Chapter 14 #2
“And the guys have agreed that if I don’t get approved, we’re all relocating to New Zealand.”
She laughs. “I love that, and have always wanted to visit New Zealand and Australia, except I’m terrified of those huge, venomous spiders in Australia.”
“I’ll take you there one day and show you it’s not that bad,” I say, and she simply smiles, clearly not believing me, but I mean every damn word. “What’s your background, then?”
“Well, you’ve met my sister, Ivy. From the moment she presented at fifteen, she was the perfect Omega,” she says, pulling her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.
“Found her match at eighteen. Bonded, blissful, the whole fairy tale. And I was…” She trails off.
Her jaw tightens. “The anxious one. The difficult one. The one everyone had to make accommodations for.”
I reach over, my hand finding her chin, lifting her face until her eyes meet mine. Her skin is soft under my fingers, her jaw delicate. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Claire. Not a single fucking thing, you know that?”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t pull away, so I hold her for a few more seconds, then release her chin, because if I don’t, I’m going to kiss her and never let go.
“I plan to play rugby here,” I add, redirecting before my willpower runs out entirely.
She laughs. “I need to come watch.”
“Yeah? I’d love that.”
“Is it violent?”
“Nah. Maybe.”
Again she laughs at me, lowering her knees to be crossed in front of her, her hands on her thighs. “Then I’m definitely coming.” Her grin is wicked and it’s contagious. I finish my coffee and set my cup back down as she grabs hers to sip.
We talk about her grandmother and her recipes. Brody’s inability to pronounce a single Māori word despite years of correction. She’s giggling at that, and the sound fills the room and sinks into my bones.
She puts her coffee down, then stares at me, her gaze dipping to my mouth. Mine keeps dropping to hers too, and the feral part of me that operates on instinct and the absolute certainty that this Omega is mine is straining forward so hard to claim her.
Her hand reaches out first. Soft fingers grazing my chest, palm flat over my sternum. “I’m really struggling to stay away from you,” she whispers. “I wanted to ask you something, but right now I can’t think straight.”
“What was it?”
“Maybe later,” she says teasingly, then leans in. Her hand slides from my chest to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. Her mouth finds mine, and every wall I’ve ever built disintegrates.
The kiss isn’t gentle. It’s hungry, her tongue finding mine, and my vision tunnels as my blood roars. I’m gripping the couch cushions so hard my knuckles crack because I know myself. The second I put my hands on her, I won’t stop.
She draws my tongue into her mouth and sucks. A growl rips from my chest, and my hips jerk forward. This adorable Omega gasps against me, the sound going straight to my cock.
No woman has ever unraveled me this fast, or ever kissed me and left me shaking and my body howling with the primal, absolute knowledge that she is mine.
Her fingers tighten in my hair, and she pulls me closer.
Her chest presses against mine, those perfect breasts touching me, and her heartbeat matches my own, wild and frantic.
She moans into my mouth as I kiss her, and the last thread of restraint I’m holding snaps.
I reach over to wrap her in my arms when…
The fucking oven alarm shrieks.
We break apart, both of us panting and her glasses fogged. My hands are on her waist.
She bursts out laughing. “The cookies. I put a batch in before you got here, needing something sweet. Don’t move.
” She pushes off the couch, all flushed, her lips swollen, and rushes to the kitchen.
She taps the alarm. Silence. “They’ll be cool enough to eat in about ten minutes. Or, if you prefer them hot…”
“Sounds perfect.”
I’m off the couch before she finishes blushing, crossing the kitchen, taking her face in both hands and kissing her again.
This time there’s no couch to grip. My hands slide down her back and draw her flush against me.
She melts into it, her arms around my neck, her body arching against mine.
She’s so beautiful and sinful. A purr rolls through her chest, so purely Omega that my vision whites out.
“I’m not normally this forward,” she breathes between kisses. “But I’ve been dying to do this again since yesterday.”
“Same.” I gently catch her lower lip between my teeth. She gasps. My mouth then moves to her neck, tracing the tendon, and my hands slide down her spine and settle on the curve of her ass. She presses into me, clearly feeling the hardness of my huge cock, and I groan against her skin.
“You’re everything,” I murmur below her ear. “Every fucking thing.”
She takes my hand and walks me through the living room, past the bookshelves, past the trays of spinach twists, toward a dark doorway. She glances back, half shy, half fearless. “In case the other two are watching from your kitchen window.”
“They’d enjoy the show.”
She laughs, and we enter her bedroom, where it’s dark, moonlight streaming in from the window and sheets flat on a queen-size bed calling our name. She twists to face me, and my hands find the hem of her T-shirt before I pause.
She nods. “Please.”
That tiny permission goes straight through me.
I peel the shirt over her head as she reaches for mine, tugging it up with impatient hands.
I let her take it off, and when our shirts are gone, her palms press flat to my bare chest, warm along skin already too tight with craving her against me, tasting her, licking her all over.
Her fingers trail over muscle, the ink, the chain at my throat, and every slow touch drags another rough breath out of me.
My gaze falls as my breath hitches at how fucking perfect she is—soft curves of her full breasts, the dark pink shade of her large areolas and nipples. Fuck, my cock is throbbing in my pants, and my hands reach over to hold her tits, kneading. I’m completely lost to her beauty.
The carnal desperation in me sharpens brutally. “You’re so beautiful.”
She draws me down onto the bed, her back against the sheets, my weight braced above her as those delicious legs wrap around my hips, and I’m spiraling toward a point of no return.
“I want you,” she whispers urgently. “But no sex yet. I rushed with Louis and—”
I press my forehead to hers. “We go as far as you want. You say stop and I will.”
She smiles up at me in the moonlight and hauls me back down. We’re kissing savagely again, her hands gripping my shoulders.
That’s when that damn oven alarm screams again, and I’m groaning.
“Oh, shit.” She drops her head back. “I must have tapped it instead of switching it off.”
“Stay here. I’ll handle it.”
“Bathroom,” she states, rolling toward the en suite. “Then I’m right back.”
I hurry toward the kitchen, floating, my body humming, unable to believe that two hours ago I was lying in bed fantasizing about ripping Louis apart and now I’m in Claire’s bedroom about to make her scream.
I switch off the oven alarm properly—dialed to zero and no chance of interrupting us again. That’s when I hear a scratching sound. Metal on metal, and it’s coming from the back door on the other side of the kitchen. What the hell is that?
Every muscle in my body tenses, and I stride across the kitchen in silence, part of me thinking it’s Corey or Brody sneaking in after seeing me with Claire. Jealous bastards.
Before I reach the door, the handle turns slowly. Then the lock mechanism clicks from the other side.
Instantly, I grab the handle and rip the door open.
The force drags him forward. He stumbles over the threshold, one foot catching, body pitching toward me, and for one split second, all I see is black fabric, a half-open backpack, and the glint of something metal in his hand.
Not Brody.
Not Corey.
Louis.
My blood turns cold before the rage hits.
He freezes with eyes wide, mouth parted around a breath he doesn’t get to finish. I seize the collar of his hoodie and drive him back against the doorframe hard enough to rattle the hinges, holding him there.
“What the fuck,” I growl, low enough that it barely sounds human, “are you doing here?”