Chapter 25 Sleepless And Smitten #2
The thought slips in before I can stop it, and I don't push it away this time.
I let it settle, let it take root. Would I mind?
If this temporary arrangement became something more permanent?
If she stayed not because of a contract deadline but because she wanted to?
If Valentine's Day passed and she was still here, still sleeping in our beds, still stealing our clothes, still making coffee that tastes like home?
Tank is smitten with her. I can see it in every glance he throws her way, every protective gesture that's become second nature, every time he calls her "Sweetness" with that soft look in his eyes that I've never seen him direct at anyone else.
Not even his fiancée, before she left. He's falling, fast and hard, and he's not even trying to hide it anymore.
The man who built a cabin in the woods specifically to escape from human connection is now planning surprise dates and buying heart-shaped candy.
Elias is going down that route too. He's more obvious about it—Elias is obvious about everything, subtlety is not in his vocabulary—but there's a gentleness in the way he treats her that goes beyond his usual sunny disposition.
He looks at her like she's something special.
Something worth keeping. Something he'd fight to protect.
He brought her to the firehouse, introduced her to his crew, sat her on his lap like she belonged there.
Two out of three. That's where we are. That's where they are.
It's never worked that way before. In every previous attempt at finding an Omega—the few times we actually got past the initial meeting stage—there's always been a flaw that showed up.
Something that made at least one of us uncomfortable.
An attitude that rubbed wrong, a habit that grated, a fundamental incompatibility that couldn't be overlooked.
I guess that's what I'm waiting for. That's why I keep my distance, why I refuse to let myself fall the way Tank and Elias are falling.
I'm waiting for the inevitable moment when everything goes wrong.
When she reveals something unacceptable, or when she decides we're not worth the trouble, or when she simply. .. disappears.
That's why I don't want to fuck her.
Not that I'm not attracted to her. I am.
Painfully so. The thought of having her makes my cock twitch with embarrassing frequency, especially when she wears those short dresses that show the perfect glimpse of her perky, round ass when she walks.
Or when she bends over to grab something and the fabric rides up just enough to torment me.
Or when she smiles at me with that wicked gleam in her eyes that suggests she knows exactly what she's doing.
I could fuck anyone. I've fucked plenty of people. Sex isn't something I rely on for emotional connection—it's a physical release, nothing more. But with her... with her it would mean something. And I'm not ready for things to mean something. I'm not ready to be vulnerable again.
But the idea of enjoying her—truly enjoying her, the way Tank has, the way I suspect Elias has—makes something complicated twist in my chest. Want and fear, tangled together. Desire and self-preservation, at war.
I huff out a breath, still staring at the ceiling. The water stain hasn't changed. Time hasn't moved. I'm still here, still awake, still hopelessly aware of the woman sleeping beside me.
And then I hear it—a soft sound, barely audible. Muttering.
I turn my head, looking at Rosemarie. Her brow is furrowed now, her face scrunched with concentration even in sleep. She's talking—or trying to, the words coming out slurred and fragmented.
"...the beans... strictly from Mexico..." She shifts, her hand flexing against the pillow. "...not Guatemala... the notes are different..."
Is she dreaming about coffee? She's actually dreaming about coffee beans and their country of origin.
Something that might be a smile tugs at my lips. I don't let it fully form—I'm not that far gone—but it's there, threatening at the edges.
She turns over, facing me now, and I can't help but study her face in the moonlight.
She doesn't look peaceful. That's the first thing I notice.
She looked peaceful earlier, when she first fell asleep, but now there's tension in her features.
A crease between her brows. A tightness around her mouth.
What is she really dreaming about?
"...I'll redo it..." The words come out sad, defeated. A tone I've never heard from her in waking life. "...I can fix it... just let me try again..."
She turns again, restless, the sheets tangling around her legs. Her scent shifts—still cinnamon and coffee and vanilla, but with something sharper underneath now.
Anxiety. Distress.
"...I know they don't love me..." The words are quiet, almost a whisper, but they hit me like a physical blow to the chest. "...I know. I know. I've always known."
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The raw sadness in her voice cuts through all my carefully constructed walls like they're made of tissue paper.
She's asleep. She doesn't know I'm listening.
She has no idea that I'm lying here cataloging every broken syllable that falls from her lips.
This is her unguarded, her vulnerable, her authentic—the version of Rosemarie that exists beneath all that confidence and sass and bold defiance.
The version she hides from the world because she's learned that showing weakness gets you hurt.
This is a woman who knows, on some fundamental level, that she wasn't loved.
That she's never been loved. Not really.
Not the way that matters. That the people who were supposed to care for her—her family, her pack, the people whose literal biological purpose was to protect and cherish her—saw her as nothing more than a commodity to be traded.
A product to be sold. A problem to be managed.
I realize, with uncomfortable clarity, that I've never given her the chance to truly unpack what she's gone through.
None of us have. We've been so focused on the logistics—the protection, the arrangement, the deadlines—that we've never actually sat down and let her process the trauma.
We've heard bits and pieces—the burned shed, the bounty hunters, the arranged match she ran from, the family that treats her like property—but we've never actually sat down and let her grieve what she lost. Let her rage about what was done to her.
Let her feel whatever she needs to feel about the years she spent being treated as less than human.
That will take time. Healing always does—I know that better than most, given my own history with betrayal and loss.
But she deserves at least comfort in the meantime.
She deserves someone to hold her when the nightmares come.
She deserves to not face the darkness alone, to not carry the weight of her past without anyone to help bear it.
She deserves so much more than I've been giving her. Than any of us have been giving her, really, but especially me. I've been so focused on protecting myself that I forgot someone else might need protecting too.
