Page 174 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

But for once, I don’t want one.

“Not this time.” I brush a strand of damp hair from her face. “This one I just want to feel.”

She reaches up and touches my face. Her wet fingers trace my jaw, my cheekbone, the bridge of my nose where my glasses usually sit.

“I love you, Ethan,” she says softly. Like it’s the most obvious conclusion she’s ever drawn.

For a second, I can’t speak.

“I love you, Sophie.” My voice comes out rough and unsteady and I don’t try to fix it. “I have loved you since you picked up my petrified protein bar and told me it was a weapon.”

She laughs, and the sound fills the bathroom. I can’t help but smile at the memory. “I’ve loved you since you smiled at me for the first time and I just—” I swallow. “I just knew.”

She turns her head and finds my mouth, her wet hand reaching back to rest against my jaw. Her kiss is soft and unhurried, and there is nothing urgent about it this time.

We stay in the bath until the knot subsides and the water goes cool. Then I carry her to the bed where Max and Finn are waiting, set her down between them, and watch her curl into the warmth of our bodies, and I think—for the first time in my precisely ordered life—that some things are better left unanalyzed.

Some things you just feel.

CHAPTER 44

Sophie

Ihaven’t slept in their bed for five days.

On Monday morning I moved back to the residential wing at Synthera and told all three of them that we needed to be careful. That we needed to keep our distance—my suppressants can’t take another hit, and there’s still a mole to find, and I can’t do my job if I’m constantly distracted.

They agreed. Not happily, but they understood.

The problem is that none of us are very good at it. Finn catches my eye across the conference table and holds it a moment too long. Max’s hand finds the small of my back as he passes me in the corridor. Ethan leaves a coffee on my desk with a sticky note that just says E. Small, careful things—but enough to remind me that last weekend wasn’t something I imagined.

I know keeping our distance is the right call, and I hate every second of it.

Every night I lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling and think about Finn’s hands and Max’s mouth and the way Ethan whispered sweet girl against my throat in the bath, and I burn with it.

By Friday, I miss them so much it’s a physical ache.

We’re in Max’s office for the weekly briefing—me, Max, Diana, two of the research leads. Max is in full CEO mode, charcoal suit, and nobody interrupts him once. He doesn’t look at me any differently than he looks at anyone else. He doesn’t even glance at me.

When the meeting wraps, people start gathering their things.

“Ms. Dysart,” Max says, not looking up from his notes. “Stay behind, please. I’d like a word.”

Diana gives me a sympathetic look on her way out. The door closes, and the last footsteps fade down the corridor.

Max crosses the room and locks the door. Then he turns to me, and the CEO is gone. His green eyes are dark and intent as he closes the distance between us and kisses me hard, one hand at the back of my neck, his mouth urgent and demanding. I melt into him so fast it’s embarrassing.

“I’ve been thinking about you all week,” he says against my lips, his forehead pressed to mine.

“Is that what ‘I’d like a word’ means in CEO?” I say teasingly.

He laughs, and the way it transforms his face makes my heart stutter. Max Cavill laughing is something I don’t think many people get to see.

“It means I’d like several words,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose. “Most of them inappropriate for a professional setting.”

I laugh and lean into him, my forehead to his chest. His arms come around me and we stand there for a moment, his chin resting on top of my head, and the quiet between us feels like the first full breath I’ve taken all week.

“Have brunch with us tomorrow?” he says into my hair. “Finn’s making pancakes.”