Page 61 of Ready or Knot

“The Continental Divide Trail is over 3,000 miles.” Her eyes widen, and her jaw drops. I lean over and kiss her. “At best it takes about six months to finish.”

“Wow,” she whispers. I run my hand down her shin, leaning into her, and she bridges the gap, kissing me until we’re both breathless.

“Bonding is another one,” I admit when we pull apart. She combs through her hair as she frowns, her tongue tracing her bottom lip.

Shit.

I probably should have come up with a better way to bring up the idea of bonding. She’s young, and we’ve only really been around each other for a couple weeks. It’s one thing to be matched. It’s another thing entirely to bond.

I shrug, squeezing her hand before pulling away. “Obviously that isn’t one I can decide to do on my own,” I say. She takes a careful breath. “And I don’t expect it, either.”

After a moment, she nods, licks her lips, and starts to say something.

There’s rustling across from us a second before Logan gets out of the tent, his back towards us as he heads into the forest without looking back. Carter unzips his own tent before Faedra recalibrates. She turns, and he offers an intimate smile that creases the corners of his eyes.

“Good morning,” she says, keeping a firm grip on my hand. He kisses her just as thoroughly as I did.

“Good morning, little Omega,” he murmurs as his hand drags down her neck before stepping away in the same direction as Logan.

“We should get breakfast ready,” she says after a minute, the easy feeling between us now tense.

I blow out a breath.

She glances at me. “I’ll think about it.”

Better than her cursing me, at least.

Twenty-Four

FAEDRA

“Red.”

Logan’s voice is warm and soft, brushing over me, and I nuzzle harder into him, pressing my lips to the hollow of his throat. His laugh vibrates through his chest, and I smile. His hands are gentle where they comb through my hair, though at this point I feel like I should encourage him to not touch me at all until we’re back at the condo and freshly showered.

“Red, we have to get up,” he says, tracing his thumb down my throat and across my collar bone. “If we don’t, Carter will eat what’s left of the decent food and leave us with the shit he hates.”

My mind flicks back to Carter pretending to gag on one of the granola bars.

That has me rolling off of him and crawling out of the sleeping bag that was absolutely not large enough for us both but that he insisted we could make work when I cried in the middle of the night from not being able to smell his skin. I’m pinning that one completely on being off the suppressors.

What in the weird ass Omega shit even is that?

I couldn’t smell his skin. The skin that has been only wiped down since Friday and smelled so strongly of his sweat that he didn’t even need to perfume for me to smell the sandalwood. (Spoiler alert: it’s now Monday.) Not that he’d been even remotely weirded out by it—or at least if he had been, he’d been a phenomenal actor. He simply slid to the far side of the bag and helped me sidle in, pulling me into his chest before falling back asleep like this was perfectly rational behavior.

“I’m not sure there’s decent food left,” I tell him, pulling on my hoodie and braiding back my hair. “If you make me eat another dehydrated banana I might just decide to file a complaint with the Council.”

Logan throws his head back, his laugh filling the tent, and I smile.

We’re just getting out of the tent and tying our shoes when there’s voices from nearby and Jude starts laughing as he works to get the tent he shared with Carter torn down and repacked.

“It took you long enough,” Carter jokes, walking to the edge of the camp, looking back towards where we came from yesterday. A couple hundred feet away, two women hike towards us. Their packs are a happy purple, and they hold hands, swinging them as they traverse the area separating us. “Honestly thought you’d forgotten to show up this year.”

One of the women mutters an impressive curse, and I smile. Logan brushes his lips against my temple as he hands me one of the packs of dehydrated fruits and peanut butter.

“Apple,” he murmurs. “No complaint required.”

I purse my lips. “Don’t suppose Jude left any of the cashew butter,” I say in my best grumpy voice.

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