Page 32 of The Omega Lesson

But Travis can go cry into his cornflakes if you ask me. He might boss people around for a living, but it’s clearly not going to work in this pack.

And that’s what we are. Or close to becoming, now bites are being shared around.

“Thanks, Mattie,” Ben says quietly, then pulls me in for a hug. I’m not expecting it, or the well of emotion it squeezes out of me. Shit, what the hell’s wrong with me? One more back slap and I’ll be a blubbering mess. “It’s new. From last night, obviously. I’d asked him a hundred times, but it was always too hard. The distance, and the shit his dad pulled… Well, it was never the right time. But he really wants to try now… And I’ll take whatever the hell I can get.”

He's talking quietly, and I realise with a start that it’s on purpose.Ben is confiding in me.Which is another freaking first. Although, if I’m honest, he’s probably tried a heap of times before. But I’ve always cut him off with grunts and snorts, since that’s my usual reaction to a heart-to-heart. I spent years listening to my mum whisper her deepest, darkest secrets into my ears, only for her to come down off her high and deny every one of them.

But Ben looks happy to have poured it all out, so I let him hug me again before sauntering Jackson’s way. “So, does this make you my brother, too?”

Jack looks me over with interest, and if I didn’t know he’d switched to alpha before, his flaring nostrils would be a dead giveaway. “Not by blood,” he says with a hint of heat in his eyes.

Oh, yeah. The Lyall boys are hungry for my arse.

I get it. As a beta, I’m a convenient filler, since omegas are in short supply. But I’m also big enough and cheeky enough to fire up their predator instincts. And take away their thousand-dollar suits and good boy haircuts, and most dominant alphas have a raging predator under the surface.

Which is probably why Lexi has their dicks on high alert.

Not that she isn’t totally irresistible as an alpha, but there’s something about her omega awakening that pushes all our buttons. Yeah, I still want to drop to my knees and worship her like a goddess, but I also kind of want her to crawl into my lap, too.

I tip my head, my eyes on the silky length of her throat. Last night in the shower, I saw her entire body for the first time. Talk about wanting to worship her until she couldn’t remember her own name. But it also gave me a chance to suss out her past mating bites… or lack of them. “What about you, babe? Your ex never…?”

“He did,” she says quietly, her head tilted so I can’t see her face. “But… I had it removed.”

She turns her arm over and rubs a thumb along the puckered mark on her wrist. The other guys step closer, and we don’t need a heart-to-heart to know what they’re thinking. “He bit you on thewrist?”

I try to keep the anger from my voice, but it’s a definite fail. But what kind of arsehole bites their mate – and mother of their child – on the fucking arm? It’s not a common place for a bonding mark, because it hurts like hell. And… it’s your fuckingarm. “Richard said it was more elegant than a big scar on my neck,” she explains, still not looking at any of us. “Our divorce settlement, such as it was, required me to get it cut out.”

Ben’s eyes flash like lightning, but it’s Travis who’s staring at the scar like it’s a fatal wound. “He really made you do that?”

She shrugs, but it’s easy to read the hurt in her face. “It’s not like I was feeling sentimental about it by that stage.” She clears her throat, but then lifts her chin. “Richard left me for an omega he met through work. She already had a pack, but I guess she wanted an extra alpha for her collection.” Her gaze darts straight to Jack and she winces. “I’m sorry. That sounded really shitty. I’m not saying all omegas are like that.”

But Jack is already shaking his head. “No, love. Breaking a mate bond is what’s really shitty. And I’m sorry they didn’t respect it more.”

She gives him a small smile. “It just makes me a little unsure about all this. I mean, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the switch stuff, and bites are a big deal.” She’s trying to sound unaffected, but I can feel her pulse thumping under my touch. “I just don’t want anyone to regret me ever again.”

Well,nowmy chest is aching like a motherfucker.

But she has a point. Everything’s happened so fast – me asking her to be my alpha, her meeting the guys, and then finding out she’s a switch... It’s been a whirlwind, and given the bullshit she’s been through with her ex, I can hardly bitch at her for wanting to go slow.

“What about you?” she asks, tugging on the bit of hair that’s always hanging in my eyes. “Is this something you want?”

“With you, yes,” I say immediately, because there’s no way I can hide how I feel about her. Yeah, I saw plenty of shitty packs and painful breakups as a kid, but I know what I want, and that’s a bond with Lexi.

“And the others?” she prompts, and I roll a little, until I’m face to face with Noah.

Holy shit. Every time I look at the guy, I break out into a sweat. I met him when I was sixteen, gate-crashing a party by using Ben’s name to get in the door. I was headed for a spectacular fuck-up that night, full of booze and anger and guilt, and probably homesick for my mum, if you can believe that for a joke. But he found me making out with a couple of arsehole alphas twice my age and dragged me off, threatening to horsewhip them if they ever messed around with me again. I thought he was just being dramatic about the horse thing, but then he brought me here and made me shovel shit until I fell asleep on a lump of hay. And in the morning, he took me to breakfast in his Maserati. Something he’s been doing at least twice a month, ever since.

“What do you think?” I ask him softly. “You ready to take a bite out of me?”

Noah’s eyes flare in arousal, but Ben is suddenly staring down at me, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re serious?”

I can feel Noah stiffen behind me, and I narrow my eyes. “Just keeping it in the family, bro. You have any objections?”

Ben chews on his cheek for a bit, his eyes darting between us, but then he shakes his head. “You don’t need my permission, Matthew. But this is a big decision, and you guys haven’t known each other that long.”

“February 3rd. Convertibles over SUVs. Beach holiday over city break. Brunettes over blondes. Summer over winter. Cats over dogs. And salty over sweet, although that’s probably because he’s sweet enough already.” Noah arches a cocky brow at my brother as he lists off everything from my birthday to my pet preferences. “I know him, Ben. And we’ve spent more time together than you think.”

Ben’s frown deepens at that, but I sit up so I can face him head-on. “That rugby trip to Sydney you volunteered to chaperone? The work experience gig you never got around to organising? That lawyer I saw about my trust?” I tick off my own list, and then shrug. “That was all Noah, bro.”

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