Page 35 of His Innocent Omega
It felt like my eyebrows might have become one with my hairline.
He was the sheriff for fuck’s sake. Did he think he was above the law? Was he even thinking at all?
Grayson scraped his lower lip with his teeth, wrinkling his nose. If my fear hadn’t been replaced with rage, I might have found that just a little adorable. Might have. Possibly. Shifting slightly on the hard stairs, I couldn’t disguise my wince as I pulled myself up slowly. “Ow.”
Concern flashed in his dark eyes, and he reached his free hand out and gently grasped my elbow, steadying me. “You shouldn’t be up yet. Come sit on the sofa. Are you hungry? I’ll make you some breakfast. I wanted to let you sleep as long as possible. I hope we didn’t wake you. She was pretty upset at her last feeding. Had a burp she just couldn’t get out and she was not happy about it. She might be a bit colicky from the formula. Maybe we should switch to a different one that is easier on her tummy.”
Dumbstruck, I let him guide me over to my soft sofa and push me down into the comfort of it. It was much better on my butt than the stairs had been. And what was he going on about? Formula and colic and babies’ tummies. Was he the baby whisperer after all?
“I didn’t even hear her,” whispering, tears filled my eyes at the inadequacy that I felt. The same feelings had swamped me last night as I had paced the floor with her, trying to quiet her heart wrenching sobs. “I didn’t hear her! Or you! You were in my house, across the hall from my room, and I didn’t hear you!”
Wailing, I let the tears fall freely down my cheeks and drip off my chin, making a wet patch on the leg of my pajama pants.
“What kind of a father am I? I suck at this! Everything is so easy for me, but this is so hard! Why is this so hard? And why am I so bad at it? Omega’s are supposed to know how to do this, and I don’t and it’s hard! Nothing has gone like I planned it, and I’m pretty sure she hates me! My own baby hates me!” I sobbed.
Grayson gave me a slow blink, looking uncomfortable for a second, before he sat down on my coffee table in front of me. Julianna slept on in his arms, not at all disturbed by my mini-meltdown. The fact that she was so peaceful in Grayson’s arms had me sobbing harder.
“Hey,” Grayson whispered, taking his thumb and wiping at one of my tears with the most tender of touches, “everything is okay, Wyatt. Jules is fine. And you wouldn’t have heard me, so don’t get upset that you didn’t. I’d be more worried if you had heard me. I would hate to think I was losing my skills already. Goddess, Jamie would never let me hear the end of it, if I was. Your body needed the sleep. You just had a baby. That’s hard work, and you need time to heal. I couldn’t do what you did, no way could I give birth like that. Give yourself a break, baby.”
Jules? Baby? Have I woken up in an episode of The Twilight Zone?
Mate, my giraffe huffed in my ear.Bossy, domineering, take charge mate. Yummy.
He’s all that and more,I silently agreed.
“Look at her!” Waving a hand in their general direction, I sobbed harder. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t seem to stop whatever was happening inside my body and all the feelings I was feeling. “She hates me! She wouldn’t stop crying yesterday, no matter what I did for her. But she adores you, because of course she does. What did you even dofor her, huh? I’m the one that carried her, kept her safe, got fat! Pushed her out of a very small hole, with no drugs! I have stitches in places you shouldn’t have stitches! Why doesn’t she love me? Why does she love you? What have you even done for her?”
Grayson shrank back a fraction, holding Julianna just a little bit closer to him, and that made me cry harder. I had never been prone to crying. It was an impractical use of time and energy and really solved nothing. Apparently, all my years of pent-up non-crying were spilling out now.
“And put on a shirt!” Flapping a hand at his bare chest and his absolutely ridiculous, beautifully sculpted muscles on full display, I huffed, “No one needs to see all of that this early in the morning!”
Lies, lies, lies!But his abs were fucking distracting, as were the way his jeans were hanging so damn low on his hips. I swear I could see a hint of his curly pubes sticking out the top.
With wet eyes and hitching breaths, I blearily saw Grayson pick up his cell phone from the coffee table, and slide a thumb over it. Without taking his eyes off me, he held it up to his ear.
Whispering low, I heard him say to the unknown person on the other end of the line, “I think I broke him.”
Chapter Sixteen
Becks
Keeping calm was the best thing to do in most situations. Keeping calm was what I had been paid to do most of my adult life. Nothing rattled me. No amount of danger spiked my blood pressure. None of the shit Jamie had pulled while we had worked together–or even after–made me ever break a sweat.
I was a handler, a fixer. It was what I did. I cleaned up messes left by agents to rid the world of the worst of the worst of criminals. My ability to stay calm served me well in my role of sheriff and was something I used daily. Even in a town like Sweet Alps, where the crime rate was low, I still had to deal with people. And most people didn’t stay calmwhen the situation warranted law enforcement being called out for any reason.
The thin omega sobbing in front of me had me nearly pulling my hair out by the roots. Because I had no clue what had caused his outburst or what to do to stop it.
Full disclosure, Wyatt’s meltdown, for lack of anything better to call it, had me low key freaking out inside. Crying omegas were not where I excelled.
Julianna squirmed in my arms, letting out a soul piercing cry that nearly matched Wyatt’s, just as Jamie picked up my call.
“What’s up, Daddy-O?”
Ignoring his joking voice andwhat the actual fuckhe had just called me, I whispered, “I think I broke him.”
“Who is making all that noise?” Jamie demanded, because Julianna had worked up to top-notch screaming. Her cries somehow made Wyatt sob harder.
“Wyatt. And Jules. Both of them.” Hating to leave Wyatt in the state he was in, but needing to heat up a bottle for the baby, I walked into the kitchen. “I think I broke him.”
