Page 15 of Knotty New Year

He took my hand, leading me upstairs. At some point on the staircase, I slipped, and he scooped me up, carrying me.

“I like this,” I slurred. “I’m not little like the other omegas. Too tall, you know. Big bones.” He muttered something about his own big bone, and I snorted. “You make me feel small.”

“You are small, princess. Small and young and fucking forbidden.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but when he poured me into the pink and purple bed, then quietly slid the door shut, leaving me alone, I got the idea.

* * *

The next day, Benny cooing the word, “Fuck,” repeatedly woke me up.

“Charming,” I told him as I walked into the nursery.

All day, I kept waiting for Pax to appear. And all day, he stayed in his office. Once, during Benny’s nap, I stood outside his office door. There was no sound at all, but when I pressed my ear to the door, I heard an unmistakable groan. Was he watching porn? I leaned closer, holding my breath, and heard him moan my name and the words, “Good girl.”

That sent me to my own room to abuse myself. I hadn’t masturbated this much since my last heat. For some reason, that thought made me go a little nuts. The room I was in seemed suddenly too bright, the quiet music too loud. The blankets were all wrong, too. The only things that were right were the shirts and sweatpants Pax had brought for me to wear. The ones I leaked slick through so fast when I did try to wear them, I kept having to take them off immediately. I carried them to the closet, foggily thinking that maybe it was time to put them away.

When Benjamin began fussing, I was still in the closet arranging things. I ran out as soon as he cried, though, and went to get his afternoon snack—heirloom green bean purée—and some more educational toys. If my phone had been charged, I would definitely have turned on a non-educational show so I could rest. But the sitter manual had specified that screen time should be minimal, and I wasn’t about to interrupt Pax to ask where a television was, or if I could use a computer.

So playtime it was. When Benny finally went to bed for the night, I went to my room as well. I didn’t even eat dinner. For some reason, I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I was just prickly. Annoyed. Why had Pax spent the evening before asking me about myself? Being charming and sticking his thumb in my mouth and telling me to suck? He’d seemed like he cared about me. Like he wanted to be with me. No—like heneededto be with me. He hadn’t been able to look away.

Whatever. He was an asshole alpha, and I was done masturbating over him.

I went back to the closet to finish putting all the things into the right places, then pulling them out and doing it again. And again.

Chapter7

Pax

After I’d tucked Candy into my sister’s bed and watched her sleep for over two hours, like some pervert who needed to be in jail, I’d finally gone back to my office and managed to drink enough to fall into unconsciousness.

My inner voice was screaming at me to go back into that room, wake her up with my knot locked deep in her pussy, and show her exactly what an alpha my age could do with his omega mate. But every time I thought that, I forced myself to repeat her age out loud a hundred times, and think of my own little sisters.

Would I want them with a crusty, overworked alpha like me? Fuck no.

And her words kept echoing in my memory.“But what if my choice was not to end up with any alpha? Why did I have to lose everything?”

All she’d wanted was a choice. And I could fucking give her that.

So, I spent my energy setting up a paid internship that was tailored to the classes she had completed at Sycamore University, took a dozen apologetic phone calls from every level of leadership at the university up to and including the president—who may have been crying as he begged me to reinstate the funding for the football team in particular.

Then I started looking into high-security apartments near campus. She was not going to have to move back in with her parents and be forced to marry some sniveling alpha kid who had a video game addiction, a history of drunk driving, and an unfortunate medical history that included allergies, an unspecified bladder control issue, and an STD that had been cleared up with antibiotics the year prior.

I knew I had lost my mind. I was calling in favors that I’d accrued for a decade, stalking everyone who had ever crossed paths with this girl I needed to leave alone. It felt like the least I could do.

My sister had called to check on Benjamin, and I realized I hadn’t even seen my nephew that day. I was a coward, hiding in my office. I made myself a promise to spend the whole day with him tomorrow, which was… I checked my calendar. It was Christmas Eve tomorrow?Fuck.I didn’t have anything for dinner ready or a gift for Candy. Though I could fix that last one.

I had just offered an anonymous entrepreneurship grant to the Blue Skies agency when I heard something crashing upstairs. In my wing.

In her fucking room.

I raced up the stairs, down the hall, and threw open the door. “What happened?” The room was dark, and all I could hear was a whimpering sound over by the… closet? “Candy? Are you all right?”

I flicked on the light, but she shrieked, “Too bright!” so I immediately turned it off. Pausing for a moment, I sucked in a breath. I had never smelled any omega perfume this rich, this thick. I crossed to the opposite wall and turned on a small floor lamp instead.

“Princess, are you okay?”

“N-no,” she sobbed, and I raced to the closet door. Had she hurt herself? The light was just strong enough to see that one of the clothing rods had fallen on top of her.

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