Chapter 14
Cole
I glance around. Gage and Esmé are already doing the nightly ritual of wiping down tables, sweeping up, and pretending not to listen to my private conversations but always keeping one ear on me.
Helena sits still tucked in the corner she’s been in all day hunched over my laptop she asked for after the first hour.
Zane left at some point to start cooking dinner back at their flat.
But she stayed here, honey scent infiltrating every nook and cranny of my bakery.
I’ve never had an omega stay after hours before, at least not in a way that wasn’t transactional.
Helena’s presence is different. It’s charged, yeah, but also quietly companionable.
A rare thing. I give it another five minutes, just in case she wants to leave on her own, but when I catch her glancing at me through her curtain of hair, I know she’s waiting for something.
Me, probably. Or maybe for herself, to work up the nerve.
Gage and Esmé leave. The overhead lights hum as I flip them to night mode, making the bakery feel like a fish tank. Everything is now clearer and more intimate than it should be. I head toward her, pressing my palms together, and try not to make it weird.
“Do you want me to make you a box for the flat?” I gesture to the half-crumbled scone on her plate.
She jumps a little, then closes the laptop.
“No, thanks. I’m good.” There’s honey in her voice, as always, but a tiredness too.
I notice the faint shadow beneath her eyes—a side effect of too much coffee or a full day staring at business marketing plans.
“Actually, Cole? Could I show you something before you start the mop?”
“Sure.”
She gestures for me to sit. I perch on the bench across from her, noticing the way she subtly pulls her scent in, almost bracing herself.
She produces a stack of papers from her bag and slides them across. The first page is a hand-lettered title in her neat, looping script: SEAMUSE BAKERY—SUMMER CAMPAIGN.
I blink. “You made this?”
She nods, twisting her lips as if embarrassed. “It’s just some ideas. From what you wrote in your notes about wanting to make the bakery more destination-y? I did some mockups and a sample Instagram grid—a bunch of other stuff. It’s just a first pass.”
I flip through the pages. There are color palettes and brand voice notes, even a marketing calendar with cute, little doodles for each theme week. The whole thing is professional. Not the kind of thing you put together over a single sleepless night. And she did it over the course of a day.
Helena is a godsend.
“I thought you were just here to eat pastries and judge me.” I’m aiming for a joke but end up more sincere. “This is incredible.”
She blushes and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t want to be pushy. You don’t have to use any of it. Worst case, this was a fun exercise to show I can still do this sort of thing.”
I look at her. In that moment, I see past the shimmer and polish of her high-society finish. She wants this. Maybe not the bakery, but the chance to be useful, the chance to matter somewhere that isn’t curated for her or part of some omega duty.
“Helena, this would cost a fortune if I hired a real marketing firm.” I immediately regret my wording. “Not that you aren’t real. Or don’t deserve payment. You know what I mean.”
She laughs, a burst of delight that lights up the space between us. “It’s nice to know that if I weren’t bound by familial duty, I could actually do this as a career.” Her expression clouds.
I nudge the papers. “You should be doing this back home. Running a place, or—”
She shakes her head, eyes going distant.
“I spent the last few years at Omega Finishing School. I’m supposed to be in my ‘off-cycle’ period before Selection Day in the fall.
My parents think I’m here to… reflect on my place in the world.
” She says it with a wry twist, mocking the phrase even as she’s beholden to it.
“Selection Day,” I repeat. The words feel heavy in my mouth. “Sounds like a livestock auction.”
She laughs, but it’s brittle. “Not far off. Anyway, once that’s over, I’m expected to just… you know.” She makes a rolling gesture, as if spinning the dial on a washing machine. “Omega things. Pack things. I liked marketing, but apparently, it’s not a proper pursuit for a Starling.”
That surprises me. “So you’re just supposed to sit in a pretty house until someone buys you?”
She looks at me sharply, and I realize too late how harsh that sounds. But instead of bristling, she sighs. “Sometimes it feels like that, yes.”
Even though you’re clearly scent-matched already, with your own bodyguard and two alphas in a seaside village who’d make you plenty happy.
I want to say it. I manage not to.
We’re both quiet for a minute. I flip through more of her plans. They’re smart. I can see the bakery as she imagines it: bustling, Instagram-famous. Hosting pop-up events in nearby towns. All things I’d never have thought to do or wouldn’t have the balls to do on my own.
I’m easy and outgoing when inside my own bakery. But outside of these four walls? Absolutely not.
“I think you should do what makes you happy,” I finally say, softer now. “Even if it’s not what your family wants. Even if it’s not what you thought you wanted. You’re always allowed to change your mind.”
She holds my gaze. Her eyes are bright blue but also a little glassy, like the tide when it’s pulling away. “That’s the problem,” she says quietly. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
I reach out and take her hand. Just a light touch to let her know it’s okay, and that she’s not alone. “If you ever want to moonlight as Seamuse’s marketing director, you have a job. I mean that.”
