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“I’m sorry. I—”
“Please don’t apologize. These things happen sometimes between alphas and omegas. Tyler is my best friend. I trust him. If I couldn’t be there, he’s the only person I would want to take care of you.”
I hear the words. I’m trying to believe them. But I’m still spiraling in rejection and guilt, and panicking.
“Can I come closer?” Alden asks. “I think it will help you feel better.”
I nod.
He stands, and crosses the room, dressed comfortably in linen pants and a casual tee that looks expensive. He’s slightly smaller than Tyler, and smoother in a way that’s hard to explain. Don’t get me wrong. He’s in excellent shape and total wet-dream material. I already knew that from the pictures we swapped, but where Tyler was all hair and testosterone, Alden is smooth and soft, chest bare.
His slate blue eyes are even more beautiful in person, almost mesmerizing. He does that thing with his pants where he lifts them before lowering into a squat beside the couch to make eye contact with me.
He smells good, really good, even better than the board shorts on the beach, and he smells a little like Tyler too. But where Tyler’s scent felt feral, Alden’s scent grounds me, something I need right now when I feel so untethered.
“Hi,” he says with an easy smile. “I’m so sorry for, well, everything. Tyler said you swam out to rescue him? That was very brave.”
My cheeks flush with heat. “I would have rescued him too if it weren’t for the cramps while I was swimming.”
He clicks his tongue. “I’m so sorry you’ve had such an awful start to your heat. And here I had the heat plan and everything. I wanted our first heat together to be together, for one.”
“Stop,” I tease.
He’s been joking about a heat plan since we started talking, said it was like a birth plan but for spoiling an omega. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and that’s what I like about him. Most alphas make me feel inferior and objectified, reducing me to my role as an omega. Alden makes me feel like a person.
“The plan is real. Just you wait.” He sobers. “I want you to know that you hold all the power here. If you want things to stop, please tell me, and I’ll listen.” He pauses. “And I completely understand if you want to go home. You’re welcome to use the guest room alone too. I stocked it with new toys just in case.”
Dread simmers in my gut, making me queasy. Is he rejecting me too? “Situation?”
“If you came and changed your mind about spending your heat with me.”
“I didn’t change my mind.”
His eyes snap up from his hands and his lips curl into a small smile. “Really?”
I nod.
His smile widens, reaching all the way up to his blue eyes. His scent blooms, filling me with warmth, a good kind of warmth like dipping into a bath that smells lush and green. Slick dews between my legs, but it doesn’t linger. I reach under the sheet and feel cotton wadded beneath me.
“I hope you don’t mind. I remembered you saying how much you don’t like to be wet, so I bought some slick-wicking boxer briefs.” Pink tints his cheeks. An alpha who blushes? “But it felt a little invasive to put them on you while you were asleep.”
Words fail me. Maybe there is a heat plan. He’s already taking such good care of me. I feel safe and cherished. A small cramp seizes me and more slick drips from me.
“Poor, sweet little omega. I hate that you’ve had soldier through a single cramp without me to take care of you. I’m here now. I’ll make it up to you.”
He kneels at my feet and gently lifts the sheet to expose my feet. With gentle hands and a firm touch to avoid tickling, he dusts the sand from my ankles and feet. His brow furrows and he frowns. “And you had the sand to contend with.”
“It’s okay.”
He looks unconvinced. He massages my calves and the arches of my feet. It’s so intimate my cock lifts, straining against the sheets, and I squirm as I feel myself getting wetter for him. My need grows, and I whimper through another cramp.
He gazes at me with open hunger as he rises to his feet. My alpha isn’t a golden retriever anymore. He’s a timber wolf. My mouth salivates at the sight of his cock filling his slacks.
“God, your scent is so sweet, so addicting. I can’t wait to taste you. Let’s go make a nest.” He extends his hand.
I’m nervous for a fleeting second. Something in me knows how intense this heat with him will be, but then he helps me up from the couch with so much care and tenderness I can imagine him doing the same when I’m pregnant. My heart twinges at the image. My heart is just as insane as my omega-addled brain is. The sheet falls onto the floor, and he gasps, actually gasps.
“You are perfect,” he murmurs, stroking my bottom lip with his thumb. “I’m so goddamned lucky you chose me.”
