Chapter 14
I don't know how I got here.
There are gaps in my memory where all I can remember is the deep ache and pure heat searing through me.
One second I was on the floor with Killian's fist in my hair and my mother's voice coming out of a phone, and the next I'm on my back on a bed that isn't mine, in a room I've never been in, and the whole world smells like cut grass.
Calder's room. It has to be. Calder's bed. Calder's sheets under my hands and Calder's scent in every single thing I breathe, so thick I can taste it at the back of my tongue, and my body is writhing for more.
It hurts. Fuck, it hurts.
I always thought heat would be like being drunk, like a soft fog rolling in and taking the decisions away.
This isn't soft. There's an ache low in my belly and even deeper, it’s gone past wanting and into pain, an empty pulling that gets worse every time my heart beats.
My skin has turned into one raw nerve—the sheet against my calf is too much, the air from the vent is too much, everything is too much and none of it is enough at the same time.
I'm making a humiliating whining noise. I can hear myself doing it but it’s coming out of me like breathing. An instinct.
"Hey." Calder’s voice is close. The bed dips. "Hey. Look at me."
I get my eyes open. He's above me, propped on one arm, and he's got his other hand hovering an inch off my face like he's afraid of what happens when he closes the gap. His pupils are blown so wide there's almost no green left. His chest is going hard.
"Sonny."
Mm, I like the way my name sounds on his full lips.
"It hurts," I tell him.
Something breaks across his face.
"I know," he says. "I know it does."
"It's not—it's not like they said it would be.
" The words come out in a rush, too fast, tripping over each other.
Somewhere under all this there's a version of me that would rather die than say any of this out loud, and the heat has burned him up and left this one behind—the one who can't stop talking.
"Everyone always made it sound like you go under.
Like you don't know what's happening. I know exactly what's happening, Calder, I'm right here, I can feel all of it and I can't make it stop and I've never—"
I hear my own voice crack as I arch, seeking friction against him like I might die if I don’t get it.
He’s there, he doesn’t move. He just listens.
"I've never done this." My eyes are streaming and I don't remember starting.
"Any of it. Not once. I never even let anybody kiss me because I was so scared they'd figure out what I was, and now I'm—" A wave rolls through me and I have to stop and breathe through it, fists shaking in his sheets.
"Now I want it. I want it so bad I can't think straight.
" My voice drops to almost nothing. "And I'm scared. Cal, I'm really scared."
Calder doesn't move. He's holding himself so still it looks like it costs him. "Okay," he says. "Then we'll go slow."
"I don't want slow." It comes out desperate. "I want it gone. I want this out of me—"
"I know. I know you do." He gets his hand under my jaw, careful, and makes me look at him. "But you've never done this, and you're scared, and I can’t let you get lost. I need you here with me, Sonny."
He shakes my jaw enough that I have to focus on him.
"You're not going to hurt me," I say. It isn't a question. It comes out sounding like one. We barely know each other and I need him–we both know it–but still there’s a part of me that trusts him. I need to hear it.
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'll keep asking you." His thumb moves along my jaw. "Every step. And if you say stop, we stop. I don't care where we are or what my body's doing. You say the word and it's over."
"And if I can't—" My breath hitches. "Cal, what if I get too far gone to say it—"
"Then I stop anyway." Flat. No hesitation at all. "If you can't tell me yes, then it's a no. Sonny, that's it."
I stare up at him.
Twenty years of my mother telling me what alphas do to omegas who get careless.
Twenty years of a pill in my hand every night so I'd never have to find out.
And here's this man above me with his pupils blown out and his hands shaking, holding himself off me like I'm something breakable, promising to keep me safe.
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay?"
"Okay." I get a fistful of his shirt and pull, and my hands are trembling so badly I can barely hold it. "Okay. Please. Please."
Another jolt of pure heat passes through me and my thighs clench. I suck in a sharp, shuddering breath and Calder licks his lips.
"Alright." His mouth comes down against my temple, my cheekbone, the corner of my jaw, so gentle it makes me shake harder than the heat does. "Alright. I've got you. I'm going to take care of you."
I try to get my shirt off myself. My fingers find the hem and pull, but they won’t work right—they’re trembling so hard the fabric just bunches and slips. A frustrated sound catches in my throat.
