“It would seem so.” He pulled me into a hug, and his warm thawed a deeply frozen part of me.
With his touch, I woke, enfolded in his arms, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“What’s the matter, omega?” He stroked my hair, still holding me close. “Don’t you like dreaming together?”
“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ve always been alone. Asleep. Awake. Oh, I had a few friends in school, but they didn’t know anything about me, really. I had to hide what I was. A bear. An omega. Something to be sold. Desperately studying to be worth something. I wasn’t valuable just because I was me. Nobody thought so since my mom…my mom died when I was four.”
“You have us now.” He didn’t ask about my dad. The male had already shown his true colors. “And we’ll always be here for you.”
His kiss warmed me even more, pushed the years of loneliness back…brought more tears, but as the kiss deepened and our hands began to roam, one thing led to another. I’d never even made out with anyone—it was in my contract that made me able to go to school. No touching anyone. But this alpha made me want more, want it all. When he murmured, “We can stop. We can just sleep.” I pulled him closer and growled.
“I want you. Please.”
“I’d have to be a better male to turn you down than I am. You’re beautiful, omega, and you smell incredible.” He kept talking, melting me, warming me, wrapping me in his scent. “And you’re so slick. It’s going to hurt, but just a little, okay? I’m going to make it good for you.”
“Just. Do. It.” I was excited and scared and everything all at once until he pushed inside, gliding on the slick he’d brought from me, and the single sharp pain was gone, replaced by a pleasure so intense, I wrapped my legs around him and held on tight while he plunged into me and pulled out, my nipples hard as diamonds scraping his chest and doubling the sensations. Finally, I just gripped the sheets and held on while he drove in again and again until everything in my core clenched around him and I experienced what omegas were told not to expect. A simultaneous orgasm with the alpha of my dreams. His knot swelled, pushing me over the edge a second time, and as he panted leaning over me, I reached up, jerked him down, and sank my fangs into him. Marking him. I totally blamed my bear for this because I didn’t mean to do it. But the ecstasy of him returning the favor?
Not sure whether I slept or passed out after that. It didn’t matter at all.
Chapter Eighteen
Cannon
I thought I’d be the first. As the alpha, it seemed as if that would be the way, although we’d never discussed it. So, when Felix and I were sitting at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and waiting for the others to wake up, it never occurred to me that they would come out of the same door.
We’d been talking about the addition to the cabin, making plans for the upcoming week. With the omega here, our lackadaisical pace needed to kick into gear. “I think we can have the nest ready for her in about a month and a half,” Felix was saying when my gaze fixed over his shoulder. “Cannon? Are you listening? What’s—” He turned and his jaw dropped.
“Good morning.” Tyrone wore pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, Millie just the long tee she’d picked out for sleeping in, and they both had marks on the side of their necks. “I hope you didn’t wait for us to eat.”
“We did.” I stood up because Felix was still frozen. “It’s keeping warm. Give me a minute to grab it.” We had made a breakfast casserole, a favorite of all three of us and one we hoped Millie would like too. “Felix, come get the fruit salad from the refrigerator?”
He still wasn’t moving.
“Felix! I need your help?”
“I can do it,” Millie offered.
I started to say no, but she was standing by a chair as if unsure whether to sit, and my heart clenched. We all knew that it would be her choice with who, when, and as long as Tyrone was good to her, I was good. “Thanks. Could you slice the banana in there before you bring it to the table. We always wait until the last minute so it doesn’t turn brown.”
Millie opened the refrigerator and got out the bowl. She was peeling the banana when she caught my eye and smiled. Crossing the floor, she came to my side and said, “Cannon, can we sleep together tonight? I’d love to share a dream with you?”
“Of course, omega.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead, her nose, and a soft one on her lips. “That would be very special.” Trying to appear unruffled when all I wanted to do was sweep her to my bed right now, I carried the casserole to the table and set it on the hot pad.
Felix seemed to have recovered and was laughing and telling a story about when we first broke ground on the addition. Something mathematical that almost had us building something very oddly shaped, and Millie sat down and listened, laughing when he described what it would have been like. “A diagonal turret is the closest I can come to it.”
“Wow. Lucky you figured it out,” she marveled. “I hope I can help build it. I don’t know anything about construction, but I’d love to be part of it, any way you can use me.”
“A family project,” I confirmed. “There will be something for all of us to do together.”
We ate every bit of the casserole and all of the fruit in time to hear a rumble from outside the cabin. “Is that a truck?” Millie asked. “Do you get deliveries way out here?”
“Some things.” Tyrone started for the door. “This is going to be building materials. I’ll go show them where to unload.”
Felix followed him out.
“I’ll be out in a minute.” I stood and reached for the casserole dish, but Millie shook her head.
“The least I can do is clear the table while you guys go handle the delivery. It can be my first way of helping with the construction.” She piled plates on top of one another, humming a happy little tune. We’d been trying to keep her from workingtoo hard, but maybe getting her into the schedule with the rest of us would help her feel more a part of things.
