Chapter 22 #3
“I’m doing everything you want,” he said darkly. “I’m being fucking good. Here.” He tossed the blankets off and shifted onto his knees. “Let’s do it now. You don’t even need to give me a heat inducer.”
“Omega.”
“I told you. I’m confident in this. With a little practice, I’ll be able to take you just fine.”
“You’re still torn.”
“So? Got a thing about blood?” He went to crawl forward, and Sarang shoved him back, bristling when Shiloh hissed in pain.
“We’re talking,” Sarang growled, “not fucking.”
“But if you fuck me you’ll want to stay.” There was so much certainty in his voice, it gave Sarang pause.
“…You think your ass is so incredible, it’ll make a man want to live for it?” Sarang found this line of thinking enlightening. “Why? Because—”
“Den Night,” Shiloh confirmed before he could finish. “After that, you wanted me.”
“I wanted you before that.”
“Not enough to do something about it.”
“If you recall, you’re the one who forced yourself on me in the parking garage, not the other way around.” He wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t expect his omega to put out. He very much so did. But not like this, and not out of fear that Sarang was going to leave him if he didn’t.
Although, he could see how he’d helped fuel that assumption. By telling Shiloh about his plans to get revenge using the same inducers on him, he must have confused him into thinking a part of this test was in seeing if they were still sexually compatible.
They were.
He didn’t need to try again to know.
“I’m not planning on dying, omega,” he reassured. “But you see how I feel every time you make comments like that?”
“It upsets you that much? Still?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because you’re not sure if you like me anymore,” Shiloh said. “As a person.”
In the beginning, Sarang had simply stuck around due to guilt, a sense of duty, and the visceral need to be nothing like his father. Over time, however, those feelings had altered, developed. It started to become less of a duty to take care of the prince. He’d started to enjoy it.
And not because of pheromones or physical attraction. Shiloh’s curiosity, his loyalty, the cute, almost euphoric expression he made when he was eating dessert…those things had reeled Sarang in.
But his favorite moments had always been the times when Shiloh had dropped the collected prince role and been a brat toward him.
Those were the occasions when Sarang had felt like he could allow himself to pretend he wasn’t merely a bodyguard or employee, that there was a real relationship between them.
Finding out Shiloh wasn’t a good person was actually a blessing in disguise.
Because now there was nothing holding Sarang back from giving into his alpha nature.
He’d always had the same drive as the rest of his kind to mark his territory and claim his mate.
His proclivity to be rough in the bedroom had led him to the false belief Shiloh wouldn’t be interested.
That the delicate prince who needed to sleep on silks and took his coffee at a precise temperature would be appalled if Sarang tried bending him over and fucking him crudely against the first flat surface available.
But Shiloh wasn’t upset that he currently couldn’t sit still. That his ass was beaten and bruised, or that Sarang’s cock had literally ripped through him.
The same way he’d seemed pleased with the marble, Shiloh seemed happy whenever he brought up the pain.
Physically, he was more than a match, and while his personality was chaotic, abrasive, and often cruel, there was still an underlying softness that called to Sarang.
It was in how Shiloh had stuck up for his friends.
How he’d risked his safety several times over in attempts to gain Sarang’s affections—acts that also pissed Sarang off, because how dare he put himself in danger like that, but still. Shiloh might not be a nice person, but he was loyal.
And held too strong of an aversion to love.
Hell, he’d made it obvious he didn’t even think love existed.
That wouldn’t work. Sarang was too greedy for it to. Too greedy to settle for anything less than all of the omega. Since he’d pushed him to this point, had all but shoved him off the ledge, Shiloh was going to have to adjust his mindset.
If what he felt toward Sarang right now wasn’t yet love, it would be.
Sarang stood suddenly. “I think that’s enough for today.”
“What?” Shiloh tried to get up, but Sarang pushed him back down.
“Stay.”
“Rang?” He swore when Sarang turned and headed out the door without another word.
It was one thing to imagine Shiloh fascinated by him, but with an extreme personality like his, that fascination could eventually run its course. As soon as the chase was over, and Sarang gave in, there was the very real possibility that the omega changed his mind.
But that wouldn’t happen if he fell in love with him.
If he could acknowledge love was the emotion he was feeling.
Sarang would have to do the one thing no one in Shiloh’s life had ever even so much as attempted to do.
He was going to have to teach, both how to love, and how to be loved.
His work was seriously cut out for him.