Chapter 5
Chapter five
Roan
The luau is a fucking success to everyone except me.
Sharma's laughter is manufactured for the benefit of the Henderson woman across the table.
It rings bright and shiny with falseness.
She hasn't looked at me once. Not when the servers brought the whole roasted pig.
Not when the fire dancers spun their batons into blurring arcs.
Her profile rivals the torchlight like a blade, sharp and unmoving.
My thumb splits the skin of a macadamia nut.
The shell crumbles, bitter meat dusting my palm.
Around us, the wedding party churns in floral prints and loosened ties, Grayson stalking the perimeter with his phone pressed to his ear—probably checking on his sick kid—and Hunter arguing some legal precedent with the resort manager.
Jaleesa sips sparkling water, her hand curved over her stomach in a gesture I've seen Star make a thousand times since the bump announced itself.
They're all here, tangled in their bonds, satisfied and suffocating.
Sharma's laugh rings out again, and I want to hurl something. Shout something despicable just to get her attention. But that's how we ended up in this trouble. So I keep quiet.
"You're growling," Liam says. He stands beside me at the bar's edge, one hand flat against Star's lower back as she discusses flower arrangements with the coordinator.
His fingers splay wide, claiming the swell of his mate's pregnancy with a territorial ease that makes my molars ache.
"And your jaw," he says. "It's ticking."
"Fuck off."
"Charming." He doesn't move. Star shifts, her honeysuckle scent drifting, and Liam tracks the motion with narrowed focus before returning to me. "You've been staring at her for forty minutes. Either grow a pair and apologize, or stop looming like a serial killer."
I crush another nut. "I didn't do anything wrong."
"Bullshit."
My head snaps toward him. Liam's expression remains placid, spreadsheets and 15-minute itinerary calm, but his eyes are the steel dagger of a brother who watched me torment Sharma Kinsey for an entire childhood. "You don't know the situation."
"I know you." He steps closer, lowering his voice.
Star continues her conversation, oblivious.
"I know that look. That's the same look you had at nineteen when you convinced yourself that setting Mom's garden on fire was 'processing grief.
' You're cornered, and you're about to do something spectacularly stupid.
I'm here as someone who cares about you to say: Don't."
The torchlight wavers. Sharma lifts a drink, and her throat works as she swallows. A bead of condensation rolls down the glass, mimicking the path my tongue traced six hours ago. My cock stirs against my thigh, possessive and insistent.
"I need advice," I say. The unfamiliar words grate. Liam's eyebrows rise. I've never asked him for guidance on anything that didn't involve business. "Shoot," he says, giving me a steady look.
"Star." I gesture at his mate with my chin, keeping my voice low. "When you fucked up. When you hid the engagement, and she found out and left."
Liam's hand stills on Star's back. His fingers curl, knuckles whitening. "What did you do?" I press. "After. To fix it."
Star turns then, sensing the shift, her face softening as she looks at Liam. He meets her gaze, and a soft look passes between them—silent, devastating, the kind of communication that requires no translation. She nods once, returning to the coordinator, and Liam exhales through his nose.
"I begged," he says simply and succinctly. No making it pretty or pretending it was anything other than what it was. "Honestly? I didn't expect her to take me back. Not for months. Maybe not ever."
"But she did."
"Because I was dug in." His voice drops, rough with memory. "I wasn't going anywhere. I showed up. Every day. I proved that I was willing to eat crow for the rest of my life if it meant she might eventually look at me again."
Crow. The word tastes foreign. I've never begged for anything—money, attention, forgiveness. The concept sits in my stomach like spoiled fish.
"I don't think that'll work," I say.
Liam follows my gaze to Sharma. She's turned slightly, profile illuminated by the tiki torches, and for a moment her composure cracks—a flicker of exhaustion around her eyes, a tightness to her mouth that suggests the suppressants are wearing thinner by the hour.
"If you believe that, then you've already lost," Liam says. "You have to lock in. Take no losses. Give all to gain all." He sounds like a middle school pumping up a losing team.
A commotion erupts near the resort entrance. A valet in coral shorts pushes through the crowd, clipboard in hand, scanning the tables. His gaze snags on Sharma, and he raises his voice above the ukulele music.
"Ms. Kinsey? Ground transport just delivered your delayed luggage. It's waiting at guest services."
