Page 90 of Reckless: Collision

He settles beside me, and somehow a blanket appears, soft and heavy across my legs. The couch still carries faint traces of pack scent—Jinx’s cherry tobacco, Ryker’s storm-front warning, Finn’s rain-washed stone. All of it wrapped in Theo’s midnight vanilla.

“I’m not sleeping,” I mumble, even as my eyes grow heavy. “Just resting them for a minute.”

“Of course not.” His voice carries that musical lilt that makes everything sound like poetry. “Just like I’m not creating a safe space for you to finally let your guard down.”

I want to argue, but exhaustion weighs on me like badly compiled code. “You’re dangerous,” I manage through a yawn.

“We all are, piccola.” His fingers card through my hair, and something in me unravels at the touch. “But sometimes the most dangerous thing we can do is let ourselves be soft. Let ourselvesbe held. Let ourselves believe we deserve more than what the world says we should have.”

The words follow me down into dreams, a truth I’m not ready to face but can’t quite deny. As consciousness fades, I feel him tug the blanket higher, tucking it around my shoulders like a firewall against the world.

His last whisper catches me just before sleep claims me completely: “Sweet dreams, little beta. Let yourself belong, just for a while. The world can wait.”

And for once, I let it.

Chapter 20

Cayenne

Consciousness returns in layers—eachone wrapped in a warmth I haven’t felt since before Sterling Labs turned my world into corrupt code. The TV murmurs in the background, some cooking show still playing on low volume, while outside winter rewrites the world in shades of white and possibility.

My head rests in Theo’s lap, his fingers gentle in my hair like he’s composing a symphony of comfort. Through however many hours I’ve been out, he stayed, turning himself into living furniture just to let me rest. The thought does something funny to my chest—corrupts my usual firewall against feelings.

“Welcome back, sleeping beauty.” His voice carries that musical lilt that turns even simple phrases into poetry. “You missed three failed soufflés and one dramatic rage-quit.”

Heat floods my cheeks as I push myself up, scrubbing sleep from my eyes. My body feels rebooted, systems running smooth for the first time in weeks. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“I wanted to.” He brushes a strand of hair from my face with the kind of tenderness that makes my heart execute unexpected commands. “Besides, you’re adorable when you talk in your sleep.”

“I do not talk in my sleep.” But even as I protest, I run a mental diagnostic on what secrets I might have spilled in my unconscious state.

His thumb traces my cheek, and something in the air shifts like code rebuilding itself into something new. “You said you felt safe.”

The confession hangs between us, heavy as encrypted data I can’t quite decode. Because he’s right—I did feel safe. Still do, wrapped in this snow-muffled moment with an omega who reads me like open source code.

There’s something effortless about Theo, like finding perfectly written software that just works. My eyes map his features like I would a new system—those dark brows, that aristocratic nose, the mustache that somehow makes him look both distinguished and dangerous. My gaze catches on his lips, and suddenly I’m compiling new kinds of code.

“I’ve never...” The words stick like bad syntax, but his patient silence gives me courage to debug. “I’ve never kissed an omega before.”

His eyebrow arches with elegant precision. “Just my wild alpha then?”

“That was different.” I study the blanket’s pattern like it holds answers to questions I’m afraid to ask. “I didn’t know him then. Didn’t know any of you. It was just...”

“Escape?” His voice holds no judgment, just understanding that runs deeper than binary. “And now?”

I force myself to meet his gaze, to face this vulnerability like I would a system breach. “Now everything’s different.”

“May I be your first then?” The question comes soft as snowfall against windows. “Your first omega kiss?”

My heart executes a critical error in my chest. “Yes.”

He leans in with the same deliberate grace he uses at his piano, giving me time to ctrl-alt-delete this moment. But foronce, I don’t want an escape key. Don’t want to hack my way around these feelings or compile excuses.

His lips brush mine like the first perfect line of code—gentle, elegant, full of possibility. No demands, no forced entry, just pure connection that makes my soul sing in binary. When he pulls back, his smile could light up the darkest server room.

“There,” he whispers against my lips. “Now you’ve been properly kissed by an omega.”

A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep in my source code, joy executing without permission. “Technically perfect.”

---