Her smile this time is genuine, soft at the edges. “You’re too good to me.”
I grin as a boldness takes root in my chest. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
The overhead timer beeps. Closing hour, officially.
I stand. “There’s gotta be some way to repay you for all this.” I’m only half-joking.
She shakes her head and reaches for her bag. “You really don’t need to.”
She stands. For a breath, we’re only a foot apart, both awkwardly waiting for the other to break the tension. She moves first, brushing past me, and I catch a flash of honey that feels suddenly strong enough to draw me in own its own. Like a gravity I can’t fight.
It’s stupid how easy it is to just reach out and stop her, one hand closing gently around her wrist. Her skin is warm. I mean to say something, to thank her again, but instead, I pull her in and kiss her.
She gasps, then melts into it, her fingers gripping the front of my shirt.
Her mouth is insistent and hungry. I taste honey and coffee, and under that something dazzling, a buzz that feels like pure summer.
She’s taller than most omegas, so I don’t have to bend much.
I back her into the wall next to the pastry case, careful not to knock her head. She laughs into my mouth.
It’s hands-down the best sound I’ve ever heard.
The kiss deepens. She tucks her hands under the hem of my shirt and runs them up my back, digging her nails in.
I growl into her mouth and let my own hands wander the swell of her breasts as I grind our hips together.
I’ve dreamt of kissing Helena since the day we first met, but now…
Now I’m willing to take my time. To savor this.
We’re lost in this reverie until the timer on the proofer dings—loud and insistent. I pull away, dizzy, my hand still on her waist. She’s breathing hard, cheeks red.
“I need to… get the pasties.” My brain is completely blank except for thoughts of kissing Helena some more.
I feel like the pasties could wait.
But old habits are hard to break, especially as they relate to your livelihood.
She grins and straightens up. “Go rescue them. I’ll wait. We have all summer.”
We have all summer.
Fuck. Those words change something in me. I’m instantly lighter, floating off into space because—because my scent-matched omega wants me, too.
A pack might be building.
I hustle to the kitchen, cursing myself for not timing things better, and pull the tray before it burns. I set it on the rack and try to compose myself, but my reflection in the steel feels absurd.
Flushed. Hair mussed.
Changed.
Everything’s just changed.
But it’s all still hanging on the precipice of a question, one no longer about whether or not Helena might be interested.
Now it’s: will Helena stay?
Helena is waiting by the door with her bag slung over her shoulder when I return. “Walk me home?”
I’d walk her anywhere.
We step out into the darkening street, the salt air biting but not unpleasant.
I lock the door behind us, and as we turn toward the path that leads up the cliff, she slips her hand into mine.
We make it about halfway toward her rental when she pulls me up against someone’s stone garden wall and kisses me again.
I drink in her scent, dip my lips down to her neck.
Helena moans in my ear and then holds my head to keep me there.
“Helena,” I warn. “We’re still very much in public despite the sun having set.”
She laughs and then wriggles free to drag me toward a far more secluded space in the form of a tiny public garden beneath an event venue.
Only once I’m convinced we’re as alone as we might get do I sweep Helena against another wall and start to ravish her.
I kiss her neck and arms while sliding my hand under her shirt.
Her breath hitches as my thumbs brush her breasts.
Then Helena’s reaching down and fumbling with my jeans.
I distract her by unbutton her own and slipping my hand inside.
She’s warm, so warm. And so slick already.
Helena gasps as my fingers slip between her folds and circle her clit.
By the time I’ve slipped two fingers inside, her hips buck in time with my thrusts.
I swallow her loud moans by kissing her fiercely and try not to cum myself as she rides my hand to her own climax.
Her inner walls flutter around me as her release slicks my hand.
When she comes down from it, Helena slips free from my grip and turns us around so it’s my back against the wall.
She falls to her knees before me. I help her free my cock.
Her hands are so small but so warm against it.
Whenever—if ever—this proceeds to something more, I’m afraid my cock might be too big for her.
But for now, Helena works my length with both hands and her mouth in a way that has me praying to higher beings above for longevity so I don’t immediately lose it.
My breath comes in harsh, ragged breaths while Helena gives me the best head of my life.
My toes curl and my balls pull up. Helena grabs my hips and holds me inside her throat as I empty into her. I can’t hide the growl that escapes my lips as I cum.
Finally, Helena pulls back and stands with an incredibly smug smile on her face.
“You devil,” I whisper, my breath ragged. “I never would’ve thought.”
She tilts her head and grins. “I’m confident you’ll find plenty of surprises still to be discovered.”
Fuck me. “I can’t wait to uncover them.” And to do so many, many other things.
The rest of the walk back to Helena’s rental flat is innocent. But my thoughts are far from it.