Page 47 of Broken Ice
Emilio’s eyebrows slanted down. “Because…?”
Urgh, this was so embarrassing. “I don’t know. You have this thing where you stay with me the whole time, and I know it’s really needy but I kind of like that? And he was more, like…there for the sex, you know?” He remembered how Alex had insisted they fuck even when Beau wasn’t quite ready for it, the scent of him driving the Alpha crazy, apparently.
For a long moment, Emilio seemed honestly frozen in place. He cracked awake, expression collapsing into something a little scary. “You don’t mean that…he would leave you?”
“No! No, no. I mean, he was still in the apartment. Well, he did leave, I guess, but it was mostly over by then. Mostly he’d watch TV and stuff in the living room while I stayed in the bedroom, you know?”
Emilio opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “That’s…insane.”
Beau felt himself shut down, walls slamming up. “Okay, well, sorry we don’t all—”
“I meant it’s insane for an Alpha to treat any Omega like that, and even more insane for anybody to treatyoulike that, Beau.”
“Well…” Beau squirmed in his seat. “It was almost the end of the heat by the time he left,” he said, only a half lie.
“That he left at all is fucking sick, but I’m not even talking about that—being in another room? While you’re in heat? Absolutely not. That’s just wrong.”
“Well, what was he supposed to do? My heats were long, so…he did stay in thewholeweekend. It would have been too boring to just lie in bed with me. And it’s not like my heats were super painful or anything,” Beau reminded him.
“No, Beau. Most Alphas barely separate from their Omegas during heat. What he did wasn’t right.”
The force of Emilio’s voice, the conviction—it pierced through the filament protecting the memories of that heat, letting them spill out.
Acutely, Beau remembered how it had felt to be alone on the bed. He’d worked so hard to convince himself that he was asking for too much instead of Alex giving too little.
Blood spread under the skin of Beau’s soul, bruise tender to the touch.
“I mean…okay. Not much I can do about it now,” Beau mumbled, embarrassed for some reason.
“No, but now you know you don’t deserve any less than that.”
Beau took a wobbly breath. His heartbeat was the thumping of a racing animal, noise filling his head. “Okay,” he managed to get out.
“I want you to tell me if I ever do something like that, okay? If I ever make you feel like that. I mean, when I left after the first heat—that was bad enough. If I ever do something remotely like that again, you need to let me know.”
Beau peeked at Emilio through his eyelashes. He really was so handsome, face intent and absolutely sincere. “Okay.”
Emilio nodded, appearing satisfied.
“What about you? What are your exes like?” Beau asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
“Fine. Nice.”
“Swedish? Or Portuguese?”
Emilio snorted. “One of them was Swedish. I’ve lived here so long…culturally, I probably fit better here than I do in Sweden.” There was a thread of nostalgia woven through the words, pulling them tight, scrunching them up.
“Is that hard?”
Emilio took a few beats to consider that. “Sometimes. It’s strange to not fit fully in any one place. People here tell me I act Swedish, and people in Sweden tell me I act American.”
“Sounds a little lonely.”
Emilio shrugged, not seeming that affected. “A little, but at the end of the day, you fit with the people you love, not the place you live in, you know? I have my family back home, and the team here—they’re my pack, I guess. And it’s not like I would trade what I have for just being from one place.”
“Right. Big-shot NHL-er. That’s not a bad gig.”
Emilio smirked. “You would know just as well.”
