Chapter 2
Chapter two
Liam
Star Bryson is a furnace draped over my chest, her curls a tangled web I never want to escape. Except I have to. Fucking need to.
Four hours. That’s all it took for me to prove I’m exactly like my brothers—worse, maybe, because I knew better.
I’ve spent a decade building walls, and this omega demolished them with one look.
Not a look. A glance. A split second where her fawn-colored eyes locked on mine, and my entire world detonated.
I gave her my name, and each time she whispered Liam in my ear, another wall crumbled.
I’m still picking through the wreckage. Her scent is in my lungs, her hair in my mouth, and the taste of her—fuck.
I pull in another deep inhale before I can stop myself, then force my breathing to even out.
I know what it costs to need someone else’s air to survive.
I run my hand down her spine, feeling the soft dip above her ass, and my knuckles trace the ridge of her spine.
It took a while to make it to bed. We made do with anywhere—the door, the wall, the floor. Like animals.
Like mates.
My teeth bare in a silent snarl at the word.
I’m not my father. I won’t be shackled by a biological leash, pining after a ghost until I waste away.
I saw what that did to him—what it did to all of us kids, watching him curl around her empty side of the bed, breathing in sheets that lost her scent years before.
“I just want the smell of her,” he’d say, like that explained the slow suicide.
I shift, trying to slide out from under her without waking her. Her terra-cotta skin slides against mine—silk-smooth, warm from my touch—and my throat tightens. I want to bite her again. Mark her where every other alpha can see.
Get up. Move.
I make it two feet before she stirs.
“Liam?”
Her voice is sleep-rough, confused. The sound of my name on her tongue stops me dead. I should keep moving. Should find my clothes, my phone—Christ, my sanity—and get the hell out of this room before I do something else I can’t take back.
Instead, I grunt. “Yeah.”
Not even a word. Just a sound, low and scraped raw.
She pushes up on one elbow, curls tumbling over her shoulder, and the sheet slips.
I trace the curve of her breast to her bark-colored nipple, then up to the mark I left on her collarbone.
My mark. My chest rumbles before I can stop it—a possessive, traitorous sound that has no business coming out of my mouth.
Star’s eyes widen, and a soft smile finds her lips. “You’re still here,” she says with a sleepy smile. Why is she always smiling? Does she know the power of it? It matches her name. Dazzling and bright. God, I love it. Another reason to go…
I force a shrug, like I’m not naked and hard again just from the sight of her. “Couldn’t move. You’re like a damn octopus.”
She laughs. It’s bright. Sunshine, warm and blinding. “You weren’t complaining when my legs were around your neck.”
My jaw tics. “Wasn’t thinking much at all.”
“Yeah.” She hugs her knees to her chest, not shy, just… thoughtful. Her gaze roams over me, unapologetic. “Me neither. That was… intense.”
Intense. That’s one word for it. Catastrophic. Life-altering. A fucking natural disaster.
She tilts her head, studying me. I stare back, letting her see the granite edge I present to the world. Most people flinch. Betas look away. Omegas usually scent my aggression and submit.
Star just smiles. “You’re scowling.”
“I’m always scowling.”
“Good to know.” She stretches, catlike, and my fists clench at my sides. I want to touch her. Want to drag her back under me and spend the next week proving she’s mine. “So… what now?”
The question is a dangling noose.
I don’t have an answer. I have obligations. A contract I signed in ink and boardroom silence, a future that doesn’t have room for honeysuckle and heat. It means less than nothing to me. It would mean everything to Star... If she knew.
“Now?” I scrape a hand over my stubbled jaw. “Now we get dressed. I have a meeting, work… I need to…”
Lies. There’s nothing on my calendar I can’t clear. But I need space, distance, air that doesn’t smell like honeysuckle, and bonding.
Her expression flickers—hurt, maybe, but she covers it fast. Too fast. That sunshine dims, and I hate myself.
“Oh. Right. Of course.” She stands, unsteady on her feet, and I move before my brain catches up. My hands catch her waist, steadying her. She’s so small compared to me. Delicate in a way that makes my protective instinct snarl and snap at its cage.
She looks up at me, fingers resting on my forearms. “I always wondered,” she says softly, “what it would be like. To be mated. To feel… complete.”
My blood ices.
