Chapter 16 Kieran
KIERAN
SITTING IN THE simple wooden chair next to the bed where Jordy was snoozing, the sound of his soft breathing and the hum of the room’s A/C unit weren’t enough for my mind to focus on. My thoughts were always loud, but tonight it felt like my own brain was yelling at me.
It was getting pretty late, and I needed to sleep.
But the thought of crawling into bed next to him felt daunting somehow.
I remembered telling him at home that I wasn’t an animal, that I had control over my actions, but obviously that had been a lie.
Not only had I taken his virginity on the ground outside, but I’d done it in a spiteful rage.
Not that he’d seemed to notice any of that.
I hadn’t heard a single complaint from him, during or after.
Once we’d rinsed off enough in the ocean and gotten dressed, I’d carried him back to the room, prompting some shocked looks from the receptionist. But he’d been kind of smug and happy about it.
I ran him a warm bath and let him soak in it while I sat on the floor next to the tub and helped him pick the leaves and twigs out of his hair.
I kept waiting for the gravity of the situation to hit him, but it never did. If anything, he was more cuddly and affectionate than ever, happily chatting away about the aquarium and everything else under the sun.
And now he was sleeping peacefully, seemingly without a care in the world. He definitely wasn’t mad at me, like I’d been so sure he would be. If anything, he seemed thrilled about what had happened.
Didn’t omegas dream about losing their v-cards in dreamy, candle-lit scenarios with declarations of love and devotion? Even the ones that didn’t, I’m pretty sure they didn’t dream of losing it like that.
But I’d been so incensed by the idea of someone else having that part of him that I’d…
No, I didn’t have an excuse. A nagging voice in the back of my brain insisted that I didn’t need an excuse.
Jordy was completely fine. He was happy.
He didn’t regret anything or hate my guts.
That voice was probably the dark and selfish part of me that only cared about myself and my needs.
That was the part of me I needed to keep him away from.
Because obviously he wasn’t going to protect himself from it.
Because I couldn’t put it off any longer and because my head was starting to hurt from exhaustion, I carefully lifted up the side of the blanket and slipped under it. He didn’t even flinch. I stared at him for a while, my nerves feeling raw and ragged, until I finally dropped into unconsciousness.
I WOKE UP in one of my old houses, in one of my old beds.
I stared up at the ceiling where I’d taped a poster for a superhero series I’d loved as a kid, until I heard Jordy calling me from the living room. What was he doing here?
As I made my way out of my old bedroom, I realized my motions were sluggish, like I was moving through a vat of oil.
I jumped at a flash of lightning followed instantly by an ear-shattering crack of thunder.
I hated thunderstorms because my mom always waited up worrying about whether my dad would get in a car accident and not come home.
When I made it into the living room, I saw Jordy waiting there for me, on a ratty, patched up couch I could barely remember. It was so obscene, seeing him there looking so neat and tidy as usual, a stark contrast to the peeling wallpaper and stained carpet.
I reached out for him, but my hand passed through him like water, rippling his image.
“Jordy?” I asked, panic blooming in my gut as I scrambled closer to the couch to get to him. This time when I tried to grab him, he started breaking apart into pieces, crumbling into blocks to scatter all over the floor.
“Jordy!” I repeated, my voice cracking with the intense fear washing over me. Thunder cracked again, and the room lit up for a second.
“Kieran, wake up.” His pretty voice instructed me from somewhere to my side. My head whipped over, and relief flooded me as I saw him standing, safe and sound, by the front door.
“You’re okay.”
As long as he wasn’t hurt, then everything was fine. But when I looked down to the crumbled pile of pieces at my feet, I realized they weren’t made of Jordy. They were made of me.
Letting out a strangled sound of horror, I sprang as far back as I could, my back colliding with the couch as my boots stomped all over the carpet.
But they weren’t my boots. They were my dad’s work boots.
And the skin on the back of my hands was weathered by the sun, and without my tattoos.
My dad’s hands. I’d destroyed everything.
“Kieran!”
Jordy’s voice finally cut through the nightmare, and the room shattered into shards of broken glass around me.
I crashed into the waking world, panting and covered in sweat. The moment I was aware of my surroundings, Jordy’s candy scent flooded my nose, his slender fingers gripping my jaw as he put his face right up to mine. Just like he used to do when he would wake me up from a nightmare.
