Page 29 of Want It All
She made a noise of assent and then offered me a strawberry. I grinned and ate it from her fingers, because who could have resisted?
I tamped down the urge to lick her skin clean, though.
‘So what’s your sad family story, Rosemary Morris?’ I said, mostly to distract myself. ‘Please make me feel better about vomiting out mine.’
‘I don’t have one,’ she said faintly. Her cheeks were flushed; she tore her gaze from my lips, looking out at the water. ‘I’m anonly child, but apart from that, I’m disgustingly well-adjusted. I have two alpha parents who were momentarily astonished to find they had an omega daughter, but rose to the occasion and gave me everything I needed and wanted. My mum and dad have always been a massive support. They call or text me every day and send me dog videos they find online. I’ve never told them I’m a cat person,’ she went on, with a smile that warmed my body from the inside out. ‘We’ve barely ever fought, not even when I was an obnoxious teenager. Which doesn’t make for a very interesting backstory, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m glad,’ I said, and I was. ‘It’s nice to know that families like that exist. Tristan’s family is similar, though he’s got two mums and two dads, betas and alphas, and he has two younger brothers. They’re all hideously nice, even if they are disgustingly rich.’
‘I looked you both up,’ Rose said, looking faintly embarrassed. ‘I didn’t realise …’
‘That he’s so rich the numbers don’t even seem real?’ I supplied. ‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t really sink in until the private jet takes you to the island Tristan’s mum bought for him when he got stressed about exams in high school and you realise that thehousethere has a walk-in-wardrobe bigger than your entire apartment. Or when he takes you hometo meet his family and it’s a five-thousand-acre estate in the north of England with an honest-to-fuckcastlesitting in the middle of it.’ I grinned at her. ‘Again, how sad for me, right? Having an alpha who can give me almost anything I desire? But it did take a bit of getting used to. They have anorangery, Rose. Andstables. Like, what the fuck? I thought I was hallucinating.’
Rose laughed. It was a lovely sound, smooth and surprisingly deep, a melody I wanted to hear played on repeat.
‘Holy shit!’
The expletive came from the shallows, where Tristan was letting the whitewash ripple over his feet. His beautiful face was carved into a comical expression of shock, and I couldn’t help laughing. It really must have been cold, because my alpha had been wild swimming and in ice baths before without complaint.
‘Told you,’ Byron crowed, then turned and shot us a wide grin.
Fuck.
‘I haven’t seen him smile before,’ Rose said blankly, as if she was in my head and knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘Not properly. Not likethat.’
Because Byron Griffiths happy wasdevastating. All straight white teeth and curving lips and grey eyes full of depths I wanted to swim in. His smile was a secret, a revelation.
What the fuck is wrong with you, Sebastian?
I put a hand to my forehead. I did feel hot. Hopefully I was getting a cold or the flu, and could pass all of today’s insane thoughts and feelings off as some kind of fevered delirium.
‘The next time I have anidea,’ Rose said tightly, ‘it’s your job to shut it down.’
‘Absolutely not,’ I said immediately, smiling. ‘I’m a chronic enabler. The only word you’ll ever hear from me, Rosebud, isyes.’
She frowned at me, before her lips curled up. ‘Is that so?’ she said slowly, and it wasn’t my imagination – she was leaning closer, her eyes on my mouth.
Fuck the fact this couldn’t work. Fuck the weird feelings. Fuck the flu.
Fuckyes.
I want a kiss.
Her berry-sweet breath sugared the air, and my body tensed, ready. I’d kiss her slow and soft, I decided, because that was what she deserved, something romantic and unforgettable, with my hands tangled in her hair and my lips a caress she’d thinkabout for weeks. I’d swallow her sweet sighs, and keep them to myself until I shared them with Tristan later, when his hands were on my skin and I could imagine the two of them –
‘Race you to the water,’ Rose said, and jumped to her feet.
She tugged her tank top over her head with surprising speed, and my body didn’t know what was happening, because I’d been expecting akiss, and instead she was stripping off, revealing an elegant one-piece swimsuit and the generous curves beneath it, but she wasn’t technically stripping forme, and apparently I was extremely salty about it.
She unbuttoned her shorts and shimmied them down her thighs, andfuck, I couldn’t stand up now, because my cock was twitching at the sight of her rounded ass and my imagination already had his hands on it, cupping and massaging and spreading so I could kneel behind her and –
‘Come on, Seb,’ she said with a wild smile, and ran across the sand towards the alphas.
I’d been dealing with getting erections at unfortunate times for years, so I subtly reached to tuck myself into the trunks I wore beneath my board shorts, then scrambled to my feet, tearing off my shirt and sprinting after her.
She shrieked when she ran into the water, then laughed. I followed a few moments later. Apparently, my body was doing its own thing today, because before I knew what I was doing – before I could think it through – I’d swept her up into my arms. I didn’t feel the cold as I waded in, not with her warm heat pressed to my stomach and chest.
‘I won,’ Rose crowed, but as she linked her arms around my neck and I breathed in the sea and the scent of her hair, it felt as ifIwas the one with the prize.
