10. Dean
Dean
I t’s almost midnight by the time I pull into the parking lot of my building—former building, I correct myself. Three hours on the road after a twelve-hour shift has left me exhausted, but I couldn’t wait another day. Better to get this over with quickly, like ripping off a bandage.
I sit in my truck for a moment, gathering energy for what comes next. Pack up the last of my things. Sign the final paperwork Mrs. Patel has ready. Drive back to the motel in Portland that’s been my temporary home for the past week.
Start over. Again.
The apartment complex is quiet at this hour, most windows dark. I glance up at the third floor out of habit, eyes finding Noah’s window. There’s a faint light on—he’s still awake. My chest tightens at the thought of him just thirty feet away, separated by walls and floors and all the words we never said to each other.
For a brief, weak moment, I consider going to him. Knocking on his door one last time.
But what would be the point? I heard what he said to Jesse. If I weren’t an omega, would he even want me? Or was it just my heat making him respond? The doubt in his voice had been real, the fear genuine. And he’s right to have doubts.
I scrub a hand over my face, feeling the stubble I haven’t bothered to shave in days. Time to get this done.
Grabbing my empty duffel from the passenger seat, I head into the building. The lobby lights are dimmed for night, casting long shadows across the worn tiles. Mrs. Patel’s door is dark—she’s probably asleep, which is just as well. I’m in no mood for one of her well-meaning lectures about running away from my problems.
I take the stairs two at a time, wanting to be in and out as quickly as possible. When I reach the third-floor landing, I freeze.
Noah is sitting on the floor outside my apartment, knees pulled to his chest, head resting against the wall. For a moment, I think he might be asleep, but then his eyes open, locking on mine with an intensity that roots me to the spot.
“You’re back,” he says, scrambling to his feet. He looks exhausted.
“What are you doing here, Noah?” My voice comes out rougher than intended.
“Waiting for you.” He takes a step toward me, then seems to think better of it. “Mrs. Patel told me you were coming to get your things. That you’re moving permanently to Portland.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Being this close to him is already testing my resolve. I can smell him—that scent that’s haunted my dreams for the past week.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asks quietly. “Or just disappear without saying goodbye?”
The hurt in his voice cuts through me. “I left a note.”
“A note.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Three sentences. That’s all I was worth after everything?”
“What did you want me to say?” I ask, anger flaring suddenly. “That I couldn’t stay here listening to you question whether what happened between us was anything more than biology? That hearing you doubt my feelings—“
I stop abruptly, realizing what I’ve admitted. Noah’s eyes widen.
“You heard me talking to Jesse,” he says softly. “That day after my heat.”
“Yeah.” I shift my weight, uncomfortable with the vulnerability. “Thin walls.”
“Dean.” He takes another step toward me, close enough now that I could touch him if I reached out. “I was scared. Trying to protect myself by pretending what I felt wasn’t real. But I was wrong.”
Hope flickers dangerously in my chest. I try to smother it before it can grow. “Noah—“
“No, let me finish,” he interrupts, a new certainty in his voice. “I’ve had a week to think about this. To figure out what I really want. And it’s you, Dean. It’s been you since that first day with the broken key.”
The hope swells despite my best efforts. “You don’t have to—“
“I’m not saying this because I think it’s what you want to hear,” he continues, cutting me off again. “I’m saying it because it’s true. Because I wasted a week being afraid instead of being honest, and I’m not wasting another minute.”
He takes a deep breath, then looks me straight in the eyes. “I love you. Not because you’re an alpha, or because you helped me through my heat, but because you’re you . Because you remind me how to breathe when the walls are closing in. Because you fix my shelves and rescue my supplies in the rain and stand between me and everything that scares me without making me feel weak for being scared.”
My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it. “Noah—“
“I love you because you gave me a choice,” he says, his voice breaking slightly. “Every step of the way, you let me choose. And I’m choosing you, Dean. If you’ll have me.”
For a moment, I can’t speak, can’t think, can’t breathe. Everything I’ve convinced myself I couldn’t have is standing in front of me, offering himself freely.
“I went back to Ethan’s grave,” I finally say, the words coming from somewhere deep inside me. “After I left here. Needed to...say goodbye properly, I guess.”
