Page 10 of Omega on the Rocks
Was I not good enough? Was he disgusted afterward? Had it been a mistake forhim, even if it felt like everything for me?
Behind me, I heard the brush part.
Kieran.
His scent hit first—warm, leathery and masculine, laced with the faintest edge of desperation.
I didn’t turn. “Preacher.”
The nickname on his lips wasn’t rough this time. It was soft. Tentative.
“Don’t,” I said, voice raw. “Don’t pretend this didn’t just happen.”
“I’m not pretending.”
I whipped around, still on my knees, trembling. “Thenwhy didn’t you knot me?”
The silence that followed was deafening.
He looked like I’d punched him. Like the words hit harder than my running ever could.
“I wanted to,” he said finally, voice hoarse.
“Then why didn’t you?” I demanded, tears burning now. “You were right there, Kieran. Ineededit. Istillneed it. And you just… stopped. Like I wasn’t worth finishing. Like I wasn’t—”
“Don’t,” he cut in, stepping forward fast, eyes blazing. “Don’t youdarefinish that sentence.”
I froze.
He crouched in front of me, close but not touching. His hands curled into fists at his sides like it physically hurt him not to reach for me.
“I didn’t knot you because Irespectyou,” he said, voice trembling with restraint. “Because it was your first time. Because your heat isn’t on you yet. Because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold anything back, and you deserved better than beingclaimedwhile your body’s too overwhelmed to tell the difference between instinct and choice.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks then—hot and humiliating.
“But I wanted it,” I whispered. “I wantedyou.”
He exhaled sharply, like it broke something in him.
“I know,” he said, quieter now. “And I wanted to give it to you. God, preacher, I’ve never wanted anything so bad in my life. But you were already shaking. Already scared. And if I’d locked myself inside you—if I’d given you my knot—you wouldn’t have been able torun.”
I blinked, stunned.
“I didn’t want to trap you,” he said. “I wanted you to stay because youchoseme. Not because your instincts took over.”
I bit down on my lower lip, hard, trying to steady the mess inside me. The tears. The need. The painful, gut-deep ache of being so close to something I didn’t even know I’d been craving all my life.
“But what if I don’t know the difference?” I whispered. “Between what’s real and what’s instinct?”
Kieran finally reached for me, brushing a knuckle along my cheek, reverent and cautious.
“Then we figure it out,” he murmured. “One night at a time. No pressure. No knots. Not until youaskfor it. Not until you know, without a doubt, that you want to be mine.”
I closed my eyes against the weight of that promise. Because ithurt. And yet—it healed.I nodded, just barely.
Chapter Six
Morning crept in like an unwelcome visitor.