“I’ve got it,” Calder says, quiet as he hits back on his heels. “I’m going to take this off you now. Is that okay?”
“Yes. Please—yes.”
He sits me up carefully, like I’m something that might break if he moves too fast. His hands are steady where mine aren’t. He works the shirt up over my ribs, then my shoulders, watching my face the whole time. The second the fabric clears my head the cooler air hits my skin and I gasp.
Everything feels too close, too exposed.
“Good,” he murmurs. He sets the shirt aside and doesn’t look away. “Tell me how that feels.”
“Cold. And—open. Like I’m not wearing enough skin.” My laugh comes out thin and cracked. My brain feels scrambled. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”
“It’s not stupid.” His palm settles on my hip bone, warm and solid. “Don’t hide how you feel.”
I lean into the touch before I can stop myself, my hips lifting off the bed. The ache in my belly pulls tighter, empty and insistent. “Cal—”
“I know.” He eases me back down against the pillows. His gaze drops to my mouth for a moment. “I’m going to kiss you.”
I nod, then force the word out. “Yes.”
He leans in slow. The first press of his mouth against mine is careful, almost questioning.
Soft. Warm. The scent of cut grass floods everything.
My whole body goes still for a second—twenty years of never, of keeping myself locked down so tight no one could ever know—and then something in me unlocks.
I make a small, helpless sound against his lips and kiss him back, clumsy and too eager.
It’s my first kiss. I’m twenty years old and this is the first time anyone has ever put their mouth on mine, and it happens in the middle of heat on a bed that smells like him while my body is trying to crawl out of its own skin.
The thought should be mortifying. Instead it just makes me tilt my head and open for him when his tongue brushes the seam of my lips.
He pulls back just enough to speak against my mouth. “Still okay?”
“Yeah. More than okay. I don’t—I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re fine.” His hand slides down my side, thumb stroking once over the jut of my hip.
I shiver as the sensation goes right to my hard cock. It’s an effort not to reach down and stroke my length.
“These next.” Calder curls his fingers under the waistband of my sweatpants.
“Yes. Please.” I arch. “Everything feels too tight.”
He works my pants and underwear down together, slow, pausing when I tense. The second the cooler air hits the slick already coating my inner thighs I make a sound I don’t recognize.
Embarrassment flares hot and sharp.
Calder doesn’t comment on it. He just strips out of his own clothes without fanfare, never looking away from me, and then he’s settling over me again, careful to keep most of his weight on his forearms. Skin against skin for the first time is almost too much. I suck in a sharp breath.
“I’m going to touch you,” he says, quiet. “Between your legs.”
I swallow hard against a wave of arousal that has my cock throbbing. “Okay.”
His hand slides down, finds the slick heat of me, and the first careful stroke of his fingers over my hole makes my back arch off the bed. A broken noise tears out of me before I can stop it. My thighs try to close around his wrist on instinct.
He watches my face. “Alright?”
I force myself to nod. The words come harder than the sensation. “It’s—a lot. But don’t stop.”
He presses a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth and keeps the touch light, circling, gathering slick on his fingers. When he finally pushes one inside, the stretch is careful and patient. I gasp, hips twitching at the delicious intrusion, and my free hand finds his forearm and holds on.
He works the single finger in and out until the initial burn eases into something deeper. The empty ache flares hotter instead of quieter. I can’t seem to look at him while it happens.
“More?” he asks after a while.
I swallow. “Yes.”
The second finger makes my thighs shake.
He keeps the pace unhurried, checking my face with every small movement.
I’m breathing hard, fingers tight around his arm, when the fear finally spikes.
Something about the fullness, the way my body opens for him so easily, the knowledge that this is only the beginning—it hits all at once.
My whole body goes rigid. A small, panicked sound escapes before I can swallow it.
Calder freezes instantly.
His fingers still. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t push, doesn’t try to soothe me with more touch. He just stops. Completely. His other hand comes up to cup the side of my face, thumb brushing under my eye.
“I’ve got you,” he says, quiet and steady. “We stop if you need to. Or we wait. Your call.”
The silence stretches. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
The heat is still clawing at me, still demanding, but the fear sits heavier for a few long breaths.
He waits. He doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t even look disappointed or impatient.
He just holds the space open and lets me decide.