“Star—”
“It’s okay.” She cuts me off, pressing a hand to my chest. Right over my heart, which is hammering like I’m in a fight.
“I know it’s sudden. I know we’re strangers.
But I felt it, Liam. The bond. It’s there.
” Her thumb strokes my skin, gentle. Soothing.
The way I’d calm a spooked animal. “I always hoped my alpha would be… well, someone like you.”
Someone like me. A lying bastard with obligations that don’t include her.
The words stick in my throat. I should tell her. Should rip this bandage off now, let her hate me before she’s in too deep. But her scent is wrapping around me, sweet and hopeful, and my father’s hollow eyes flash behind my lids.
I just want the smell of her.
I’m a coward.
“Don’t,” I manage, voice like gravel.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pin your hopes on me, Starlight.” The nickname slips out, unplanned. Her eyes brighten at it, and I want to punch the wall. “I’m not the alpha you think I am.”
She studies me for a long moment, head cocked. Then she nods, slow. “Okay.” She steps closer, and my hands tighten on her hips, gripping when I should be releasing. “But you’re my alpha. Whether you like it or not.”
I like. I like it. The bond screams. The challenge in her voice snaps the last thread of my control. I growl—an actual, rumbling growl that vibrates from my chest—and spin her around. Her hands slap against the wall, palms flat, and I press against her back. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then show me.”
I’m inside her before the words fade. She’s wet, ready, and the heat of her clasp shorts out my brain.
My thrusts are deep, deliberate, each one marking territory I have no right to claim.
She meets me, push for push, her moans a symphony that drowns out the voice screaming liar, liar, liar in my head.
When the knot swells, locking us together, she throws her head back against my shoulder. “Mine,” she whispers like a brand. “Mine, mine, mine.”
I bury my face in her neck, breathing in the scent that’s already rewriting my DNA, but I don’t say it back.
I can’t.
Because I’ve been claimed already. And the contract sitting in my desk drawer—that sterile, loveless agreement—it’s a rope tightening with every breath she takes against my skin.
The knot finally relents, and I pull out with a slick sound that makes her shiver.
She stays beneath me, breathing hard, her thighs trembling.
I should step away. Should put distance between us before this thing crusts over into something permanent.
Instead, I turn her gently, my hands on her waist again as if they’ve found their favorite place in the world.
Her eyes are glazed, pupils blown wide from the hormones and aftermath.
She looks up at me, and the trust is so blinding it burns.
“So what happens now?” she asks.
My jaw clenches so hard I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. “I can’t, Star.”
Even as I’m speaking, my body is screaming, mine.
Making my denial a lie. The scent of her arousal hasn’t faded—it’s shifted, sweetened, like she’s already gearing up for another wave.
The biological hell of an omega’s heat. No alpha in his right mind would walk away from a newly-bonded omega in the middle of it.
Too bad I’m not in my right mind. Haven’t been since I walked through her door.
“Why are you analyzing this?” The questions come out harsher than I intend.
She doesn’t flinch. “Because this is my life. Because, I guess I believe in fairy tales. My grandma used to say that finding your true mate was like finding the other piece of yourself.”
I swallow. Hard. “Fairy tales hurt people.”
“Or save them.” She steps back, and my hands fall away.
I hate the loss of contact immediately. She pads across the room, naked and unashamed, and picks up a discarded shirt.
It’s mine—one I tossed off last night, and pulls it over her head.
Her body in my clothes makes my heart batter my chest, bruising with its rapid beat.
“My parents were a bonded pair. Alpha father, omega mother. The real deal. He used to bring her flowers every single Wednesday for twenty-seven years. Not because he had to. Because he couldn’t not. ”
She turns back to me, and the shirt hangs off one shoulder, revealing the mark I left there. Fresh. Red. Possessive.
“He always said the bond changed his life. Made him better. Stronger. That having something worth protecting gave him purpose.” Her voice goes soft, wistful. “I grew up dreaming of that. Of my prince. The one who’d fit me perfectly.”
I’m already shaking my head. “Star—”
“All you have to do is deliver my glass slipper, Liam.” She smiles, and it’s teasing, but there’s steel underneath. “That’s what bonding is. A glass slipper that only your true omega can fit. And I fit you. You know I do.”
The metaphor is so fucking ridiculous it should make me laugh. Instead, it makes me want to howl. “And what happens if you lose that omega?”
The smile freezes on her face.