Noah’s expression softens. “Dean, you don’t have to—“
“I do.” I need him to understand. “For years I’ve been stuck, Noah. Not living, just existing. Telling myself it was about honoring Ethan’s memory, but really it was about punishing myself.”
“Punishing yourself for what?” he asks gently.
“For not being there when the accident happened. For not saving him.” I swallow hard, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “For being on shift at the station instead of with him when that drunk driver hit his car.”
Noah reaches out, his hand hovering near mine, not quite touching. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Logically, I know that,” I admit. “But it didn’t stop me from feeling like I failed the one person I was supposed to protect. And part of me has been terrified of failing again. Of not deserving a second chance.”
“Dean.” This time Noah does touch me, his fingers warm against my wrist. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“That’s what Ethan would say,” I tell him, a small smile tugging at my lips despite everything. “He’d kick my ass for waiting five years to move on.”
“Sounds like someone I would have liked,” Noah says softly.
“He would have liked you too.” The realization settles in my chest, not painful as I expected, but warm. Right.
We stand there for a moment, connected by that simple touch of his fingers on my wrist.
“I was so sure you didn’t want this,” I finally say. “Want me.”
“I was so sure you were just responding to my heat,” Noah counters. “That once it was over, you’d regret it.”
“I could never regret you,” I tell him, needing him to believe it. “The only thing I regret is leaving instead of talking to you.”
“We’re both pretty terrible at talking,” he says with a small laugh.
“Yeah.” I reach up, finally allowing myself to touch his face, thumb brushing along his cheekbone. “We should probably work on that.”
Noah leans into my touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. When they open again, they’re clear and certain. “Does this mean you’re staying?”
It’s a simple question with complicated implications. Staying means opening myself up completely. Risking loss again. Choosing a future that frightens me as much as it calls to me.
“Do you want me to?” I ask, because I need to hear it again.
“Yes,” Noah says without hesitation. “I want you to stay. I want to see where this goes. I want to build something real with you.”
The last of my resistance crumbles. “Then I’m staying.”
His smile breaks across his face like sunrise, brilliant and beautiful. Before I can second-guess myself, I’m pulling him against me, my mouth finding his in a kiss that feels like coming home. He makes a soft sound against my lips, hands fisting in my shirt like he’s afraid I might disappear.
I back him against the wall, deepening the kiss, pouring everything I can’t say yet into the press of my lips, the stroke of my tongue. He opens for me willingly, eagerly, his body melting against mine in perfect surrender.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. Noah’s eyes are dark, his cheeks flushed, lips swollen from my kisses. He’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Come inside,” I murmur, nodding toward my apartment door.
He nods, and I fumble with my keys, distracted by the way he’s looking at me, like I’m something precious he thought he’d lost. Once the door is open, I pull him inside, kicking it shut behind us.
The emptiness of the apartment hits me anew. Bare walls, half-packed boxes, the stark evidence of my attempted escape.
“You really were leaving for good,” Noah says quietly.
“I really was,” I admit. “Thought it was what you wanted. What was best for both of us.”
He steps into my space, hands sliding up my chest to rest on my shoulders. “This is what I want. You. Here. With me.”
I cover his hands with mine. “I want that too. More than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.”
“Good,” he says, rising on his toes to press another kiss to my lips. “Because I’m not letting you go again.”
The possessive edge in his voice stirs something primal in me. I gather him closer, one hand at the small of his back, the other cupping the nape of his neck.
“Mine,” I growl against his lips, the word slipping out before I can stop it.
Instead of tensing or pulling away, Noah melts further into me. “Yours,” he agrees. “And you’re mine.”
The claim in his voice, the certainty of it, sends heat rushing through me. I walk him backward until his legs hit the couch—one of the few pieces of furniture I hadn’t yet arranged to have moved.
“I need you,” he whispers, hands already tugging at my shirt. “Need to feel you.”
I help him pull my shirt over my head, then his, both of us impatient for skin contact. When our bare chests press together, it feels like a circuit completing. His skin is hot against mine, his scent intensifying with arousal.
“Thought about this every night,” I admit, trailing kisses down his neck. “Dreamt about you.”
