Page 166 of Filthy Royal

Also, hells yeah.

Arms closing tight, Damien grinned down at her. “I knew you’d come around eventually.”

Laughing, she pressed into him, her face burrowing into the column of his throat, and he breathed in the perfect fit of her against him, the warm air, the satiation that washed through him from the top of his head to his toes.

“I have to admit”—her fingers toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck— “I might need a moment of recovery.”

That he got. It had been her first time too. “Whatever you need, beautiful.”

She melted against him.

No wonder his older brothers were always sneaking off to rut their omegas. Fucking was amazing. As was the aftermath.

Good thing he hadn’t known what he was missing.

It would have made him even more of an angry Alphahole than he’d been.

He’d make it up to this family.

Once he made shit up to Scarlett, and figured out how to protect her, get to Darvish and Crex, and locate Zaya.

“I dreamed of this moment so many times.” She kept her face buried in his throat. “I never thought it would actually happen.”

“But it has.” He’d tell her as many times as it took. “And it’s only the beginning.”

Scarlett sighed, long and loud.

He knew what that meant.

She was afraid. Convinced that whatever ugliness she still had to share with him might send them back to the anger and pain of before.

But what she didn’t understand was there was nothing she could do that would bring that about.

He’d fucked up once, let the thought that she’d moved on with another guy put him off when he should have fought with everything he had to bring her right back to his side.

But he hadn’t. So now, he’d learned.

And what he’d learned was that he wouldn’t allow anything to keep him from her ever again.

However, until she purged herself of all that needed to be told, she wouldn’t know how hard he intended to stick. So there was no way out but through.

Damien threaded his fingers through her hair and gently tugged her head back so that she could meet his gaze. “You ready to trust me with more, Omega?”

It took a heartbeat and a deep, determined breath, but she nodded. “I’m ready.”

He liked that.

Her hands slipped from him, and she wrapped her arms around herself, a self-protective instinct he didn’t like. One that had him wanting to reach out and put her hands back on him.

Damien checked himself.

“Okay then.” Promising himself he’d be back inside her as soon as possible, he concentrated on deflating his knot and lifted her gently off his cock. He repositioned her on his lap, her legs draped across his thighs, his arm curled around her back.

The water lapped at them as she resettled, and his heart squeezed tight when she lifted one palm all on her own and pressed it to his chest. “I-I don’t even know where to start.”

“At the beginning.” He stroked along her spine, steady, soothing. “From the moment everything went to hells.”

“Right.” Gaze skittering away, she ran her other palm across the surface of the water. “Well, you know the Consortium… It’s always been an evil organization, a greedy company that runs the Golden Dome and takes what it likes—things and beings—and destroys the rest. But around the time you and I met, there was a power struggle. More accurately, a hostile takeover.”

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