Page 26 of Knotty New Year

When the bathroom door opened, I still looked like I’d been fucked twelve ways to Sunday, but Pax looked like a put-together billionaire businessman as he adjusted his gold and black onyx cufflinks.

He shot me a tight smile. “I’m going to have to apologize to your parents.”

“Yep,” I replied, moving past him to the bathroom. He dropped a kiss on my head as I went past. “I’ve decided just to never look my dad in the eye again. And move away.”

“Move in with me?” He stopped me, grabbing one of my hands. “Tonight. Come home with me, and you can get started on your new life.”

I felt the unmistakable presence of awhat the actual fuckscream stuck in my throat, and swallowed it down. “My new life?”

He nodded, then grabbed his phone off my dresser, scrolling and typing as he answered. “You may be my mate now, but that doesn’t mean I took away your dreams. You’ve got that job offer at Paxson Pharma starting in January. You could get settled in at my house this week, then we’ll go to Telluride so you can meet my family.” His eyebrow twitched slightly at that. “Do you still want to finish your degree? Or just skip it and go to work? No, you can do both, if you’d like. A work-study position, with time for instruction in the afternoons…”

He wasn’t asking me anything, I suddenly realized. I wasn’t sure he was even aware I was in the room.

“How about getting married?” I stepped in front of him, forcing him to look at me. “That’s normally what people do after…” I put a hand to my mate mark.

“There’s no rush,” he murmured, but his nostrils flared as he took in my naked state. A burst of his pine and ozone scent swept over me.

I stroked his cheek, shivering at the rasp of his short beard on my hand. It felt almost as good as it had on my thighs. “But we will, right? Get married.”

“If you want to,” he replied after a moment, his gaze intense. “But I know you had plans, dreams. So what’s important is for you to have those back, no matter if that means school, or work, or travel…”

“Or having babies?” I interrupted. “I know that might be hard, but I’ve always wanted children eventually.”

He nodded, somberly. “Since Mom’s death, I’ve spent the last two decades finding pregnancy-related treatments and procedures to help omegas. I’ve used my fortune to improve surgical outcomes, and to make fertility suppressants that work, even with true mates. Whenever you decide you want children, I’ll support that, too.”

He wouldsupportthat. Notwantit.

Every insecurity I’d felt since meeting him surged to the forefront of my mind. So Pax didn’t necessarily want kids with me, but he wouldn’t complain.

I swallowed hard, hoping I was reading too much into his word choice, but deeply worried that I was not. “Even though you raised your siblings?”

His smile was tight. “Of course. By the way, I’m not sure my sisters will ever stop teasing me about mating the betasitter.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny, etched metal box. “Not unless I make it official.”

“Is that…?”

“It is,” he said, his eyes soft now. “There’s no rush, but I’d love for you to wear this.”

My fingers shaking, I snapped open the box. I knew without asking that this had been his mother’s ring. The brilliant-cut diamond wasn’t huge, but it was an unusual blue-white, and etched on the sides of the ring were unmistakable shapes… “Candies?” I asked, wondering at the coincidence. “Are those really candies on this ring?”

“Dad always called Mom his sweetness. She smelled like peppermint and taffy. So he had this ring made.” His eyes shone. “It seems like fate. I took it out of my safe on Christmas Eve.” He cupped my chin in one hand, gazing into my face with fierce emotion. “Will you be mine, my sweet Candy?”

“Yes,” I replied, trying to sound calm as he slipped the ring over my knuckle. It didn’t quite fit, sliding loosely around my finger.

But I was determined to make it work.

Chapter12

Candy

The morning after Christmas, I woke in my fiancé’s king-sized bed to the press of a rock-hard cock against my back. “Still sleepy?” Pax murmured. On the bedside table, his phone was vibrating over and over, but he ignored it.

I took that as a good sign. He had admitted on the drive over that he worked too much, but had promised to try to do better.

He’d made that promise to my mom, too, when she shocked us all the evening before by ripping Pax a new one when we came down from my room.

“About time,” Mom muttered from her chair as Pax and I entered the living room. Dad just raised an eyebrow. Rain had already taken off, giving Pax the stink eye and me a pat on my shoulder and a promise to call, saying she had a gig. She couldn’t mean a betasitting one at this hour, and I didn’t know what other job she could have, but I let it go.

Dad had a crystal tumbler of whiskey in his hand, and Mom was pretending to read a magazine. I almost lost it when I realized she was holding the copy ofAlpha Rollthat Soleil had bought me as a gag gift. The cover had “Omega Orgasms and How to Prolong the Pleasure with Plastic (Sex Toys)” and “Alpha Bachelors Worth Drowning For” with a picture of a frowning alpha on an enormous yacht.

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