“Me too,” he gasps, head falling back to give me better access. “Couldn’t sleep without—ah—without thinking about you.”
I guide him down onto the couch, covering his smaller body with mine, careful to keep most of my weight on my forearms. His legs part instinctively, making space for me between his thighs. The position brings our hips into alignment, both of us hard already, desperate for friction.
I take my time with him, learning his body properly without the haze of heat and rut clouding our minds. I discover the sensitive spot behind his ear that makes him squirm. The way he gasps when I use my teeth on his nipples. The breathless little sounds he makes when I stroke him just right.
By the time I slide into him, we’re both trembling with need. The tight heat of him nearly undoes me on the spot.
“Okay?” I ask, forcing myself to hold still, to give him time to adjust.
“More than,” he assures me, legs wrapping around my waist, pulling me deeper.
We move together, finding a rhythm that builds steadily, intensely. This is different from his heat—more deliberate, more connected. I can see the clarity in his eyes, the conscious choice in every response.
“Love you,” he gasps as we get close, the words driving me higher, faster. “Dean, I love you.”
“Noah,” I groan, feeling my control slipping, the familiar pressure building at the base of my spine. “Mine. My Noah.”
“Yours,” he agrees, his back arching as he starts to come apart beneath me. “Only yours.”
We fall over the edge together, his release triggering mine, pleasure crashing through us in waves that leave us gasping and trembling in the aftermath.
Later, curled together on the couch, Noah’s head on my chest, I trace lazy patterns on his bare shoulder. The future stretches out before us, full of possibilities both thrilling and terrifying.
“I need to call my boss,” I say after a while. “Tell him I’m not taking the permanent transfer after all.”
Noah tilts his head up to look at me. “You sure?”
“About staying here?” I press a kiss to his forehead. “Yeah. Very sure.”
He smiles, relaxing against me again. “Good. Because I was fully prepared to follow you to Portland if you insisted on being stubborn.”
The casual declaration stops my heart for a beat. “You would have done that?”
“Of course,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “My business is online. I can make soap anywhere.”
I tighten my arms around him, overwhelmed by the gift he’s offering—his willingness to uproot his life for me, to follow me if that’s what it took to be together.
“You won’t have to,” I promise. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither am I,” he says, pressing a kiss to my chest, right over my heart. “Though we might need a bigger place eventually. My apartment’s pretty small for two people.”
The casual mention of our future together makes something warm unfurl in my chest. “Are you asking me to move in with you, Reynolds?”
He laughs softly. “Maybe. Eventually. When we’re ready.”
“I’d like that,” I tell him honestly. “And maybe someday...something more permanent.”
Noah goes still against me. “More permanent?”
I swallow, suddenly nervous. “A bonding. If you wanted that. Someday.”
He pushes up on one elbow to look at me, his expression serious. “Are you asking me to bond with you?”
“Not right now,” I clarify quickly. “But...eventually. When we’re both ready. If that’s something you’d want.”
The smile that spreads across his face is like the sun breaking through clouds. “Yes,” he says simply. “When we’re ready, that’s exactly what I want.”
I pull him down for a kiss, relief and joy and love tangling together in my chest until I can hardly breathe with it. When we part, he settles back against me with a contented sigh.
“We should probably unpack your stuff,” he says after a while, gesturing to the boxes around us. “Since you’re staying.”
I look around at the half-emptied apartment that had never really felt like home until Noah walked into it. “Tomorrow,” I decide, pulling him closer. “Right now, I just want to be here with you.”
“I like that plan,” he murmurs, already sounding half-asleep.
As his breathing evens out, I find myself thinking about the winding path that brought us here. The broken key that first day. The rain-soaked supplies. The unexpected heat. All the small moments that seemed like accidents at the time but now feel like fate.
Or maybe not fate. Choice. A series of choices that led us to each other, that will keep leading us forward together.
Noah stirs against me, mumbling something in his sleep before settling again. I press a kiss to his hair, breathing in the scent that’s become as familiar to me as my own.
For the first time in years, I feel completely, unreservedly alive. Ready to build something new. Ready to love again, with all the risk and reward that entails.
Ready to choose this fate, this future, this man, with my eyes wide open and my heart fully engaged.
Ready to begin.