Chapter 19 #2
“Do you think this makes this any easier for me? Watching you self-deprecatingly shit talk everything that you are?” I say to fight the emotions stirring deep within me. “If you’re so fucking bad for me, prove it.”
“What?” He rears back, just enough that I can breathe slightly.
“Prove it to me. Say that we’ll never work. Tell me I’m not the omega for you. Tell me I’m not pretty enough. Shove a drink down your throat and then say what a fucking drag it is that I’m the one the universe has stuck you with.”
Then he’s back, glaring into my eyes with a new purpose. “What are you talking about? Everything I’m talking about has to do with me , not you. You’re everything.”
“But that’s not your choice to make!” I yell, gripping his shirt with my hand to pull him closer. “That’s my whole point! You took that from me.”
“Would you have made a different choice?” he asks, his voice simmering back to calm as he leans in closer. “Would you have let me in? Told me that the way I reacted back then was okay?”
“Stop,” I say in a hushed tone. His eyes dart to my lips for a second.
“Are you really mad at me, Rory?” he asks, seeing right through me. His scent darkens with his tone, and a single whiff of it feels like I’m getting a fix. “Am I the one who took your choice away? Or was it something else? Because you have one now, and you’re still not taking it.”
My blood boils, but that heat travels right to the apex of my legs. “I hate you,” I seethe.
“Do you?” Jett smirks, and I realize the mask is back on but only halfway. This role he plays, the confidence it stirs, it wasn’t just for my benefit. It’s a coping mechanism. “Prove it.”
I think my omega takes over my body because the next thing I know my lips are on his and there’s a whole new kind of fever spreading through my body. It swelters in my chest and spreads throughout my limbs as Jett responds with just as much intensity.
He picks me up like it’s nothing and my legs immediately wrap around his waist. There’s nothing else going through my head, just this desperate urge to mate with my alpha, and although that thought should frighten me, it sends a need that I’ve never felt before right through my entire body.
Our hands grip each other, grazing every piece of skin that we can possibly find, and when my back hits the soft surface of the couch, I don’t stop to think before ripping his shirt off his body.
I practically blink and all of our clothes are off, but there’s no time for admiring his body because then he’s there, dominating my mouth with his tongue even though I’m putting up the best fight of my life.
There’s an inkling in the back of my mind that I could fight with him like this for the rest of my life and I’d be the happiest omega to ever live.
But then his fingers twist my nipple and I realize that’s the farthest from the truth. I need more .
“Fuck. More .” I let the curse slip out as he kisses down my neck, nipping and tonguing his way down to my chest. “ Alpha .”
Jett growls against my breast. “My lovely omega.” He nips at my nipple just as soon as I feel something hard rubbing between my legs. “Tell me.”
“Fuck. You.” I pull my hips up and drag myself against him, refusing to give in to his silent demand to beg.
He chuckles almost sinisterly before sliding himself between me and groaning at the slick that’s pooled there. He lets out a curse himself before thrusting in, not willing to wait long enough for me to even beg.
I smirk at the small victory, but it doesn’t last long as he pistons his hips just right and starts to pound away before I can even get my bearings.
My omega fucking loves it, and I let out a cry that’s been trying to escape the entire time this alpha has been in our space. My nails dig into his shoulders as I hold onto him, my mouth agape as I let the wave of euphoria build and build.
He kisses me again, and I nip his lip in return, trying to find some kind of control, but he loosely grips my neck in his hand and stares into my eyes. “Omega,” he roars and it turns into a moan. “ Mine . You’re mine .”
Something deep down wants to protest, but my pussy flutters around him at the claim, wanting him to pull each and every feeling out of me. Our foreheads meet each other and the desperation I feel claws up my throat. “Please.”
He doesn’t rub my face in it, he just keeps his gaze on mine and reaches his hand between us. The second his thumb starts to circle my clit, the intensity changes. The crest I’m searching for starts to fly toward me at light-speed.
“ Yes ,” he murmurs. “I can fucking feel how close you are. Holy fuck.” Jett leans his head down so his lips graze over my ear. “Just like that, Rory. I want you to come all over me.”
The huskiness of his voice, the arousal practically dripping off of it, is what sets me off.
I feel myself grip him like a vice as my back arches and pushes me off the surface.
He groans in my ear, his thumb never stopping.
It feels like it lasts forever, and when everything starts to feel too sensitive, his hips falter slightly as he howls out his own release deep inside me.
The second our movements stop, it’s too quiet. Something akin to regret hits me deep down.
What the fuck have I done ?
I can feel him smile against my skin just before his hands come to rub my shoulders, and then my neck, before resting on my cheeks. When he sees the look of utter panic on my face, he blanches.
“What—”
“I think you should leave.” The words feel like ash in my mouth. It’s like regret is wrapped around my tongue with a bow, but I don’t take it back. I can’t.
The dusty remorse grows stronger when I see the look on his face.
“What?” he asks, his eyes widening softly. “But…”
I grimace at the softness in his face, watching as the memory from just moments before is already replaying in his mind.
My gaze finds his bare skin, his chiseled chest displayed on his lean body, and I swallow down a whine.
I stand and wrap my favorite blanket—that I didn’t realize we were fucking on—around my naked torso. “I want you to leave.”
My scent match flinches, and his amber scent seems to shy away in response to my biting tone. “Okay.” He gets up like there’s broken glass spread out along the floor, hesitant as he tries to get dressed as quickly as he can. He avoids my eyes and my heart cracks.