The words detonate my control. Fuck no. She's not going back on those damn suppressants. I don't care if I have to toss the damn bag into the ocean.
Sharma's spine stiffens. The glass in her hand trembles. We both know what's in those bags. The chemical barrier she's been hoping for since her baggage was delayed.
Our eyes lock across the luau. "Excuse me," I say to Liam, already moving.
I cut through the dancers, the servers, the inebriated cousins. Sharma sets her glass down and steps away from the table, but I'm faster. I intercept her before she reaches the path, blocking her exit with my body.
"I'll walk you," I say.
"Move."
"Not a chance." I keep my voice low, pleasant, the same tone I use to close million-dollar deals. "Guest services is dark this time of night. Unlit path. Bad footing. You need an escort."
Her nostrils flare. The pulse at her throat ticks visible and fast beneath terra-cotta skin. "I don't need you."
"Probably not." I smile, letting it show teeth. "But you're getting me anyway."
She hesitates. The crowd presses around us, music swelling, and I watch her calculate—public scene versus private capitulation. Her jaw sets, that muscle feathering just below her ear that I've dreamed about biting.
"Fine," she spits. "But stay five feet back."
The path unwinds from the main pavilion in crushed coral and shadows.
We walk in silence, our footsteps mismatched—hers clipped and restless, mine deliberately lazy.
The luau noises fade behind us, replaced by the mechanical whir of the resort's laundry facility and the wet rustle of palm fronds.
Humidity slicks my collar against my neck.
Sharma walks faster. Her shoulders hitch with each breath, the suppressant battle waging visible war beneath her skin. She's sweating. I can smell it—that rich, dark sweetness breaking through with my nearness, the omega beneath the armor screaming for release.
My hands close into fists. Release I could give her. Release I want to give her until we're both raw and ruined.
"Don't," she says, not looking back. Scenting my rising adrenaline. A rush I can't hide when she's within arms reach.
"Don't what?"
"Whatever you're thinking." Her voice shakes. "You smell like cedar and need, Roan. It's embarrassing."
"You're sweating through your dress."
She stops. Spins. Her eyes glitter in the low light, wet and furious. "Because you won't leave me alone. Because you keep pushing and pushing—"
"I'm not pushing." I close the distance between us in one stride.
She backs into the foliage, fronds snapping against her shoulders, and I follow, crowding her against the rigid trunk of a palm.
"I'm standing here. I'm existing. I'm breathing the same air as you, Sharma, and you're acting like that's a war crime. "
"You're trying to—" She cuts off, her breath hitching.
"Trying to what?" I plant my hands on either side of her head, caging her. The heat radiating off her body sinks into my skin, humid and urgent. "Keep you from drugging yourself into oblivion? Keep you from running from something that might actually be good?"
Her laugh cracks, bitter and broken. "Good? You think this is good? You, throwing your weight around, deciding what I need, when I need it—nothing's changed since we were kids. You're still an arrogant shit. An alpha who thinks omegas exist for your convenience."
The words whip like palm fronds in a violent tempest. I flinch. "I'm not—"
"You are." She pushes against my chest, but her palms linger, fingers curling into my shirt. "You're doing it right now. Pulling me into the dark. Demanding. Always demanding."
"Tell me to stop," I say. My voice scrapes low, guttural. "Say the word, Sharma. Say 'back off' and I will. I'll walk away. I'll let you poison your system with those chemicals. I'll watch you choose loneliness over—"
"Over what?" Her chin lifts, but her pupils are saucers, black swallowing brown. "Over you? Over being your convenient fuck while you play at being the fun brother? I'd rather—"
"You'd rather what?" I lean in until our foreheads nearly touch. Her breath gusts against my mouth as she huffs. "Tell me. Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want this. That you don't smell like slick right now. That your thighs aren't aching."
Her silence screams.
I inhale, dragging her scent deep—hibiscus and sugar, the omega breaking through, wet and ready and furious about it. My cock throbs, hard enough to split my zipper. The knot swells at my base, heavy and insistent.
"You're lying," I whisper. "To both of us."
She doesn't answer. Her hands fist tighter in my shirt, pulling me closer even as her mouth opens to protest.
I don't give her the chance.
I bend and lift her, one arm behind her knees, the other banding her waist. She weighs nothing. She weighs everything. Her yelp cuts off as I crush her against my chest and stride down the path, away from guest services, toward her bungalow.