“Why?”
“I can’t let you do that. And they don’t deserve it. I took enough from you already, but I’ll use it wisely, I promise. I’ll find a place to go.” Dammit, I wanted to get up and avoid talking about this. But we had to.
“Stay.” The single whispered word hit me like a brick.
I shook my head. “Why?”
“I’ll give you all the freedom you want. If you think you’d be able to share a life with me, consider staying. You don’t have to love me, I can’t ask for that.”
“You thought about it since the heat, huh?” Against my better judgement, I already had feelings for Rhys. Those words we’d exchanged in the heat of passion rung true even without the pheromones in the air.
“Yes. I was serious then, and I am now. Your scent is not affecting me. This is real, Sol. Without you, nothing makes sense anymore.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve lived your entire life before you met me.”
“Exactly. And now that I know what was missing, I can’t imagine going back to that bleak existence.”
“What about your career?”
“We’d be just a couple living together. No one needs to know more.” He shrugged. “You’ll be free to do whatever you want when I’m at work. You wouldn’t be isolated either. My closest neighbor is an omega who used to work with my horses. Ole disappeared for a while but returned last year, settling with an Alpha who’d got him out of terrible circumstances. Now they both rescue omegas and help them get on their feet.”
“Isn’t it exchanging one gilded cage for another?” I pursed my lips. Rhys painted a picture of a perfect life for me, but I learned not to trust anything that looks too good to be true. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I mean it.” I think I love you, and that scares me.
I wiggled and let his deflated knot slip out of me. “What if I wanted to sit on the grass and watch the horses outside?”
“I’ll grab a blanket. And something to drink. Wait here.” He moved from under me and stood, then kissed my hair. “I’ll be right ba—” He froze. “Someone’s coming. I can hear a car on the gravel.”
I shot up, grabbed the shirt off the ground and pulled it over my head. Thankfully, it was large enough to reach my mid-thigh. “You said no one is due to come today.”
“Correct.”
I ran to the parted door and stifled a curse as I saw the car nearing us. “My parents are coming. Dryden must have told them where I was.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sol
Rhys led my parents to the living room, and I used the moment to change into my white pants and blue top—the clothes I’d worn the night we’d met and which Rhys somehow managed to wash the mud off of.
Even hearing their voices from the corridor unsettled me. Why couldn’t they just leave me be?
“I don’t understand what is happening,” Mother’s tone was full of the annoyance I was used to when she talked to me or about me.
“We should wait for Sol to join us before we discuss anything,” Rhys said the moment I walked into the room.
“Here he is.” Father looked relieved, but also as if he wanted to leave. He and Mother were sitting at the very edge of the living room sofa, with backs straight but knees bouncing.
A perverse sense of satisfaction filled me, knowing that Rhys and I fucked on that couch many times. Hopefully, we hadn’t washed it too well.
I nodded at Rhys to continue whatever he was about to say.
He reached out to me and placed a hand over the small of my back, then moved it up my spine. Possessive.
I liked it.
