Page 73 of Knot Your Business

It’s the thing that keeps me from actually pulling the paperwork from the drawer.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “If you need me, I’ll make it happen, okay?”

I manage a half-decent smile and wipe my eyes.

Time to get the attention off of me.

“Fuck me, I’m not a crier.” Faedra laughs. “My heat must be coming soon.” The lie slips out before I can stop it, but she doesn’t seem to notice the timing discrepancy. My heat isn’t due until September.

“If you disappear for a few days, I’ll know not to panic,” she jokes.

I laugh. It’s thin and way too watery, but it’s still there.

She checks something on her phone before glancing back toward the rest of the condo.

“You need to go?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Carter’s back.”

I smile and mess with my hair some more. “Definitely should go, then. Text me with what you pick for your room. It’s going to look so cute, especially the polaroid wall.” She nods. “And send me what you’re thinking for your nest, too. Happy to help you figure out where to start with all of that.”

“Of course.” She waves bye and then ends the call, my screen dropping back to my wallpaper.

I tip my head back and close my eyes.

The jealousy gets worse with each minute that passes, but I breathe through it. I have Jasper. I have Rylan. That has to be enough.

Thirty-Four

DOMINIC

My bed is cold when I wake up, the sheets mussed from where Jasper slept next to me. I blow out a breath and duck my head back into the pillow, trying to remember how to breathe without him plastered to my side. The ache is getting worse even with the suppressor. The longer she’s here, the more thoroughly my body pines for hers, the need to feel her skin and taste her lips and smell her perfuming for me instead of Rylan and my lover.

I cut the thought short and push up from the bed, kneeling as I run my hands down my face.

Over two weeks since she moved in. Two weeks of catching small moments of her scent, of having Jasper marked by her mouth, of having him split time between three beds instead of two.

Not as much of me hates it as I want, and that pisses me the fuck off.

I grab my phone from the nightstand, reading the quick text from Jasper as I head into the bathroom and get ready for the day.

Gone for a run. Be back in time for our brunch date.

Ti amo.

I manage to get myself mostly together, my black slacks and button-up feeling like my own personal armor more so than they ever were in my parents’ estate. I resent the fuck out of her for making me feel like I need it at all in my own damn house.

My feet freeze the moment I’m in the main room, the desire to just keep walking right out the front door sitting on my chest like a damn freight train. And yet I can’t manage to move, my body caught up in the faint honeysuckle scent of her.

She leans over the counter, her hair draping over one shoulder, revealing a black hoodie with a band logo I don’t recognize. Even from here, I can smell the tang of Rylan’s scent all over it. She sets down the pen in her hand as I pause in the hallway, her hand covering a piece of paper I hadn’t noticed before. Her gaze is wary though not overtly hostile. I ignore the part of me that feels remorse over her being unsure around me.

I don’t want to deal with an Omega, the way they solicit for attention and touch and smell, how nothing you ever give them is good enough, how they crave babies like they need them to fucking breathe. And I absolutely don’t want to deal with the fact that my body is happy to be strung along on their little leash, regardless of if I’m even interested in them at all.

Cavolo.

I edge around her, forcing tension into my limbs as I grab a simple breakfast so I don’t respond to her nearness. Her breath hitches as I brush behind her, grabbing one of the pans hung above the stove and lighting a burner.

The honeysuckle grows stronger. Heat flashes down my spine and into my dick.

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