Page 30 of Knot Happening

Criminally attractive. Lock this man up and throw away the key. Please!

“That wasn’t a no, Baby.”

He flashes me those damn dimples as he steps back to let me pass. If I had known Hayden was going to be working here, I would have picked a different floor name. Hearing him call me Baby, in that husky low tone, is almost more than I can take.

“You are insufferable.”

I flip my blonde hair over my shoulder as I move past him, hoping he gets a face full of my scent. Bastard. I sway my hips, knowing damn well his eyes are glued to my body as I go.

I spend several hours working VIP, pretending I can’t feel his eyes on me. Pretending I can’t remember the way his hands felt on my body.

When it’s time for my break, I rush to the locker room to freshen up my makeup and hide from his scent. He was wearing a hoodie for half the night, but at some point, he took it off and put it behind the bar.

The bartender hadn’t commented when I grabbed it and ran down here. No one needs to know. Hayden, least of all.

It’s not until I return to finish the rest of my shift, that I realize I might have been a little too obvious. Hayden is smirking at me as I walk up the steps.

“Shut up,” I snap, not wanting to hear a single word from him. I just want to serve drinks and go home. I need a fucking nap.Curled up in his sweater, my newest treasure for my hoard.

Gah! Being an Omega is so fucking annoying.

“Jesus!” I yelp, when strong, warm hands wrap around my waist and lift me. I’m tossed over a shoulder and staring at the ground in seconds. “Hayden!” I snarl, but he doesn’t so much as grunt as he grabs my bike in his free hand and heads toward the parking lot. “What the fuck is happening right now?!”

“Tatum?” one of the bouncers, Jax, asks, and I lift my head as best I can until I can see the Beta. He’s kind, friendly, and never once tried to hit on me. I don’t think female Omegas are his type, though. “Oh, Hayden.” And just like that, the Beta is abandoning his Omega protection duties and disappearing back inside the building.

“If I had asked, you would have said no. So I’m not asking,” Hayden growls, sounding tense, and angry? What the fuck is his problem? Oh, god… He’s scenting me. Not even twenty minutes before the end of my shift, I got hired for a dance. He was just some random Alpha, but I am covered in his scent now, even with my clean clothes on top of my uniform.

“Put me down, you barbarian,” I hiss, pounding my fists ineffectively against his muscular back.

“You’re not going home smelling like slick, advertising your wet Omega pussy to every Alpha that passes. It’s dangerous. You want to be kidnapped?” he snarls, angrier than I’ve ever heard him. I snap my jaw shut, because he thinks… I’ll let him think what he wants.

I’ll take the truth to my grave. That truth being that Hayden had broken up a fight between two Alphas just before closing. He ended up with no injuries, but the t-shirt he’d been wearing had gotten ripped off of him. Beneath his shirt is a sculpted body,and at his hip, a tattoo I’d never seen before. I was too far away to get a good look, but I’d seen it.

My body reacted, and I’d had to drag my eyes away from his body and escape the scene to the lockers to avoid him noticing my reaction.

Clearly, he caught my scent anyway, but he thinks it’s because of that last lap dance. Good. Fucker.

“This isn’t kidnapping?!” I demand, wishing he wasn’t a fucking giant so I could poke his asshole. I bet a finger in the ass would get him to release me. Then again, maybe not. Memories of the three days I spent lost to my heat, knotted by Hayden, fill my mind and I have to stifle a whimper. Unfortunately, I can’t stifle my scent. Or his. Or the way his pheromones react to mine. Mixing to an intoxicating combination, filling the air around us…

“Jesus, Tatum, are you close to your heat? You smell like god-damn blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream. You can smother me in your cream if you want. I’ll accept your punishments…” Hayden groans, sounding like he’s struggling. His hand that’s gripping my thigh slowly travels upward.

For a brief second, I consider giving in, because it feels so fucking good to have his skin against mine… Then, I’m reminded of how comforting his touch used to be as I think of all the times I cried in his arms, and he used those same hands to soothe me. The days and nights he was there for me. The weeks he spent wiping my tears. The times he beat the shit out of other Alphas in school that threatened me.

Every moment of heartbreak and pain, Hayden was right there…until he wasn’t. Until he was the cause of my pain.

This time, the whimper escapes, but it’s one born from the deepest ache in my soul. His hand immediately stops its torturous upward path. I close my eyes as he lowers me off hisshoulders and onto my feet, placing my bike in the back of a pickup with one hand like the hulk.

“Fuck, Starlight…” Hayden grunts, and I flinch, his words hitting me like a punch to my chest. Fuck, why’s he got to call me that? Doesn’t he know how it hurts me? I refuse to look at him. He’s not having that, though, as he tilts my chin up. “Starlight…” he whispers, and tears that I can’t hold in any longer spill free. He gave me that nickname so long ago, and hearing him say it now, after everything he put me through… It’s more than my poor Omega heart can take.

“Please stop, Hayden. You’re only hurting me more.” I choke on the lump in my throat as my emotions rise like a tidal wave of misery inside me. “You walked away so easily, once. Can’t you just do it again?” I beg, because I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep fighting him off. I can’t give in, though. Everyone I love leaves me. He’s the one that proved that. I can’t fucking breathe…not with him so close, stealing my every thought. Destroying my carefully built walls.

Heleft me.

“I won’t let you down again, Tatum. I’m not leaving you. You can hate me, curse me out. You can fuck other Alphas…” he growls, the last sentence not entirely convincing. “But I’ll still be here. I’ll still love you, just like I always have and always will.”

Fuck!Why’s he saying all this now?! Words I would have fallen to my knees to hear when I was eighteen. The lump in my throat only grows as I struggle to hold back the sobs that want to be released.

He’ll still love me? You don’t leave someone you love. You don’tbreaksomeone you love!

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