Chapter seven
JD
I don't sleep.
Not a single minute. Not after carrying her back to the penthouse, not after settling her in the nest she built from our clothes, not after lying behind her for hours with her heartbeat thrumming against my forearm and her honey-vanilla scent finally, finally, settled and warm and safe.
She slept. Deeply, truly, the way she hasn't slept since she arrived. Her body curled against mine, her fingers wrapped around my wrist like she was afraid I'd disappear if she let go. And I lay there in the dark, in the nest she built from our shirts, and I stared at the ceiling and didn't sleep.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the bus stop.
Willow. Sitting on a metal bench at 3 AM. Duffel bag at her feet. Tears on her face. Wearing a shirt that smelled like us but walking away from us anyway. Small and alone and so goddamn brave it made my chest hurt.
She was going to leave.
Not a dramatic exit. Not a screaming fight.
She was going to slip out into the night, catch a bus to nowhere, and disappear from our lives as quietly as she'd entered them.
And if I hadn't woken up, if my Alpha instincts hadn't surged at the exact moment her scent disappeared from the penthouse, she'd be gone.
I would have woken up to an empty room. A folded shirt on the bed. Silence.
The thought makes me want to put my fist through the wall.
Instead, I lie still. I breathe. I focus on the weight of her body against mine, the curve of her spine pressed to my chest, the rise and fall of her ribs under my arm, the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. She's here. She stayed. She came back.
But the fear doesn't leave. It sits in my chest like a stone, cold and heavy, and no amount of her warmth can dissolve it.
Because she almost didn't.
At 5:47 AM, she stirs. A small sound, half sigh, half whimper, and her fingers tighten on my wrist. I feel her body tense as she wakes, feel the moment consciousness floods back, and she remembers where she is.
"Shh." I press my mouth to her hair. "You're safe."
She exhales. Her grip on my wrist loosens. "JD?"
"I'm here."
"You stayed."
"I told you I would."
She rolls onto her back and looks up at me. In the gray pre-dawn light, her eyes are dark, brown, and gold and deep enough to drown in. Her hair is tangled, spread across the pillow like honey-colored silk. There's a crease on her cheek from the fabric.
*
She's beautiful. Devastatingly, achingly beautiful. And three hours ago, she was sitting at a bus stop ready to walk out of my life.
I can't stop the growl that rumbles through my chest.
Her eyes widen. "JD, "
"Don't." The word comes out harder than I intend. I force myself to soften. "Don't say anything yet. Just... let me look at you."
She goes still. Her lips part and her scent shifts, warm honey, vanilla, and the faintest thread of arousal threading through the fear. She's responding to my Alpha pheromones, to the possessive growl that I can't quite suppress. Her biology reads mine and says yes. Here. Yours.
I prop myself up on one elbow and look at her. Really look. Not the way I looked at her in the hallway when she first arrived, assessing, strategic, trying to understand the threat she posed to my control. Not the way I looked at her in the kitchen, hungry, desperate, and barely leashed.
This is different. This is the way you look at something you almost lost.
I trace the line of her face with my eyes.
Forehead. Temple. The soft curve of her cheek.
The mole on her neck, Deklan's mark, purple and dark against her skin.
My jaw tightens at the sight of it, something possessive and primal surging through me.
Not jealousy, something deeper. Recognition.
Deklan claimed her because she needed to be claimed.
Because she needed to know she mattered.
And I let him. I stood in the hallway and listened to him put his mouth on her, and I didn't interfere. Because I said not until she asks, and she asked him, not me.
But God, I wanted it to be me.
My hand moves before I can stop it. My fingers trace the same path my eyes just traveled - forehead, temple, cheek. Her skin is impossibly soft. Warm. Alive.
She shivers under my touch, her pupils dilate, and her scent thickens.
"You almost left," I say. My voice is barely above a whisper.
"I know."
"You almost walked out of this building, onto a bus, and disappeared. And I…" My voice cracks. I clear my throat. "I would have had to live the rest of my life knowing you were out there somewhere, and I didn't fight hard enough to make you stay."
"JD, "
"Let me finish." My fingers trail down to her jaw.
Her chin. The hollow of her throat, where her pulse is racing.