I sigh—a sound of surrender, of walls crumbling, of a decision being made that I can't take back—and move closer before I can talk myself out of it.
The mattress shifts as I cross the invisible boundary I established earlier, the line between "my side" and "her side" that suddenly seems ridiculous in its rigidity.
What was I protecting? My pride? My fear?
Neither of those things seems worth protecting anymore. Not compared to her.
I wrap an arm around her waist, carefully, gently, pulling her back against my chest. She fits perfectly—like she was designed to be held by me, like the curve of her spine was made to nestle against the planes of my body, like this is exactly where she's always supposed to have been.
Her scent envelops me completely now, no longer something to resist but something to sink into. Something to drown in willingly.
She stirs at the contact, mumbling something I can't quite make out.
It sounds like "...sweet..." or maybe ".
..sweets..." or possibly "...Sweetness..
." which would mean she's dreaming about Tank, which is a thought I'm going to actively not examine right now.
Her body tenses for a moment, instinct responding to unexpected touch, muscles coiling with fight-or-flight reflexes that have probably kept her alive more than once.
I hold absolutely still, barely breathing.
If she wakes up, I'll have to explain this.
I'll have to come up with some excuse for why I'm suddenly holding her after spending the entire evening insisting I didn't want her in my bed.
I'll have to admit that I'm not as unaffected as I pretend to be, that my walls aren't as impenetrable as I've convinced everyone—including myself—they are.
But she doesn't wake up. Instead, she relaxes almost instantly, her body going soft and pliant against mine. Her breathing evens out. The tension in her face smooths away. She settles into my embrace like she's been waiting for it, like this is exactly where she belongs.
Like she's home.
I stay frozen for long minutes, waiting for something to go wrong.
Waiting for her to wake up or push me away or react with the confusion and suspicion I would probably deserve.
But nothing happens. She just... sleeps.
Peacefully now, the nightmares apparently chased away by something as simple as being held.
Is this what she needed? All this time? Just someone to hold her?
My mind drifts to what she said during truth or dare. The bookshelf she wanted. The reading nook she tried to build. The way she described it—"my way of wanting a nest"—with such wistful longing.
Has she ever even had a proper nest? If she didn't have a space of her own—if every attempt to create one was destroyed or forbidden—maybe she's never experienced that fundamental Omega need. Maybe she doesn't even know what she's missing.
The thought is deeply unsettling. Nesting is instinct for Omegas, a biological drive as basic as eating or sleeping. To deny someone that, to take away every attempt they make at creating safety and comfort... it's cruel in a way that goes beyond simple neglect.
Her family did that to her. Her pack did that to her. They took a woman who clearly craves stability and security and systematically destroyed every attempt she made to find it.
No wonder she runs. No wonder she keeps people at arm's length. No wonder she hides her vulnerability behind sass and confidence and refusal to ask for help.
She's learned that needing things gets you hurt.
I tighten my arm around her slightly, not enough to wake her, just enough to feel her presence more fully. She makes a soft sound—almost a sigh—and burrows deeper into my chest.
We could give her that. We could give her a nest. We could give her a space that's entirely hers, filled with books and soft things and everything she's never been allowed to have. We could show her that wanting things doesn't have to end in destruction.
The thought forms fully in my mind, complete with details—the viral bookshelf she mentioned, a cozy reading corner, soft lighting, comfortable seating.
Tank's house has space for it. The sunroom off the living room, maybe, with its big windows and warm light.
We could transform it into something just for her.
Is that too much? Is that overstepping? We're supposed to be a temporary arrangement, not a permanent pack. I shouldn't be planning renovation projects for someone who might be gone in three weeks.
But even as I think it, I know I'm going to do it anyway.
Because she deserves it. Because no one else has ever given her something just because she wanted it, just because it would make her happy, just because her joy has value in and of itself.
Because the thought of her leaving without ever knowing what it feels like to have a proper nest—a space that's truly hers, filled with comfort and safety and all the things she's been denied—makes something in my chest ache in a way I can't explain.
Fuck. I'm falling too. I'm absolutely, irrevocably, completely falling, and I can't even be angry about it anymore. I can't muster the energy to fight it. I'm not sure I want to.
My eyes are getting heavy now, finally. The warmth of her body against mine, the steady rhythm of her breathing, the way her scent wraps around me like the world's most expensive blanket—it's all conspiring to drag me toward sleep.
The tension I've been carrying for an hour—for days, for weeks, for years if I'm being honest—melts away, replaced by something softer.
Something that feels dangerously close to contentment.
Something that feels dangerously close to peace.
Could fate actually make this work? Could this temporary arrangement become something real, something lasting, something permanent? Could the woman in my arms be the one who finally fits—not just with Tank, not just with Elias, but with all of us? With me?
I let my mind shimmer on the possibilities as sleep finally claims me. Her weight against my chest. Her scent in my lungs. Her quiet presence filling all the empty spaces I've carried for so long, spaces I'd convinced myself would stay empty forever.
Tomorrow I'll have my shoot. I'll pose for cameras and pretend to be something perfect and untouchable. I'll wear designer clothes and craft expressions designed to sell products. I'll be Julian North, the model, the investor, the grumpy asshole who keeps everyone at arm's length.
But tonight, right now, I'm just a man holding a woman who talks about coffee beans in her sleep and carries sadness in her dreams. I'm just an Alpha finally admitting that maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want to be alone anymore.
Maybe, for once, things will work out the way they're supposed to.
For once, we'll get to keep something good.
Surely…we won't be deemed the Late Alphas—the ones who couldn't find an Omega, the ones who were too old or too broken or too difficult to match.
The ones society looked at and judged and found wanting.
For once... we won't be deemed the Late Alphas.