Page 3 of Knotty New Year

Fuck.He looked like the cover model of every Daddy-dom book I’d ever read, all rolled into one. But bigger, harder, and… angrier.

He wasn’t purring now.

“Who are you?” he demanded. His lip curled into a sneer that made me want to apologize, drop to my knees, and promise to be a good girl.

I took a shaky breath and exhaled on a whimper as his scent rushed over me. It was pine and… thunderstorms?I inhaled deeply, letting my eyelids close the smallest bit. Tasting it on the back of my tongue.

He stepped even closer, and my core honest-to-goodness clenched as he loomed over me. “Who. Are. You?” he repeated, his nostrils flaring.

“Y-y-you—your…” I tried to make the words, “Your sitter,” emerge, but I was breathing so fast, I thought I might pass out. All that came out was, “Your s—” and when he stepped even closer, baring his teeth, I leaned back, my heel catching the edge of the rug. I started to fall.

Iron bars wrapped in a silk suit tightened almost cruelly around my waist.

He snarled, and my pussy did that clenching thing again, but this time, I could smell my own berries and cream omega perfume. “Mine?” he demanded.

I nodded, shook my head, then nodded again. His eyes narrowed. “Not… yours… I meant,” I said, relaxing into the harsh grip, though I knew I should be trying to stand on my own. “I’m your…” At that instant, a baby’s wail emerged from the monitor in my purse. “Your sitter,” I finished. “Your betasitter.”

Chapter2

Pax

If I didn’t know fairy tales weren’t real, I would have thought the woman melting in my arms was a princess, spun from some unknown bright magic.

Or a succubus, formed from my darkest desires and sent from Hell to tempt me.

Or an angel, untouchable and perfect. Forbidden.

I scoffed internally at my ridiculous, unfamiliar romantic thoughts.

Her hair was a tumble of dark waves that made my hands itch to weave through them and tug until she whimpered. Her eyes were deep pools of whiskey and chocolate that fluttered shut as I leaned over her. Her mouth formed a small O when I tightened my grip on her plush curves, her cheeks going pink as her blossoming scent revealed exactly how much she liked the sudden bite of my fingers in her softness.

I wanted to bite more than that, I realized, staring at the pulse that thudded at the base of her graceful neck. When she’d stuttered, I’d heard her answer my demand with a faint, “I’m yours,” and my dark, possessive heart had roared ayes!My teeth ached to bury themselves in her, taste her. Mark her.

Claim her for mine, forever. And then strip her bare and teach her exactly what that meant.

What was happening to me? I’d never reacted like this toanywoman.

I’d almost fucking bitten a stranger. A girl.

In no universe was the soft omega in my arms the betasitter my previous PA had hired for the rest of December. I’d approved that one’s résumé and done a tele-interview. She was sixty-eight, Croatian, had a doctorate in early childhood education, and had raised three of her own to adulthood.

This little omega, who smelled like strawberries and fresh cream, and whose skin promised to taste the same way, was practically a child herself. Curvy and young and a temptation I had no business handling. Not that my cock cared one damned bit. I hadn’t been this hard since my first rut, back when I was eighteen… which was twenty years ago.Shit.Twenty-one. I was thirty-nine now.

Thirty-nine years old, and I would bet all three billion dollars of my own investments, and the whole of Paxson Pharmaceutical Enterprises, that I had just met my true mate.

My omega soulmate.

My stomach did a slow somersault. This girl might not even be as old as my youngest sister. What if she was a teenager? She looked like one, dressed in an older woman’s ill-fitting clothes. Thank fuck my nephew had let out that short cry when he had, or I might have lost control and bitten her anyway.

As soon as she regained her balance, I let her go. “How old are you?” I demanded, and winced. I hadn’t meant to ask that. I was going to ask her name.

Her dark eyelashes fluttered shut, and I took the chance to adjust myself discreetly, grabbing my phone and tapping out a quick message to my new PA, Theodore.

“I’m twenty-four,” she answered.

A dark inner voice roared.Old enough. Claim her!

I didn’t look up from my phone, waiting for an answering text while I fought for control. “And who are you?”

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