I want to apologize instantly, tell him nevermind and that we can talk about it, but I can’t.
I feel too exposed, and I need him to leave so I can feel like I can breathe again.
There’s a soreness between my legs, reminding me of how long it’s been and how quickly I let my omega take the reins.
She’s a blithering mess inside of me, but I know she won’t let me comfort her.
She wants the alpha right in front of us.
He’s so close to her grasp, but I won’t let her touch him.
I won’t allow myself to touch him, either. I don’t deserve to.
After he’s finally put his shirt back on—over that amazing V that I didn’t get to appreciate during our hasty encounter—his eyes meet mine. There’s dejection, shame… emotions that I put there. Again, I have the instinct to apologize but I swallow it down like the whine that’s trapped in my throat.
His mouth gapes open for a moment before closing again. I make my face as impassive as possible, but a traitorous part of me is screaming.
Say something! Please say anything and absolve me from this!
But he doesn’t. He gives me the weakest smile I’ve ever seen before grabbing his boots and walking right out the door. I let the whimper finally escape, and the weight of it knocks me off my feet.
I’m not sure how long I sit there on my knees, shivering, naked underneath the thin blanket I chose, when someone comes in through the front door. I think it’s only been a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity.
“Rory?” I hear, and then there’s someone kneeling next to me, red hair a blur as their hands come to rest on my shoulders. “Oh my god, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, but I don’t think it’s nearly as coherent as I want it to be.
“Rory, did something happen? Did someone break in? The door was already unlocked. Are you okay?”
It’s the serious panic in her voice that causes me to look up at her, finally blinking away the minor dissociation. Opal is looking at me with wide eyes, her worry palpable as she looks over me for any injuries.
“I’m okay,” I finally tell her. “No intruders, I promise. Just me wallowing in my own despair.”
Opal heaves out a big sigh of relief. “Good,” she says, her head nodding up and down. “Thank god.”
It isn’t until then that I notice she’s slightly shaking. “Oh my god. I’m sorry, Opal. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine.” She waves it off and fully sits on the floor with me despite my apparent bareness under the blanket. “This isn’t about me, either, so I’m sorry. Those blind dates really messed me up. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
I keep my gaze on her for a few more seconds, noticing how she starts to visibly relax. “I still want to throttle Cindy for doing that to you,” I utter under my breath but she still hears it.
“She didn’t…” She trails off. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s tired of fighting me on it or if she’s not so sure herself anymore, but she drops it. “So, what happened? Why are you… like this in our living room right now?” She gestures towards my body and the way it’s sitting.
“Jett came over,” I barely get out because my throat becomes dry. “He wanted to talk.”
Opal doesn’t say anything, just watches me and waits for an explanation.
“He’s my scent match, Opal,” I say in a soft confession and I hear her sudden intake of breath. “He’s known since we met. His scent came back the other day in rehearsal.”
She nods a few times. “I was wondering whose smell that was,” she gripes. “And that also explains why you snapped at me on Friday.”
The guilt I feel is transparent. “I’m sorry, Opal. I know I already said it and you forgave me, but please let me say it a few more dozen times so I can feel absolved from it. You didn’t deserve that.”
She gives a slight shake of her head. “I already forgive you, so no , I don’t want to hear it again.
You apologized, leave it at that.” She adjusts the blanket on my shoulder so it covers me up more.
“And now that I know what happened, and what drastic thing you had just been through, I especially don’t want to hear it.
You have every right to feel betrayed, angry, sad … literally any way you want.”
I nod and I feel another tear slide down my face. There’s been so many since yesterday that I’m thinking about calling Stacia and apologizing for all the times I called her a crybaby for being a Pisces.
Even fire signs are susceptible to the high emotions of mating, it seems.
“I feel angry, and sure, a part of it is because he didn’t tell me, but mainly I’m angry that this is happening at all ,” I share. “I have a scent match and he lied to me, but I can’t lie to myself and say that if he didn’t that I would have accepted everything right away because I wouldn’t have.”
Opal gives me a sympathetic look. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t want to be bonded to an alpha. Any alpha. Until Everett and Dax, I never even looked at them. They might as well have been chopped liver slithering by me on the quad.”
Opal lets out a tiny chuckle at that. “Sorry, the visual that gave me. Okay, I’m good, keep going.”
I try to crack a smile at that, but I think about my mother again. Her bark, her control over my dad, and everything comes pouring out.
“Oh gosh, Opal. I made a huge fucking mistake,” I sob.
“Rory—” she tries but I keep talking.
“I wish I was a beta,” I say. “I should have been a fucking beta.”
When I was eighteen, I was so excited to finally present. I couldn’t wait to officially become a beta and be just like my dad, especially since he was no longer around.
Now I have these fucking omega instincts and urges and it’s so hard to divert from them.
Stacia said letting your omega have her way is the same as letting yourself have the things you really want, but that can’t be true.
Because I’ve vowed for a long time now to leave the generational trauma behind, and that includes not letting an alpha have control over me.
In any capacity.
“Rory, things feel heavy right now. And you’re probably hormonal, too, because that’s what finding scent matches does to us, but everything is going to be okay. I promise .”
I shake my head. “You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can,” she replies. “Because I’m going to be here for you every step of the way. Stacia is, too. You have people in your corner.”
I nod, because it’s true. They’re the best people in the world. But I still self-deprecatingly think about whether or not my dad had people in his corner and—if he did—why they didn’t keep him from marrying my mom.