Page 69 of Glass Omega

Pulling the cloth away from my face, I found Edison sitting on one of the long wooden benches that lined the lockers. He was still dressed the same as earlier, though he’d haphazardly tucked his shredded shirt back into his pants and hadn’t even bothered to hide the freshly bruised bite mark peeking out from underneath his undershirt.

“Where’s Perrie?” I asked, surprised he’d been able to deflate his knot so quickly. Neither of us had ever knotted an omega—and alphas rarely tried it with each other—but Edison’s knot could sometimes stay swollen for hours after sex.

One glance at the clock told me it had barely been thirty minutes since I stepped into the shower to relieve some of the tension in my body. Tension that was very quickly returning again now as we stared at each other.

As my body warmed up again, all of the senses that had been dulled by the cold water were starting to return, including my sense of smell.

Edison was wearing Perrie’s scent on him like a badge of honor and even though he was sitting several feet away from me, I could smell it as if he was rubbing it in my face.

“She’s asleep in her nest. She was a bit worn out after our time together.”

I snorted at that. Anyone would be after getting fucked by Edison Keane. The man was an animal that didn’t know when to give someone a break.

“So why are you here instead of there with her?”

“Because I want to know why you didn’t come in and join us.” Edison folded his hands in his lap, shooting me a glare that made me realize that I had hurt the other man’s feelings when I’d turned and ran earlier. “You heard me ask her about it, an explicit invitation, and yet you still didn’t come in.”

“You don’t understand—” I began wrapping the towel around my waist and securing it in a knot.

“I understand your reservations completely, Rhodes,” Edison cut me off before I could say anything else. “My father has been dead for two years and yet you still bow to him like a dog.”

That hurt like a bitch to hear Edison say and I worked to not flinch at the words he was throwing at me like darts.

Edison uncrossed his legs and stood, crossing the tiled space to me. He smelled of vanilla and strawberries, and it nearly made me stumble right back into the shower for another round of Antarctic-tug-and-pull.

“Stop.” I put a hand out to keep him from coming any closer.

Edison’s expression crumpled a little bit, his gold eyes pinching at the corners as he frowned at me. “I’m trying to give you the world here. You like her and I’m fairly sure she likes you judging by the way she clamped down on my knot when I mentioned you earlier. So why are you so reticent about it all? Is it the branch heads?”

It was. Edison’s position had been on shaky ground since he took over and throwing out all of the traditions and values that the oldest members of the Keane clan held had made it even worse.

I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was the reason for toppling the man who was everything to me.

“It was supposed to be a secret.”

“What was?”

“Us. The things we do in the privacy of your room,” I muttered, looking away from his intent gaze. Only Edison had ever been able to tell my real feelings just by looking me in the eyes.

“We fuck. Call it like it is. Are you ashamed of us fucking?” Edison asked slowly.

I wasn’t. But what had started as sex out of necessity had transformed into the sort of naturally progression partnership that I realized I always wanted with Edison.

I’d spent years watching him pursue men and women—though he usually favored those of the fairer sex—and it used to make me irrationally angry.

But I’d always told myself that it was because he was putting himself in danger by the constant revolving door that he surrounded himself with. I had even gone so far as convincing myself that it was because Edison needed to just get married so that I could better protect him.

And now he was married and Istillfelt jealous. Except I didn’t want Perrie to disappear—no in fact I felt the opposite. I wanted to do exactly as Edison had asked earlier and join them.

I had no good answer for Edison, so I said nothing and we stood there in the locker room for what felt like hours but must’ve only been minutes.

Finally, I heard Edison sigh. “Fine. I hear you loud and clear.”

Tension started to seep out of the tight bunch of my shoulders as Edison turned to walk away.

Then he stopped at the door and turned. “But if you don’t want this—me and Perrie—in front of the world to see, then you won’t get it in private either. Make a choice Rhodes. You can either continue to live in the past, or take a step forward with me into a much brighter future.”

The door to the locker room slammed shut with a bang, leaving me still standing in just a towel but feeling like I’d been stripped down to the bone by the man who I would never admit out loud that I was actually in love with.

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