Chapter 6
Chapter Six
SAWYER
Instincts are riding me hard. Liv is standing there in my shirt, smelling like me, and asking me what we do.
She was ready to let me fuck her, and fuck if I didn’t consider it.
But Liv is a virgin, and if I knot her on date one, I might scare her off.
My gaze strays to where the hem of my shirt caresses her thighs, and a deep purr reverberates around the room.
My cock pulses. God, she’d look so pretty bent over.
I step toward her, reaching, but at the last second, I wrangle control of myself.
Get it together, Sawyer. I swallow hard, forcing my eyes to move to the couch.
The plan was to have a cute movie night, but I don’t know how I’m going to be able to share a cushion with her without throwing her down and driving into her.
With the guys out of the house, I’m struggling to find a reason not to fuck her on fake date number one.
“Are you okay? Your eyes are dilated and your chest is rumbling . . .” She trails off and chews on her lip. “Are you mad?”
This sweet, innocent omega. My pack would love her. “No, baby. I’m not mad. Just fighting for control.”
“Interesting. I didn’t think alphas went into ruts without their omega’s scent.” She digs in her purse and pulls out a small notebook, flipping it open and clicking a pen.
“Are you taking notes?”
She blinks and glances at me. “How else am I supposed to remember everything?”
“Fair point.” I breathe in deep, realize there’s something missing, and frown. A vital part of her omeganess is absent. Her scent. “Are you on suppressants?”
“I’m taking scent control. It blocks scent receptors and my pheromone production.”
I rear back. “You can’t smell me?” Why am I so offended by that? The other night, I marked her. I assumed she would be able to scent me.
“No. Or food. Or candles or anything, really.”
“That sounds miserable.”
She shrugs, cheeks turning pink. “It’s fine,” she murmurs, pen scratching over her paper as she finishes her thoughts.
Liv shuts the notebook and slips the pen into the spirals at the top.
“I . . . I’m also on heat control.” Chewing on her lip, she shoots a worried glance in my direction. Like I might be judging her.
I’m not. Part of me is excited as hell at the prospect of being not only her first, but also being able to help her through her first unmedicated heat. But I’d never ask her to stop the heat control. That’s a choice she has to make. As far as the scent control, though . . .
“You should stop taking the scent control.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’d rather not.”
“Part of learning to be with a pack is understanding how your scent can change the dynamic. How it can drive an alpha mad. Soothe a beta. Put a smile on your packmate’s face. Besides, lesson two was going to be about scent marking.”
Sighing, she nods. “You make a good point. For science.”
“Yeah, science,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck.
“So . . . if we’re not going to fuck, what are we going to do?”
She really needs to stop saying fuck.
Down, boy.
Right. I clear my throat and gesture toward the couch. “May I introduce you to a lesson in cuddling?”
“Cuddling?” she asks, studying the couch.
“Mmm. It’s an art, and if done right, it can be the perfect way to bond. Plus, your pack will want to hold you, so it’s important to understand the different positions.”
She opens her notebook again. “Positions like sex? Like a reverse cowgirl of cuddling?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, are you trying to kill me?” I drop my head back and stare at the ceiling, willing thoughts of old wrinkly elderly women and old saggy ball sacks into my brain and not Liv’s ass bouncing up and down.
Her pen scrapes across the paper. “Are all alphas easily distracted?”
“It’s worse when an omega strips down to her lingerie,” I deadpan.
“It’s a matching set,” she defends. “I thought it was cute.”
“Fucking sexy,” I say on a growl. “Shit. Stop talking about your underwear.” Dirty urinals. Smelly gym socks. A litter box. The smell of portable toilets at a baseball field in the summer. My cock deflates. Finally, I exhale. “Let’s just put on a movie, okay?”
Another minute of this, and I might just take her up on her offer to have sex day one.
“That’s why you wanted me to bring snacks,” she murmurs. “What are we watching?”
Now this is a conversation I can have without thinking about her naked. I avoid looking in her direction, just in case, though, and make my way to the couch. “There are a few choices. Classic rom-com—”
“You would watch a rom-com?”
Frowning slightly, I take in Liv’s adorably perplexed expression. She looks like she’s trying to solve a complex mathematical equation with only half the data. “Of course I’d watch a rom-com. Why wouldn’t I?” The guys and I watch them from time to time, mostly on holidays.
There’s a little groove between her eyebrows I want to kiss away. “Nothing, it’s just, my mother said . . .”
