Chapter 18 #3
I didn’t try to manage her fear with empty platitudes.
I didn’t tell her that providing for her was my job, because I knew damn well that would only sound like another trap snapping shut.
Instead, I brushed my thumb along the line of her jaw and held her dark eyes, giving her nothing but the unvarnished truth.
“You aren’t incredible because you’re an Omega, Julia,” I told her, measuring my words to make sure there was no room for misinterpretation.
“You’re incredible because you’re you. You’re brilliant, you’re brave, and you are the most fiercely capable person I have ever met.
Being an Omega is just a part of who you are, but I promise you right now, it will never be all you are. Not to me. Not to any of us.”
She stared at me, her breath hitching in her throat. Her fingers dug into the fabric of my shirt, clinging to my chest.
“If you want to build a company from the ground up, we will give you the land to build it on,” I promised, laying my hand flat against the side of her face and stroking my thumb across her cheekbone.
“If you want to go to college, I will personally drive you to campus and go to classes with you as your own personal bodyguard. You do not have to shrink yourself to fit into this pack, Pretty Girl. We are going to expand to fit around you.”
Julia let out a fractured, quiet sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. The last, stubborn pieces of the wall she had kept between us crumbled into dust. The melancholy amber in her scent vanished, replaced by the dark, lush warmth of fig and heady spike of black cherry.
She surged upward, tangling her hands in my hair, and crashed her mouth against mine.
I caught her, dragging her fully across my chest until she was straddling my hips.
I wrapped both arms securely around her back and kissed her with everything I had.
There was no rush, no frenzied desperation like Ransom would have brought.
I kissed her slowly, unhurried, pouring every ounce of my absolute certainty into the press of my mouth.
She tasted like cherry wine and sugar as I swept my tongue past her lips to dance with hers in deep strokes that made her moan against my mouth.
I rolled us over, pinning her gently to the foam mattress.
The blankets tangled around our legs as I supported my weight on my forearms, looking down at her flushed face in the warm glowing light.
“River,” she gasped, her hands sliding down my chest to wrap around my waist.
“I’m right here,” I murmured against her lips. I trailed open-mouthed kisses down her jaw, tracing the sensitive column of her throat. I inhaled deeply, loving the intoxicating rush her signature sent straight to my head.
We stayed in the back of the truck for a long time, sharing kisses that were deep, slow, and consuming.
I mapped the curve of her hips, the soft slide of her skin under her skirt, committing the exact shape of her to memory.
I let her set the pace, receiving everything she offered and giving it back twofold.
Eventually, the chill of the night crept past the edges of the blankets. As much as I wanted to keep her pinned beneath me until the sun came up, I knew we needed to head back before the cold set in properly.
We reluctantly sat up and began packing the remnants of the date. I loaded the food containers and the empty wine bottle back into Boone’s basket, shutting off the lantern and tossing the blankets into the back seat of the cab.
When I turned back around to check the tailgate, Julia wasn’t standing by the truck.
I found her a few yards out in the dark meadow, illuminated only by the silver wash of the starlight and the pale glow of the headlights I had just switched on.
She was kneeling in the tall grass, ignoring the dirt smudging her sundress.
She had her hands buried in a patch of the white, bell-shaped blooms, carefully scooping up a handful of the ghost flowers.
I leaned my hip against the side of the truck and just watched her.
Her brow was furrowed in that focused way that meant she was already deep in a puzzle.
The quiet vulnerability from the truck bed hadn’t disappeared, it had just been layered over by the ambition she’d finally realized she didn’t have to hide.
I didn’t know exactly what was running through her head, but I could see her turning the scentless trait of those flowers over in her mind, already planning something.
A profound certainty settled deep into my bones.
I had spent my entire life being the easy twin.
The safe harbor. My role in the pack had always been the ballast—the one who stayed level so the others could lean.
But standing here, watching this woman who was so easy to love, this woman who saw me when I hadn’t even asked her to look my direction, I realized I finally wanted something loudly and selfishly for myself.
I wanted her.
I pushed off the truck and walked out into the grass to help her carry her flowers home, completely and irreversibly gone for my Omega. Let her build the life she dreamed of. I would gladly be the solid ground she built it on.