"I've lost things before. Everyone I grew up with in the system, gone.
Scattered. Some of them dead. I lost Mara.
" My throat tightens. "I held Deklan when he found out.
I sat in the hospital corridor and held him while he screamed.
And there was nothing I could do. No amount of money, no amount of power, no amount of being JD Blaine could bring her back. "
Willow's eyes are wet. A tear slides down her temple and disappears into the pillow.
"But you," I press my palm flat against her chest, feeling her heartbeat. "You're alive. You're here. And I almost lost you not to death, but to doubt. To lies. To a woman who couldn't hold us because she was never the right one."
"Serena, "
"Is dealt with." The words come out harder than I intend. Darker. The Alpha in me surges, and my pheromones flood the room, pine and smoke, thick and possessive. Willow's scent responds immediately, honey and vanilla spiking, her body arching slightly toward mine.
I pull back, force myself to breathe, force the Alpha down.
"Not like that," I say. "Not violence. But she will never come near you again.
I've already had my legal team file a restraining order and a complaint with the agency.
Her access to the matching platform has been revoked.
If she contacts you again, by phone, in person, through a third party, she'll be dealing with civil and criminal charges. "
Willow blinks. "You did that at 3 AM?"
"I did it in the car. While Deklan drove. While Knox," I pause. "Knox was otherwise occupied."
"Otherwise occupied how?"
"He was having a conversation with Serena's employer. Apparently, she works for a PR firm that handles accounts for two of our portfolio companies. One phone call from our acquisitions team, and her position is... under review."
Willow's eyes widen. "JD. That's…"
"That's what happens when you threaten an omega under my protection." My jaw tightens. "Under our protection. She came to that park deliberately. She tracked you. She targeted you. And she will face consequences."
A tear slides down Willow's cheek. But she's not crying from sadness. The look on her face is something else entirely, something raw and wondering, like she can't quite believe what she's hearing.
"No one's ever..." She trails off. Swallows. Starts again. "No one's ever fought for me before. Not like this."
The words hit me like a sledgehammer.
No one. In twenty-three years, no one has ever protected this woman.
No one has ever stood between her and the things that hurt her.
She grew up in a small town with a mother who worked herself to the bone and a father who vanished.
She navigated the world alone, with nothing but stubbornness and a scent she couldn't control.
And when she walked into our penthouse, into our lives, she was bracing for abandonment.
Not hoping for love. Bracing for loss.
I'm going to find every person who ever failed her and make them regret it.
But that's not what she needs right now. What she needs right now is not my anger. Not my protection. Not my legal team or my money or my power.
She needs me.
"Willow."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to kiss you now."
Her breath catches. Her eyes go wide. Her scent floods the space between us, honey and vanilla, thick and sweet and drenched in want.
"You said," she starts. "You said not until I ask."
"I know what I said." I lean closer. My mouth hovers over hers, close enough to taste her breath, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin. "I'm asking. Not taking. Asking."
Her lips part. Her chest rises. Her hands come up and fist in my shirt, pulling me closer.
"Ask, then," she whispers.
"May I kiss you, Willow?"
"Yes."
The word has barely left her mouth before I close the distance.
The kiss is not gentle.
I meant it to be. I meant it to be slow, careful, and controlled, the way I've been since the moment she walked in.
But the moment my lips touch hers, every chain I've wrapped around my Alpha instincts snaps.
Seventy-two hours of suppressed hunger, of cold showers, of listening to her breathe through walls, of smelling her arousal and her fear and her hope, all of it crashes through me in a single, devastating wave.
I kiss her like I'm drowning and she's air.
My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back.
My mouth slants over hers, hard and desperate, and my tongue pushes past her lips.
She tastes like honey. Like warmth. Like everything I didn't know I was starving for.
She makes a sound against my mouth, a small, shocked moan, and her hands tighten in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I groan because the friction of her body against mine is unbearable and incredible and not enough.
Not enough. More. I need more.
My free hand finds her hip. The curve of it, the softness of the skin above her waistband. I pull her against me, and the contact, her belly against my cock, hard and aching and straining against my sweatpants, pulls a growl from my chest that vibrates through both of us.
"JD, " she gasps against my mouth.