Chapter 45 #2
“Don’t carry the world on your shoulders.
You can’t single-handedly make omegas less vulnerable, just like I can’t single-handedly fix how shitty Hollywood is to women.
It should be different. It should be fair.
It should be better. To the extent that there’s any ‘winning’ or ‘losing’…
we won or lost when sperm met egg. Swallowing the lie that you can somehow change the whole world at once, if only you try hard enough…
is just another way the world strangles people like me and you. ”
Mylo is quiet, so after a moment, I look over at him. He half-frowns as if there’s something sour on his tongue.
“What?” I ask with a laugh.
Mylo’s eyes narrow. “So, what? Just give up? Don’t even bother? How does anything change, then?”
“I never said give up. Just don’t carry the whole world. Your one life is enough. Be happy. Jump off tall things. Get a fast motorcycle. Jump in the ocean.”
“Now you’re saying I should be like you.”
“No, I’m saying you should spend time with me.” I look over with a soft smile.
Mylo cracks one in return.
“You can’t fix the world,” I murmur. “But you can live a damn good life. You can make a difference. Don’t let the first one stop you from the second one.”
“Did you practice this or something?”
“Yeah, it was my TED talk.”
Mylo scoffs and hits my arm. “Seriously?”
I raise a brow at him. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re lying.”
“Look it up.”
He pulls out his phone and does just that, quickly finding my TED talk from two years ago. Then his expression turns thoughtful as he puts his phone away. “So you were totally a bleeding-heart try-hard save-the-world-type, weren’t you?”
I nod. “Completely. I thought the entire reason I was born a female alpha was to go fix the world, to make it better for women. I campaigned on campus, called my representatives, ran the theatre department. And I made a difference there. So then I thought I could make a difference everywhere. Hollywood humbled me up real fast. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, where I was falling short.
I joined a mentorship program for female alphas.
Got matched with Morgan Hunter. She’s only like four years older than me, but she already had her whole life together.
And damn, she’s a force. She gave me that same advice. Albeit… not so nicely phrased.”
Mylo chuckles, and the sound floods me with relief. “What did that sound like?”
“Something along the lines of… ‘Suck it up, bitch, and focus on what you can control.’”
“And you’re friends with her now?”
“For life.”
“Huh. And she got married last year?”
“Yep. Would’ve thought it was impossible. But they’re perfect together. They make each other happy.”
“That’s how it should be. People in a relationship like that should… make each other happy.”
I nod, and there’s a hollow pang in my chest. “I want to make you happy. But I don’t think I do.”
Mylo takes a breath, then hesitates. He picks at a seam on his jeans, staring past his shoes. “On the… plane ride over, I considered a… disturbing possibility.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I assumed my hormones were wrong. But… what if they’re not? Isn’t always acting opposite to your hormones another way of being controlled by your hormones?”
“I suppose it is.”
“But you chose to go against your hormones.”
“Did I?”
He rubs a hand over the base of his neck without looking at me. “You didn’t… y’know.”
“You think that was me going against my hormones?”
His brow furrows. “Wasn’t it?”
I give a soft chuckle.
He turns those honey-colored eyes to me. “What?”
“You know what my hormones want? More than anything?”
His eyes scan mine. “No.”
“They want you to be happy. The only time it was a struggle to not bite you is… when you wanted it.”
Something blooms through Mylo’s scent, subtle but refreshing. I can’t quite decode it.
“So does that mean…”
“If you stay and let me help you with your heat, and you’re certain you don’t want to be a bound omega, then I’m confident that’s what you’ll get. So the only question is… do you know what you actually want?”
“I want to not be an omega.” His tone is so petulant, it’s almost childish.
I reach over and brush his hair back from his ears, tracing the rounded points and the almost-imperceptible scars. “You’re not nearly as good a liar as I am.”
“You think I want this?”
“You’d really erase everything you’ve accomplished? You kept a secret that most couldn’t hide for a day for, what, ten years? Tell me with a straight face you’re not proud of that.”
“Of course I’m proud of that.”
“Then let yourself be happy. Whatever that looks like for you. There’s a way you could go anywhere you want. Do anything you want. Book any job. Be free.”
“Except for that teeny-tiny life bond part.”
“Yeah. Except for that.”
Mylo lets out an exasperated sigh. “You know the thing I hate most about you? What I absolutely loathe the most?”
A wry smile pulls up the corner of my mouth. “Tell me.”
“Somehow it’s not how insufferable you are, or how cocky, or how…
ludicrously, offensively talented you are at whatever random thing.
And I really thought it would be the smugness, or—or the…
inconceivable irresponsibility of up and vanishing whenever you feel like it, yet somehow feeling like you’re in any position to give advice. ”
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it like that, Mylo. Tell me how you really feel.”
“The one thing, the thing I hate the most is…” He turns to me, eyes stricken, a thread of fear weaving into his scent.
“…is how much I want you. I have… never wanted anything so much. Not learning how to fight, not doing stunts, not getting a stable gig, nothing… And it scares the crap out of me. This—” He gestures between us.
“—being wrong, I can handle. But what if…” His voice cracks, subtle florals blooming in his scent. “What if it’s right?”
Tears roll down his cheeks, and I cup his face in my hands.
My voice drops to a whisper. “Then we could make each other happy.”
He leans into my hand, subtly turning toward me. “What if I… don’t know how to be happy?”
I slowly lean closer until our foreheads brush. His skin is blazing hot. “I’m very persuasive.”
Our breath mingles between us, mine steady, his trembling.
I’ve always had trouble sitting still. But I just feel his pulse against my hand, just let his scent fill my nose.
And I realize something. I could wait for Mylo… forever. However long he needs, or even if he never does… It’s the one thing I can see myself doing for the rest of my life.
Slowly, like dawn breaking, he tilts his head and leans closer.
His lips brush mine.
Warmth radiates from that touch.
And still, I wait. This time, I let Mylo set the pace.
He leans into the kiss, parting my lips. I catch his tongue with mine.
Then he presses closer. Breathes harder.
It’s a slow and sweet unraveling as his hands rise to my neck and his knees unfold from his chest.
The sun must be painting breathtaking color across an endless sky, but we don’t see it.
His hands tighten behind my neck, and he moves to straddle me.
I gently pull him into place. His breath and movements quicken, and he presses against my chest. My hands slide around his waist, under his shirt.
His skin is slick with sweat, and he lets me pull the shirt off over his head, then quickly returns his lips to mine.
I run my thumbs over his ribs and trace his spine with my fingers as his body rolls under my touch. A low moan pours across his tongue as he presses deeper, grip tightening in my hair, teeth catching my lip.
Moment by moment, the heat blazing across his skin seeps into me. My stomach flutters, then my core warms. Need brews slow and deep, rising with every subtle whimper from my omega.
My omega. His tongue sweeps across my lip.
My omega. He moans against my mouth.
My omega. His hands tangle in my hair, pulling tight.
He presses against me again, grinding his hips, dragging his throbbing cock across my stomach.
My hands slide around his ass, kneading the muscles, earning a low groan.
God, he smells like… candied oranges licked from sticky fingers, like honey drizzled over fragrant flowers, like a pitcher plant designed specifically to capture me.
And all I want is to tumble in.