37. Jp
JP
S he storms out of Danver’s like the ground might crack open if she doesn’t put distance between us fast enough. It’s like watching the end of a movie where you thought you were getting the happily ever after—but instead, you’re watching a funeral.
And I just stand there, watching my sister pull her from the bar. Pull her away from me.
Frozen.
Frozen by fear, by anxiety, by fucking indecision. Do I jump? Everything in me screams, hell yes, jump, motherfucker. Go after her. Fix this.
But the blackness that’s been wrapped around my heart for years tightens, heavy as iron. Every time I try to claw my way out from under it, it drags me back down. And for one beat too long, it wins.
It takes me a second to breathe. A second longer to realize half the bar is watching me waiting to see what I’m going to do.
I’m still gripping the cue stick with white knuckles, Heart pounding in my ears.
My skin crawls from where Lou touched me.
I didn’t push her off right away because she’s good people, and we do, in fact, go way back.
We’d always done sex right. Easy, no strings.
But tonight? The second her hand landed on me, all I wanted was her off.
It felt wrong.
Not just unwelcome—wrong. Like trying to force the wrong key into a lock.
My body recoiled before I even knew why.
I was already working on gently pulling away when Sterling came storming over like a fucking thunderstorm.
Eyes on fire. Scent sharp and wild. That fiery fury in her voice when she told Lou to get her hands off her Alpha.
I was shocked for a whole different reason then.
I was fucking leveled by her raw fury, the fire in her eyes. It hit me like a punch to the chest. And goddamn if it wasn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
My whole body is still buzzing—not with alcohol or adrenaline.
With her.
The scent she left in her wake is still clinging to me. Pure fucking Omega fury.
Someone behind me mutters, “If you’re not chasing after her in sixty seconds, you’re a fucking idiot.”
That does it.
I throw the cue stick. Not gently. It clatters against the table and someone yells, but I don’t care. My boots are already moving. Not after her; nothing good would come from me chasing her down.
I push out the back door into the alley like a bull seeing red. I can’t think, can’t breathe, too keyed up, too pissed off, too fucking turned on. Every cell in my body is vibrating with tension, my chest like a drumline. I’m furious.
I’m furious at myself and this fucked-up situation.
Why did I just stand there? Let her believe something untrue. Let her walk out the door thinking she didn’t matter.
I kick the side of the dumpster. Hard. The metal clangs and the impact sends a bolt of pain up my leg, but I welcome it. It gives me something to hold onto. Because inside I’m a goddamn mess.
I felt it.
The second our eyes locked, when she was storming toward me like she was gonna murder me with her bare hands—I felt it. The surging of her scent as it flooded the air and mine answered without my permission. The Omega in her recognizing me, calling me, claiming me.
I could smell the moment her instincts knew.
And instead of kissing her stupid like I should have—right there in front of everyone, claiming her the way every molecule in my body was screaming for—I just let her walk away.
Let her storm off believing she didn’t matter, like I wasn’t fucking burning for her.
Like I wasn’t two seconds away from falling to my knees and begging her to stay.
She’s probably halfway to her car by now. Probably planning to say goodbye to Pack Redgrave, to Twilight Harbor, to any chance we ever had of being a pack because of me.
Instead of being safe at home, wrapped between all of us, she’s walking down dark streets in that little skirt and those damn boots. Have I done anything that made her feel wanted? Fuck. She’s everything I’ve been aching for since the second I first caught her scent.
And maybe it’s the bond kicking in—our two halves finally recognizing each other. Maybe it’s some scent-match shit I don’t fully understand. But I feel her.
I feel her. From here.
Like a string tied to my chest pulling tighter with every step she takes away from me. Like gravity bending me in her direction. Like the air’s gone thin and I can’t breathe unless she’s close.
And I know that there’s no universe, no version of reality, where she goes home alone tonight.
Not after what just passed between us. Not after the way she looked at me, the way she’s touched me, marked me with her fury and pain and that breathtaking strength.
She’s mine. And I am hers.
I curse and pivot hard and I’m running before I can talk myself out of it, down the alley, cutting across the side lot, past the line of parked trucks and dodging the traffic down Main Street. My breath clouds in the night air as I scan every direction.
There.
Two blocks up. That hair. That sway. That furious stomp. I catch up just as she hits the corner by the square, where the streetlights are soft and the trees overhead rustle in a chilly autumn wind. She’s alone. Where’s my sister? Why did Daisy leave her?
“Sterling!” I call out, but she doesn’t stop. “Sterling,” I shout louder this time.
“Goddamn it…Wait!” I jog to catch up and reach for her arm, my hand closing around her bicep a little too tightly, spinning her around—and freeze.
Tears. Real ones.
Big round tears that slowly slip from her eyes and shine on her cheeks. Why did it have to be tears? Why couldn’t it be anger? I open my mouth but she doesn’t give me a chance to apologize.
“If you don’t want me,” she says, her voice cracking, “just say it.”
My heart lurches.
“What?” I breathe.
“You heard me.” Her voice shakes. “You don’t have to play this game, JP. You’ve kissed me. You’ve held me. You’ve scent- marked me, and yet you always pull away like you regret it. Or it was a mistake.”
I clench my jaw so tight it hurts.
“I never said that,” I growl.
“But you act like it.”
She shoves at my chest, her fists small but furious.
“You act like I’m not good enough—like all the times we’ve touched were a mistake.
Like pulling me out of that ocean was just some accident you’ve been stuck with ever since.
I feel like an inconvenience to you, JP.
Like someone you got saddled with until Cass and Quinn show up to take over. ”
Sterling shoves my chest again, harder this time, and I actually stumble back a step. Her eyes are blazing, glassy with fresh tears, her chest heaving.
