Page 78 of Running on Empty

Because I felt a flush of the most intense pleasure that she was touching me of her own volition, that she saw me hurting and she decided to try and comfort me, rather than shrink back into my brother’s arms. And I wanted that comfort so fucking much my fangs ached and my jaw locked tight, needing it, needing her.

But I didn’t deserve it.

So I shook her hand off, catching the way her brow creased and a terrible mixture of pain and resignation flashed across her face.

I fucked up everything, and I couldn’t accept anything from anyone until I’d made shit right.

“We need to get the fuck out of here, now,” I snapped, injected all of the alpha bark into my voice to get everyone moving. “The cops are coming and—”

“Then you need to stop being a fuck,” Stevie replied, spinning me around with far more ease than a tiny omega should be able to, forcing me to face her. Her eyes flashed bright green and she looked terrible and beautiful, the fact she was covered in splatters of blood and grime only enhancing her beauty. Stevie stared up at me, daring me to do something stupid as she stepped into my arms and put hers around me.

Oh fuck.

I held her close. Of course, I did. I couldn’t hold out on her, not like this. My heart ached in my chest, each beat painful as it felt like something cracked deep inside me. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to touch her when I was filled with this sense of shame, terrified that it’d somehow stain her, but as soon as she hugged me, my grip on her tightened, holding her as hard as I dared.

“I fucked up…” I croaked out, the horror of what I’d let happen to Scar hitting me, but that was only the most recent thing. So much more came rushing out as I said the words. “I fucked everything up. It’s all my fucking fault, Stevie. If I’d seen Scar onto the plane. If I’d stopped you from going to The Viper Club. If I’d worked out that it was the Spencer pack distributing Rush. If I’d found those videos before—”

“It must be nice.”

Her words were muffled by my chest so it took me a second to work out what she’d said, and even then I stared down at her, watching the moment she lifted her head and looked into my eyes. She saw the question there and smiled slowly, a crooked thing, just like Ronan’s.

“The rest of us? We’re pretty reconciled to the fact we’re gonna fuck big things and little things on the regular. Like we wish we wouldn’t and we try and learn from our mistakes, but fuck, I don’t think any of us have any real expectation that we will stop messing up.”

My eyes jerked up when Ronan and Jax sidled closer.

“You do know we’re all going to fuck things up if we decide to get our heads out of our arses and become a pack,” she continued. “Fuck, even the mighty Ash Kelly will.”

“No one calls me the mighty Ash Kelly,” I said with a snort.

“Well, not to your face.” She smiled wryly and while there was pain in it, there was something else there as well. “A lot of things go unsaid, I think, because the high fucking standards you seem so determined to hold to, stop us, stop you.”

She let out a sigh, seeming to get smaller by the second, lines forming in her face I swear weren’t there a second ago, real exhaustion in her eyes.

“I guess here’s the thing.” Her head jerked up at the far off wail of sirens, but her focus seemed doomed to come back to me. “You can indulge in a very lengthy, very broody period of self flagellation where you blame yourself for everything, then single handedly work yourself to the bone to save everyone or…”

“Or?”

She was taking the piss out of me, but somehow I had to ask the question. Probably because she’d described exactly what I intended to do and I wasn’t aware there was another option.

“Or we can work out a way to make that cunt pay and get Scar back unharmed, together.” I sucked in a breath, ready to reply to that, but she cut me off with a frown. “Not with us as foot soldiers and you as a general, but truly together.”

My dads always said that when we found our omega, she’d be the perfect woman for us in every way. I’d snorted at the idea, even while hoping in the secret depths of my heart it was true. But as I stared down at her, the need to bolt for the car getting more and more pressing, I saw it.

I wanted what she described so fucking much it took my breath away. I found it almost impossible to relinquish control and when I did, I watched my brothers every move and the moment they diverged from my mental model of how shit should go, I snatched back the reins, barking orders.

And hated every minute of it.

My brothers were smart, capable, men who could tackle any problem head on, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier. I didn’t want minions, but some part of me seemed to think I needed it, that I had to move everyone around like little dollies, shifting them into position to make sure they were…

Safe. To keep them safe.

I swallowed hard, letting myself rub my hand up and down Stevie’s back, to just feel her, be with her for just this moment, before it all kicked in again.

“Can you do that?” Stevie wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. There was real curiosity, real fear in her eyes as she stared at me. “Can you work with us rather than rule us?”

No, that was my immediate response. No fucking way. Surrendering control meant saying goodbye to the outcomes I needed to achieve, because I knew the moment I did, I’d get caught up. In her, in them, in all of this and— But my mind stuttered, then stilled as she stared at me with eyes of green, her wolf looking up at me and mine? He shifted inside me, shouldering forward and taking control.

“Yes.” My voice was rough and growly because it was his, not mine, and it was the only answer he could ever give her, if I let him have his head. Yes to now and everything else going forward. “Yes, Stevie—”

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