Page 51 of Knotty New Year

“What?” A strange tingling raced along my limbs, like they’d been asleep and were waking back up. “You can’t do that!”

He shrugged. “I can. I already did.”

“But… the shots that went wrong. Your sister said that you had to oversee the fallout and—”

He pressed a soft finger on my lips. “I knew I’d fucked up letting you leave the day you walked out of my office. I compounded my error when I gave you the choice to go back to your parents’ house. Your home isn’t there anymore.” He pressed a hand to his heart. “It’s here. And my home…” He swallowed. “I won’t have one without you in it.”

I didn’t know what to think. “You lied to me, though. About the weather?”

“No. I was on my way to the airport when an email came in from my private investigator. My brother, Victor—the one no one could find—was on his way back from South America. He’s home for good. With my brothers and sisters helping, Victor’s going to take over the business, the response to the shots, all of it. I informed the board on the flight, and he’s stepping up, effective immediately. I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do.”

“What is that?” I asked, deeply curious, though my stomach was beginning to cramp in a way that I recognized.

He set me down on the bed and kneeled over me, still stroking my hair back. “I’m going to be selfish for a change.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve spent my life taking care of my siblings and my company. Putting them first, and not what I needed.” His other hand moved to my breast, cupping it gently. “I’m going to be selfish, and love you andonlyyou, from now until you forgive me. Even if it takes the rest of our lives.”

I ignored the word love. I wasn’t sure what he meant by it. My mate mark still burned, and my heart was still bruised. But I set that conversation aside, losing myself in the feel of his strong hands on me.For a while, he massaged me gently. Whispering words of apology and promises that I would never be alone again, he soothed me enough that my hands dropped to the bedding, and I began stroking the cloth beneath us, moving it into place.

Unconsciously, I arched my back, pressing my breast into his grip and shivering as his fingers found my nipple through the sheer fabric of my nightgown, tightening around it.His nostrils flared as a rush of my scent filled the air.

“Selfish, you said? I don’t think I want a selfish lover,” I whispered as my core cramped again, sending more slick into my soaked panties.

“Then I’ll need to convince you, Omega. Because I’m greedy, too. For the feel and the taste of you. The sight of your curves.”

He undid the ribbon at the neck of the nightgown, then grunted as he noticed the line of tiny buttons on the front. “I think it’s your sister’s—” I began, but he’d already taken it in both hands and ripped it down the middle.

“What if what I need to soothe my guilt is to suck these tits, and lick your sweet cunt until you can’t remember what it feels like not to be shaking with pleasure?”

“Is… Is that what you need?” I managed to ask as his mouth moved to my breasts, sucking and pulling at my nipples, starting up a spiral of need in my center. “You only want to… please me?”

“Yes, princess. That’s all I want, and all I’ll ever do, from this day on. In bed and out.”

I knew better than to let my body take over. We still needed to talk. But my body chose that moment to remember what I was.

I was an omega in heat. And the time for words was over.

Chapter22

Pax

In one moment, I was kissing my beloved’s perfect pink nipples.

In the next, she was growling, snarling at me, and had flipped us over, her hands yanking at the buttons on my shirt and my belt. Her deep brown eyes flashed with a strange fire, her face was flushed and red, and her fingers were hot on my own warm skin.

The mating heat she’d endured had been nowhere near this intense, and I knew this was only the beginning. Annual heat cycles only ended after a week… or a bit earlier if the omega became pregnant. Of course, omegas who had found their mate could become pregnant even outside their heat cycles, but the probability rose exponentially during a heat.

Candy was fertile right now.

My heart raced at the thought of her swollen with my child,ourchild. But it wasn’t pounding only out of fear—though I would never lose my belief that pregnancy was dangerous, no matter how good the doctors, how effective the medicines.

There was also excitement at the thought of starting a new family, one of our own. We might have a dark-haired girl like her, with her optimism and open heart. Or a boy, with her compassion and humor. Or one of each.

If she wanted it, I would keep her pregnant for years, watching her breasts swell and fill with milk, her body grow rounder, softer. She would be the best mother alive.

A dark, almost primal need to stuff her full of my seed, to keep her begging for more consumed my thoughts. I wanted to stuff her to overflowing, fill her again and again.

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