“Do you have a glass?” I ask.
She blinks at me. “Yes. I?—”
I stand up. She grips my hand, stopping me. “What are you doing?”
“Proving it to you.” I turn away.
Her hand tightens around my wrist, and she tugs me back onto the edge of the bed as she sits up in bed, exasperated. “Glasses are too expensive to break for no reason. Even the ones from Walmart.”
“Then I’ll go buy some,” I tell her.
She stares at me for a beat, and she barks out a laugh. When I don’t respond, her amusement fades and her eyes widen in shock. “My god, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
The golden strand of hair on her cheek is too tempting to ignore. I tuck it behind her ear, taking hope that she doesn’t lean away from my touch. “Yes, I am.”
I have never been more serious about anything in my life.
She stares at me for so long that I decide she’s waiting for me to do it. When I stand, she lets out an exasperated sigh and pulls me back onto the bed. “Don’t. I have no desire to have you bleed across my floors.” She releases my wrist and settles her back against the headboard, legs straight. “Normal people don’t do insane things like that.”
“Normal people don’t treat their scent matches the way I did.” I study her, trying to read her. Ever since we hurt her, she keeps her expression shuttered when she’s around us. I get why she does it, but I miss when she was an open book. “Would it help you to hurt me back?”
She sighs and looks away. “Not really. I tried that with Torin. It didn’t make me feel as good as I thought it would.”
“Is there anything I can do that will help?” I ask her quietly.
She says nothing for the longest time. I wait, ready to give her whatever she needs.
“You made me feel ashamed,” she says, her voice almost a whisper but slowly gaining strength. “LikeIhad been the one who failed you. And youhumiliatedme. You made me think you were cheating with the girl you were talking to at the hotel andthen with Lottie. I don’t know if I can trust someone who could make me feel that way.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me because you have bond sickness, or even to trust me, but can you see yourself taking what you need from me, maybe just until we get you through your next heat and we can find another better solution?”
Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand.”
“Whatever you need, can you take it from me, or should I get Archer or Torin? Nothing we give you or you take has any strings. Just take what you need, and I will leave. You won’t even need to ask me to.”
She stares at me. “You’re asking me touse you?”
I meet her gaze steadily, needing her to know this isn’t an attempt to manipulate her or take more from her than she’s willing to give. “Yes. I’m telling you to use my body. If you need my knot, it’s yours. If you don’t want me to knot you, then I won’t. Take what you need from me, and after, I’ll leave your apartment.”
She looks down into her lap, twisting her fingers together. “I can’t do that.”
I take both her hands, raising one to brush a kiss across her knuckles. Her breath catches, and I see the faintest stirrings of arousal in her gaze when she lifts her eyes to mine.
"I want to give you all the things I should have been giving you all along,” I say, fighting to control my need as her sweet blueberry and brown sugar scent merges with the headiness of female arousal. “An alpha cares for his omega. I wasn’t doing that before. None of us were.”
Her expression is impossible to read. “Why did you buy this building?”
I don’t bother denying it. “You deserved better.” Her mouth opens, but I keep talking. “And so did the people who live here.”
“Will you charge me rent?”
“One change I’m making is to the rent. And not just yours. It’s too high for a building this old and with this many issues. If you want to pay it, then pay it. I’m not demanding that you do, and I don’t want you to think that my help requires anything from you.Includingyour forgiveness.”
She lifts her chin. “And if I meet someone and decide he will live here with me?”
When I imagine her taking another man to her bed, I want to rage and keep her for myself. She’s my omega. No one else’s.Mine.
Then I imagine something worse: Juniper dead from bond sickness because I failed her again.
