, and I close my eyes and revel in the heat radiating off his strong body.
I can feel a hardness pressing against me, a hardness coming from a certain place on his body, but he doesn’t address it, so neither do I. It’s actually kind of hot, knowing I can bring that out of him, a new side to him I’ve never seen before.
It’s so strange, but I feel as if I’ve known him my entire life. He’s no stranger. My soul recognizes his. This is where I was always meant to end up, there’s not a doubt in my mind.
Yet… as I lay there and start to fall asleep, coming down from the high of the orgasm, I can’t help but wonder what it would take to make Bradford lose himself like that. To get him to touch me, to overcome his childhood trauma. I want Hayden on one side and Bradford on the other.
“So, Mr. Alpha,” I murmur against Hayden’s chest, “why don’t you have the smell of an alpha?”
He rubs shapes on my back, a gesture that’ll put me to sleep sooner rather than later if he’s not careful.
“I have some cream I put on every time I shower. I swung by my place and picked it up when I was out shopping. Believe it or not, they don’t just sell that stuff to omegas who want to hide their designation. ”
They sell more than that to omegas, depending on how much money you have or whether you’re comfortable going to the black market. Cream, lotion, suppressants. The list goes on. If the world was a little fairer to omegas, there wouldn’t be nearly as much need for such things as there is today.
Imagine: a world where omegas didn’t have to be on guard all the time.
A world where, just because an omega turns twenty-one and experiences her first heat, she doesn’t have to feel obligated to match with a pack and find her forever.
A world where that omega has all the time she wants.
It doesn’t seem possible, but maybe, one day, the future will be just that and more for all omega-kind.
Listen to me. I’m a beacon of hope now.
I yawn. “Why are you hiding the fact you’re an alpha? Why don’t you want Bradford to know?” He told me to keep it a secret, but the only other person in this house is Bradford, so obviously he doesn’t want the other alpha to know.
“Like I said, I can’t tell you the specifics just yet. Maybe one day, but not yet. I promise I will as soon as I can. I need you to trust me, okay? It’s not for any nefarious reason, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t go pretending to be a beta just to land a beautiful omega like you.”
A giggle escapes me, and I tell him, “I think you would’ve had a better chance as an alpha, but what do I know?”
“Eh, I think, when we first met, you were on guard. If I was an alpha, I don’t think you would have gotten into my truck.”
He’s probably right, much as I hate to think it. I don’t have the best track record when it comes to alphas, so if I would’ve known from the get-go Hayden was an alpha, maybe things would have tracked differently.
Then again, I knew Bradford was an alpha from the beginning, and a weird, off-putting one at that.
It wasn’t until I learned more about him, both accidentally and through the things the über told me himself, that I started to view him in a more sympathetic light.
And now, somehow, my inner omega has decided she wants him, too.
An impossible thing to yearn for, if he won’t try to overcome his past.
Stranger things have happened in this world, though, like me giving in to the connection between me and Hayden, so maybe there’s still hope for Bradford yet.