“Hey,” he breathed out, the soothing sound of his voice flowing into my ears and pouring into my chest to gently stroke my pounding heart.
In movies, I noticed that when someone woke another person up from a nightmare, they always said something obvious and inane like you were having a nightmare but he never said that to me. I guess he assumed I already knew that much.
“Hey,” I said back, but my own voice came out weak and gravelly. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s okay,” he assured me. He’d been saying that way too much to me as of late. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. I felt nauseous, like I was going to throw up. I’d forgotten how incredibly humiliating it could be for him to see what a freak show I was.
Shifting his hands from my jaw up into my hair, he gently guided my head down until it was resting on his chest. His heartbeat was steady and mellow, nothing like the frenetic pace being set in my chest. Part of me felt like I should pull away from him, but the way he was holding me and stroking my hair felt too damn good.
For a brief second, I almost felt like I could cry.
Swallowing hard, I wrapped my arms around his waist, squeezing him for a second before letting my body slump against his.
After everything I’d done to him, he was still so perfectly loyal and adoring.
He still wanted to make sure I was okay.
I didn’t deserve for someone like him to be so hung up on someone like me, but…
we’d agreed to forget all of that stuff for the weekend, hadn’t we?
“You’re so sweet,” I mumbled against the soft fabric of his t-shirt, stroking my hands over the contours of his torso and hips.
The intensely vivid memory of the way his hole had clenched and gripped onto my cock had me stiffening in my boxers.
I’d never had sex like that before. I’d felt crazed for his body, completely overtaken by greed.
Like I would have died if I couldn’t keep pounding into his perfect, tight little channel.
And I’d actually fucking knotted. It’d come out of nowhere, and by the time I’d realized what was happening, it was way too late to try and stop it.
That alone made me want to die of embarrassment, like a virgin who’d blown his load after two pumps.
It wasn’t exactly the same, but… it wasn’t that far off.
I’d been so into it, into him, that my body had just taken over and locked me inside, like I never wanted to leave him. And I’d… Oh, fuck.
“Are you on birth control?” I blurted out, so sudden and sharply that I startled him and he jumped a little against me. How could I be so fucking stupid? I hadn’t even thought of using a condom or anything.
“Relax,” he said, shifting back into the comfortable position he’d been in before I’d scared the shit out of him. “I’ve been on it since I started high school. I never miss a pill. Ever.”
My breath shuddered out in pure relief, and I rested my head back on his chest before I spoke again. “Thank fucking god. Wait,” I added. “That long?”
“Dad was, like, paranoid about me getting pregnant after I presented as an omega. I just take it in the morning with my scent suppressants.”
Unmarked omegas were required to take daily scent suppressants, for their own safety.
Not that Jordy’s had ever stopped me from scenting him.
I wanted to suggest a higher dose, but then I’d have to admit that it was like torture for me.
And that was just way too personal. I had to keep some of my dignity. A shred, at least.
“Does he… think you have sex?” I wondered. It was so weird to think about.
“No,” he answered immediately, giving an incredulous snort. “You’re joking, right? He’d go completely insane.”
“… Right.”
“But he’s not going to know that we did anything,” Jordy assured me. “You don’t need to worry.”
“Again, shouldn’t I be the one comforting you and calming you down?” I wondered.
“You’re the one that’s worried,” he pointed out. “I don’t need to be comforted.”
Groaning lightly, I tried to ignore the sting of shame that his words caused, by burying my face into his chest, pulling the blankets up to cover my head.
“I’m sure that’s a really attractive trait for an alpha,” I muttered caustically. “You must be so turned on.”
Tugging the blankets back down so my face was exposed, Jordy gave me one of his signature wry looks. “That’s dumb. I don’t think about things like that.”
I already knew that, but hearing him say it out loud did make me feel a little less embarrassed. Fractionally.
“Will you be honest about something?” I asked, after a stretch of silence, where his fingers stroking lightly down my back threatened to have me purring against him. The contact was soothing, and felt like an anchor holding me down to the earth.
“Of course.”
“You really aren’t disappointed?” I wondered. “In the way that… it happened?” I didn’t think I needed to explain further.