Instead, she burst into my room uninvited, stole my shirt, and fell asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. Not because she was trying to seduce me or establish some kind of claim. Just because she wanted to. Just because she found it funny to invade my space and challenge my boundaries.
She's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And somehow that's... endearing.
Since she arrived, she's cooked meals for us—actual meals, not the pathetic attempts at food I produced tonight. She cleans up after herself, never expecting anyone to serve her. She maintains her job at the bakery, waking up early for shifts despite staying up late with us, never complaining, never asking for special treatment.
She's clearly not trying to ride our coattails.
And maybe that makes me angrier, in a way. Because I can't shoo her away. I can't point to evidence of manipulation or gold-digging behavior and use it as justification for keeping her at arm's length. She's just... genuine. Frustratingly, inconveniently, impossibly genuine.
I hate that I can't find anything wrong with her. I've been looking. I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the mask to slip, for the real Rosemarie to emerge and prove that she's just like everyone else. But it hasn't happened. Two weeks, and nothing.
I dare to admit—only to myself, only in the privacy of my own sleepless mind—that I enjoyed our date at the penthouse. More than enjoyed it. It was the first time in years that I've had someone in my space who didn't make me feel like the walls were closing in.
She wandered around my apartment touching things, examining my books, commenting on my lack of personal photos. Anyone else and I would have bristled, would have felt invaded. But she did it with such casual curiosity, such genuine interest, that I found myself relaxing instead of tensing.
And then she fell asleep on my couch.
I watched her for far too long before carrying her to my bedroom. Longer than was appropriate, certainly. Longer than I'd ever admit to Tank or Elias, who would never let me live it down. I stood there like an idiot, hovering over my own couch in my own penthouse, watching her chest rise and fall, memorizing the way her face softened in sleep, wondering what it would feel like to have someone trust me enough to be that vulnerable in my presence.
She'd fallen asleep mid-sentence, apparently. One moment she was commenting on the lack of photographs on my walls, and the next she was out cold, her body finally succumbing to the exhaustion she carries but never acknowledges. She works too hard. She doesn't rest enough. She's running on coffee and determination and sheer stubborn will.
And then I carried her to bed and tucked her in like she was something precious. Like she was mine to protect. I pulled the covers up to her chin and brushed a strand of hair from her face and stood there like a lovesick teenager, watching her breathe.
How desperately I wanted to snuggle against her. To wrap myself around her sleeping form and hold her close. To pretend, just for a moment, that she actually belonged to me—to us—instead of being a temporary solution to a professional problem.To pretend that I hadn't spent years building walls specifically designed to keep people like her out.
I didn't do it. I went to my own room, slept in my own bed, maintained appropriate boundaries like the coward I am. Because that's what sensible people do. That's what people who don't want to get hurt do. That's what Julian North does—control, distance, protection.
But god, I wanted to. I still want to. Even now, lying in this bed with her three feet away, I want to close that distance so badly my chest aches with it.
I think about her previous pack—the ones who burned down her reading space, who sent bounty hunters after her like she was property that had escaped rather than a person who had chosen freedom, who treated her as a commodity instead of a human being with needs and wants and dreams of her own. How did they fuck up so spectacularly? How did they have someone like her—someone this genuine, this warm, thisreal—and manage to drive her away?
It's a shame, when I really think about it. A tragedy, even. That she spent years with people who didn't see her value, didn't appreciate what they had, didn't understand that some things—some people—are worth infinitely more than business deals and social status and whatever the fuck they thought they'd gain by forcing her into misery.
But their monumental loss could be our unexpected gain.
The thought slips in before I can stop it, and I don't push it away this time. I let it settle, let it take root. Would I mind? If this temporary arrangement became something more permanent? If she stayed not because of a contract deadline but because she wanted to? If Valentine's Day passed and she was still here, still sleeping in our beds, still stealing our clothes, still making coffee that tastes like home?
Tank is smitten with her. I can see it in every glance he throws her way, every protective gesture that's become second nature, every time he calls her "Sweetness" with that soft look in his eyes that I've never seen him direct at anyone else. Not even his fiancée, before she left. He's falling, fast and hard, and he's not even trying to hide it anymore. The man who built a cabin in the woods specifically to escape from human connection is now planning surprise dates and buying heart-shaped candy.
Elias is going down that route too. He's more obvious about it—Elias is obvious about everything, subtlety is not in his vocabulary—but there's a gentleness in the way he treats her that goes beyond his usual sunny disposition. He looks at her like she's something special. Something worth keeping. Something he'd fight to protect. He brought her to the firehouse, introduced her to his crew, sat her on his lap like she belonged there.
Two out of three. That's where we are. That's where they are.
It's never worked that way before. In every previous attempt at finding an Omega—the few times we actually got past the initial meeting stage—there's always been a flaw that showed up. Something that made at least one of us uncomfortable. An attitude that rubbed wrong, a habit that grated, a fundamental incompatibility that couldn't be overlooked.
I guess that's what I'm waiting for. That's why I keep my distance, why I refuse to let myself fall the way Tank and Elias are falling. I'm waiting for the inevitable moment when everything goes wrong. When she reveals something unacceptable, or when she decides we're not worth the trouble, or when she simply... disappears.
That's why I don't want to fuck her.
Not that I'm not attracted to her. I am. Painfully so. The thought of having her makes my cock twitch with embarrassing frequency, especially when she wears those short dresses thatshow the perfect glimpse of her perky, round ass when she walks. Or when she bends over to grab something and the fabric rides up just enough to torment me. Or when she smiles at me with that wicked gleam in her eyes that suggests she knows exactly what she's doing.
I could fuck anyone. I've fucked plenty of people. Sex isn't something I rely on for emotional connection—it's a physical release, nothing more. But with her... with her it would mean something. And I'm not ready for things to mean something. I'm not ready to be vulnerable again.
But the idea of enjoying her—truly enjoying her, the way Tank has, the way I suspect Elias has—makes something complicated twist in my chest. Want and fear, tangled together. Desire and self-preservation, at war.
I huff out a breath, still staring at the ceiling. The water stain hasn't changed. Time hasn't moved. I'm still here, still awake, still hopelessly aware of the woman sleeping beside me.
And then I hear it—a soft sound, barely audible. Muttering.
