Crap.
Rourke swallows hard before he says, “Let me help you to the bed.” The words are difficult in coming out; I can tell it’s an inner battle.
Knowing how tough my mere scent makes it for him? It shouldn’t bring me the kind of satisfaction it does, and I try to say, “I got it.” Though he’s all I can see, I don’t think the others are in the room. It’s just me and Rourke.
And that’s a dangerous thing, apparently.
He offers his arm. He doesn’t force me to take it and accept his help; he leaves it up to me, even as he struggles to be this close to me.
What I should do is go back in that bathroom and put on my cream, but for some stupid reason—maybe that inner confusion I keep talking about—I don’t. I reach for him and set my hand on that strong, warm arm.
You’d think after being in the bath for so long, surrounded by hot water, his skin wouldn’t set me aflame, but it does. The moment my hand touches him, a different kind of warmth flows through me, a warmth no amount of hot water could ever give me. I try not to let him see the reaction on my part, but I don’t know if I succeed.
Rourke is my support as we walk side by side to the bed. He yanks down the sheets with his other arm once we reach the bedside, and I pull my hand off his arm as I do my best not to focus on him or the way he’s looking at me. My only goal is to climb in bed and…
And I don’t know what happens after that. I don’t. I thought I knew what to expect from this whole thing, but clearly I was wrong.
I get on the bed, pushing my legs under the covers. Rourke leans closer, practically leaning over me, and I don’t look up at him. I can’t. I fear for both our sanity.
“Asher is making dinner. He’s going to bring it up to you when it’s done,” Rourke says, his voice so unbearably low it makes me clench my thighs together. Or maybe my thighs squeeze because of the way the alpha’s looking at me. I can feel the waves of intensity radiating off him, even without meeting his stare.
Every time I see him, it gets harder. It gets worse. How am I supposed to keep holding back from him when simply being near him makes me want to lose my mind? How do people function after finding their scent match? It must be ten times worse when you can smell them.
“Okay,” I whisper without looking at him.
He lifts a hand, and I hear his breath catch when he brings that hand to my face. His finger trails along my jaw, starting at my chin, and it goes all the way up to my ear, where he then tucks my hair behind my ear. Such a tender, intimate gesture, and a shiver crawls up my spine as a result.
“You smell,” he pauses, laboring for not only the words but also air for his lungs, “amazing, Jess. You smell like candy and Christmas, all the good things in this world.”
I move, ever so slightly. It’s not a movement that can move nations or anything, but it’s enough. It’s instinctual. I turn my head to the side, exposing my neck to him and thereby inviting him in closer.
I don’t know why I do it. I shouldn’t. Giving him my neck, even as slight of a gesture it is, is one of submission when it comes to omegas and alphas. But it’s something I can’t quite control, it’s as if the omega in me has been waiting her entire life to make an offer like this.
And Rourke? Rourke does exactly what he’s supposed to do.
The alpha bends his tall frame, lowering himself to me. He brings his nose to my neck and breathes me in, inhaling me like I’m the only air he needs in his lungs. His nose grazes a sensitivespot on my neck, followed shortly by his lips, and as he continues to breathe me in, my ears pick up the sound of a low growl of approval emanating from his chest.
His right hand touches my arm, running up along it until he cups the other side of my face and weaves his fingers through my hair. He is immobile after that, content in the crook of my neck even though his spine must be bent at an ungodly angle.
I don’t know how long we’re like that, but it has to be a while. That rumble in Rourke’s chest only deepens as time goes on, and I close my eyes and lose myself to the sound. It’s a strange sort of comfort, like the specific sound is meant for me and only me, like the man himself has a straight shot to my heart.
What is this? What are we doing? This is bad, so bad.
Yet neither of us can pull away and end this, whatever this is. Neither of us can stop it. We’d both been fighting this since the first time we laid eyes on each other. Truly, being his scent match is the only way to describe how right it feels inside, like finally I’m done raging against the impossible.
“Rourke,” I whisper his name, cracking my eyelids open as I turn my face slightly in towards his.
He matches me, his nose now leaning against my cheek, his blue eyes half-lidded and dilated to the extreme. I’m his drug. Everything about me gets him high. He was a man walking the straight and narrow before he met me, and now everything has changed.
For us both, really.
“Jess,” he whispers my name back, the hand on the side of my face still very much there, still holding onto me like I’m his salvation. I’m all he needs to survive.
“We shouldn’t,” I say, and I don’t need to elaborate on what it is we shouldn’t do. I feel crazy. I feel like all those years of depression and sadness are behind me, that I finally havea future I can look forward to, whether I have my family’s inheritance or not.
It’s a hard thing to let go of, though, an extremely hard thing to take a look at the life you had, at what you thought you wanted, and willingly let it go.
Am I truly ready to do something like that? I don’t know. It’s nerve-wracking in a way nothing else has ever been, terrifying to my core. The last thing I want to do is make a mistake I’ll regret the rest of my life.