Her mom. The woman has never liked me, and I have to say, the feeling is mutual.
She’s a vapid, materialistic, judgmental bitch, and I don’t say that lightly.
Despite my mother being good enough to help raise her two children for her, Marnie has always made it clear that I am beneath her son and daughter.
I have to push down the growl forming at the base of my throat, because I can guarantee that whatever bullshit Marnie Wellington has filled Liv’s head with is going to piss me the hell off.
Liv’s pretty face scrunches up in a frown.
“What did she say, baby?”
“That omegas should be agreeable. That alphas don’t want omegas with opinions.” Her little button nose crinkles in distaste as she says those words, so at least she knows how gross that sentiment is. But that doesn’t mean some part of her hasn’t internalized it.
Slowly, I run my palms up Liv’s arms, enjoying the little shiver that racks her body before I settle my hands on either side of her face, cupping her cheeks and tracing her jaw with my thumbs.
“Olivia Wellington, I hope you know that your mother is full of shit, and any alpha who’s halfway decent and worth a damn not only wants his omega to have opinions, but he wants to hear them and encourage them. ”
Her eyelashes flutter when I lean forward just enough to skim the tip of my nose against hers. I want to cover her in my scent and hate that she doesn’t even realize that’s what I’m doing.
Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to smell her. This woman is going to try my restraint far more than I ever would have thought possible. “Do you understand, Liv?”
She nods. I hate that I can’t inhale her the way I want to. One of the ways an alpha can take care of an omega is by paying attention to the way their scents change, and I can’t wait to have a better understanding of what she’s thinking.
“Now, what kind of movie would you like to watch? A rom-com, epic sci-fi? Maybe a horror flick?”
Her nose wrinkles at that. “No, thank you. I don’t like horror movies. They make my amygdala and hippocampus go into overdrive, and that’s just uncomfortable.”
A deep chuckle vibrates through my chest. Of course, she’d have some scientific explanation for why she doesn’t like scary movies.
I rub my thumb over her jaw before dragging it along the lower edge of her bottom lip.
It makes her pupils expand, and I doubt she realizes she’s doing it, but her body leans forward, eating up the space between us.
“Scary movies can be great for cuddling,” I whisper. “But maybe another time. What do you say, rom-com?”
“It would be good for research purposes,” she says, her voice breathy. She clutches her notebook against her perfect breasts as her gaze drops to my lips.
“Right. Research purposes.” My body very much wants to do things to Liv that would make her blush, merely for research purposes.
Fucking hell. She has no idea how fucking perfect she is, does she?
“Come on.” I bend down and scoop her into my arms bridal style.
Liv lets out a startled squeak and wraps the arm not holding on to her notebook around my neck. God, she fits perfectly in my arms.
“Sawyer, what are you doing?”
“Just another little lesson. Alphas are very touchy-feely, and we can be overbearing and possessive. You’re going to have to learn to enjoy being carried around.”
Her sweet giggle heats my chest and stiffens my cock, and when I plop down onto the couch with her in my lap, I know she feels it when she lets out a little gasp.
“Oh!” She wiggles, trying to get comfortable and making me even harder.
When I groan, she stills. “Am I hurting you? It’s really hard.
Is it painful to be that hard?” Her slim fingers drift near my cock, like she’s decided to find out how hard my erection is.
I barely catch her wrist before she can touch me and make me come in my pants like a teenager.
Groaning, I let my head lean forward and inhale the floral scent of her shampoo, imagining I could scent her perfume. “I wouldn’t say you’re hurting me, but if you don’t stop wiggling that sweet little ass over my dick, I’m going to be rocking a serious case of blue balls.”
“Scientifically speaking, epididymal hypertension can be temporarily uncomfortable but doesn’t pose any actual threat to your testicles.
It’s simply a case of extra blood flow to your genitals when you’re aroused, causing your testicles to swell and your veins to narrow in preparation for sex.
” The cheeky little omega flashes me a sweet smile and pats my knee. “You’ll be fine.”
“Gee, thanks, Liv. I appreciate that very thorough explanation as to why my balls ache. Now, can I teach you something tonight?” She giggles again as I pull her back against my chest and arrange our bodies so she’s resting comfortably, her forehead in the crook of my neck.
If she wasn’t taking scent control, she’d be drowning in my scent, with her nose right there against my neck.
“Yes, of course. So sorry, sir.”