I don't know what's going to happen after Valentine's Day. I don't know if this arrangement will become something more or if I'll be back to running and hiding and surviving alone. I don't know if my family will find me, if those threatening messages will become threatening actions, if everything will fall apart the moment the deadline passes.
But right now, in this moment, I have a stolen silk shirt and a grumpy Alpha and a bed that's softer than anything I've ever slept on. I have Tank's laughter still echoing in my ears and Elias's warmth still wrapped around my memories and Julian's carefully hidden softness slowly revealing itself.
And I'm going to have a good night's sleep whether he likes it or not.
CHAPTER 25
Sleepless And Smitten
~JULIAN~
Ican't sleep.
I've been lying here for an hour—maybe more, time has lost all meaning in this particular hell—staring at the ceiling of my guest room at Tank's house and willing unconsciousness to take me.
The house is quiet. The fire has burned down to embers in the living room. Tank's snoring rumbles faintly through the walls, a sound I've learned to tune out over years of proximity. Everything is peaceful and calm and perfectly conducive to sleep.
Except for the woman in my bed.
I have a modeling shoot in the morning. An important one—the Valentine's campaign that's going to determine whether Dolce & Gabbana renews my contract or drops me entirely. I need to look rested. I need to look like I haven't been awake all night being slowly driven insane by an Omega who decided invading my personal space was a fun way to end the evening.
Fuck.
Rosemarie's scent is everywhere.
It fills the room like an invisible fog, wrapping around me, seeping into my sheets, invading every breath I take whether I want it to or not. Cinnamon sugar and roasted coffee and dark vanilla and soft amber—layered and complex, a scent that tells a story if you know how to read it. A combination that shouldn't work, that should be too sweet or too complex or toosomething, but instead is absolutely, devastatingly perfect.
Are Omegas supposed to smell this delicately good? Is this normal? Or is she specifically designed by some cruel universe to torment me personally? Because it feels personal. It feels targeted. It feels like the cosmos looked at my entire carefully constructed existence and decided to throw a wrench directly into the center of it.
She's sleeping on her designated side of the bed—the right side, as promised, maintaining the exact boundaries I insisted upon—curled into a loose ball with my stolen silk shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of her hip. The moonlight catches that exposed skin, turning it silver-pale, and I have to actively force myself not to stare. Her breathing is slow and even, completely at peace, while I lie here rigid and sleepless and absolutely fucked.
The moonlight filters through Tank's basic curtains—the man could afford blackout drapes, this is a conscious choice he's made and I've complained about it multiple times—and illuminates her features in soft silver. The curve of her cheek. The dark fan of her lashes against her skin. The way her lips are slightly parted, soft and tempting. The gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
She's taunting me. Simply by existing. By breathing. By smelling like everything I didn't know I wanted and had convinced myself I didn't need.
I turn away, facing the wall instead. Maybe if I can't see her, the scent will be less potent. Maybe if I put my back to her, mybrain will stop cataloging every detail of her presence. Maybe I can achieve some semblance of rational thought.
It doesn't work.
If anything, it's worse. Now I can't see her, but I can still smell her, still hear every soft exhale, still feel the slight dip of the mattress where her weight rests. My imagination fills in the blanks with far too much enthusiasm—painting pictures of what she looks like right now, what she would feel like if I reached across the distance between us, what sounds she might make if I?—
Stop. Stop it. You are not going down that path.
This is a dying cause. I'm going to lie here awake until dawn, show up to my shoot looking like death warmed over, and lose the contract that's keeping my career afloat. All because one small Omega decided to invade my bedroom and my senses and apparently my entire mental capacity.
I flip onto my back again, staring at the ceiling. Tank's guest room ceiling has a water stain in one corner that looks vaguely like a bird. I've studied it extensively over the past hour. We are becoming intimate acquaintances.
Why don't I want to get close to her?
The question surfaces unbidden, and I force myself to actually consider it instead of shoving it down like I normally would. Is it really a defense mechanism, this distance I maintain? Is it genuine distrust? Or is it something worse—something I don't want to examine too closely?
Maybe I'm afraid she'll disappear. Like all the others. Like everyone who's ever gotten close enough to matter.
My former fiancée left. My family cut me off. Every Omega who's shown interest in our pack has eventually revealed ulterior motives—money, status, the thrill of dating the "Late Alphas" as some kind of novelty experience. They always leave once they get what they want, or once they realize we're not willing to give it.
But Rosemarie doesn't seem like the type.
The thought is surprising—both because I'm thinking it and because it feels true. She very well could have stayed in the guest room tonight. That would have been the sensible choice, the appropriate choice for a temporary arrangement between strangers. Anyone else would have viewed an invitation to Tank's house as an opportunity, a chance to embed themselves deeper into our lives and our bank accounts.