“All I want to do is drown in you,” she says, voice cracking, “and never come up for air. But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep begging you to want me.”
One second, she’s shoving me—and the next, I’ve got my arms around her, dragging her in, hauling her so tight against me her feet lift off the ground, and then my mouth is on hers like it’s the last oxygen I’ll ever get.
She gasps, stiff for a heartbeat—and then melts.
My hand tangles in her hair, gripping the silky mass tight, tilting her head until she’s right where I want her—exposed, open to me, perfect. Her mouth opens with the softest gasp, lips already parting for me like she’s been waiting her whole life for this exact moment. And I take it. I take her.
I kiss her like I’m starving.
I need her more than air.
And God help me—I do.
Her taste is sweet and sharp, like heat and desperation, and when her tongue meets mine, stroke for stroke, bold and unafraid, I feel something inside me crack open. A deep, buried part of me—caged and locked down for years—shatters.
The way she moans into my mouth, high and breathy and fucking needy, goes straight to my cock. It jerks in my jeans, straining against denim with painful urgency.
Every sound she makes, every soft whimper, every desperate gasp, fans the flames licking through me. Her hands fist in my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll pull away, like I haven’t already given in completely. I’m done pretending. Done holding back. That kiss? That kiss ruins me.
It’s everything I’ve been denying myself.
Everything I’ve wanted since the moment she crashed into my world and flipped it upside down.
And now that I’ve had a taste, I can’t stop.
I deepen the kiss, growling into her mouth as my grip tightens, dragging her body flush against mine so she can feel what she does to me. So she knows. My restraint is in tatters, and if she tells me to take her here and now, I will—consequences be damned.
Because this isn’t just want.
It’s need and instinct.
Sterling Hart just flipped the goddamn switch I’ve spent years trying not to touch.
We break apart just long enough for me to say, voice rough as gravel, “You think I don’t want you?”
She opens her mouth, but I don’t let her answer. I kiss her again, harder.
I don’t stop kissing her until we’re breathless, until she’s clinging to my jacket like I’m the only thing tethering her to the earth. I set her back on her feet, barely managing to let her go.
Then I take her hand—tight and unrelenting. Her hand is so small in mine. I grip it like a lifeline.
I tug her behind me, fast and stumbling, my breathing still coming in sharp pants. Fuck, I need her. I haul her down the sidewalk, through the alley, past Daisy’s joint. Into the park.
I know this place like the back of my hand. I’ve been slipping in and out of it since I was a kid. I know all the places a person can get lost—and not be found.
I pull her under the trees, the cold air brushing against my heated skin. We reach a shadowed spot near the gazebo, tucked between two old oaks, and I don’t wait another fucking second.
I turn, pressing Sterling back against the thick trunk of one of them, and kiss her again. Hard. Devouring. Like I need her to understand everything I haven’t been able to say.
But this time—it’s her who crashes into me.
This time, she’s the storm.
She fists my collar and drags me down like she’s trying to brand her mouth into mine. Her teeth graze my bottom lip, her tongue tangling with mine, and I’m drowning.
I growl and press closer, until my chest is flush with hers, my thigh slotting between her legs like we’ve done this a thousand times. My hands cage her in, palms flat against the bark on either side of her head. She’s caged. Cornered. Mine.
She fists my jacket, pulling me into her like she needs me as much as I need her. Her mouth opens for me, hot and wet and desperate, and fuck, I could die from the taste of her.
I slowly press her back until she’s flush against the thick trunk of an old oak, just me and her and the stars above us—suddenly free of the rain.
My hands cage her in, one on each side of her head. My body hovers close, just inches between us. My scent curls around her, thick and heady, licorice and heat, winding into every breath she takes.
“You think I don’t want you?” I rasp, voice low, rough, vibrating through both of us. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
Her breath catches. Her eyes search mine, wide and dark and so vulnerable, and I want to fucking burn the world down for every second she thought I didn’t want her.
“I’ve tried to stay away,” I admit, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Tried to be the one who didn’t fuck this up. Who didn’t touch what he can’t have. But you?” I let my nose trail along her jaw, breathing her in deep. “You wreck all my rules, Omega.”
She makes a sound—soft, desperate—and that’s it. That’s my breaking point.
I bite her neck. Not hard enough to break the skin. Not claiming. Just enough to feel her pulse on my tongue. Enough to hear her moan my name like it’s the only one she’s ever known.
“You’ve been under my skin since the second I pulled you out of that fucking water.”
“JP—” she starts.
I cut her off.
“You wanna know why I didn’t stay? Why I didn’t fuck you the second I felt your slick on my thighs? Why I haven’t bent you over and filled you with my cock until you couldn’t fucking walk?”
She nods, wide-eyed.
I lean in, my forehead against hers, panting.
“Because I knew if I started, I’d never stop. I knew if I tasted you, I’d ruin every other kiss for the rest of my life. I knew if I knotted you?—”
I growl, deep and low, the sound pulled from somewhere ancient and feral.
“—I’d want to do it again. And again. And again. Until I made you mine. I’d never fucking stop wanting you.”
Sterling whimpers. Her hands find the hem of my jacket, bunching it tight. “Maybe I don’t want you to stop.”
My hand slips under her skirt, my fingers dragging up the inside of her thigh and meeting slick before I even get to her pussy. She’s already wet. Already fucking soaked for me, and I haven’t even touched her properly yet.
“You’re mine,” I growl, and I don’t even care that I sound unhinged. “You’ve been mine since the second you looked at me like you saw right through the bullshit.”
Her nails scrape down my chest. “Then prove it.”