The second one is already building, and I am going to die in my own stockroom on a random Friday.
“I am—”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to—”
“I know.Yes.”
His knot begins to swell at the base of him—thick, insistent, perfect. My body tenses. I've never been knotted. He's a big man. He dwarfs me. His cock alone has stretched me, digging a new, wider channel through my v-jay. I can't takemore. My body refuses to hear it. It welcomes the intrusion without hesitation. My slick coats his ridge of flesh, while my lips grasp it, fluttering and gripping as the pressure builds. The bond snaps into place between us like a live wire, finally completing its circuit. The sensation is so complete, so right, that the second climax rips through me on its heels. I lock down around the swelling knot, every muscle seizing in pure, cellular recognition of the man I was arguing with twenty minutes ago. Wave after wave crashes over me, rewriting every lonely night I had ever spent chasing shadows of this feeling.
He follows with a ragged groan. “Mine.” The word vibrates against my neck, low and possessive and utterly life-changing. His arms tighten around me until I cannot tell where I end and he begins. We stay like that—locked, panting, stunned—while the eucalyptus lies scattered across the floor like green confetti at a wedding nobody saw coming.
The stockroom is silent except for our fevered breathing. We are locked together. He is not going anywhere for at least twenty minutes. My blouse is ruined. I am going to miss my three o’clock appointment. I cannot locate the part of me that cares. The bond hums through my body—warm, certain, and utterly terrifying—while the late-afternoon light slides across the stockroom floor and the world outside my flower shop keepsturning without us. This changes everything. I have spent years convincing myself I could manage alone, that my hand and a toy were enough. They were not. He is.
I press my cheek against his shoulder. His hand moves to my hair, gentle now, almost reverent despite the alpha energy still pouring through every line of his body, and his arms tighten around me again. He is still trembling. So am I. Neither of us speaks.
Chapter two
Liam
Star Bryson is a furnace draped over my chest, her curls a tangled web I never want to escape. Except I have to. Fucking need to.
Four hours. That’s all it took for me to prove I’m exactly like my brothers—worse, maybe, because I knew better. I’ve spent a decade building walls, and this omega demolished them with one look. Not a look. A glance. A split second where her fawn-colored eyes locked on mine, and my entire world detonated. I gave her my name, and each time she whispered Liam in my ear, another wall crumbled.
I’m still picking through the wreckage. Her scent is in my lungs, her hair in my mouth, and the taste of her—fuck. I pull in another deep inhale before I can stop myself, then force my breathing to even out. I know what it costs to need someone else’s air to survive. I run my hand down her spine, feeling the soft dip above her ass, and my knuckles trace the ridge of her spine. It took a while to make it to bed. We made do with anywhere—the door, the wall, the floor. Like animals.
Likemates.
My teeth bare in a silent snarl at the word. I’m not my father. I won’t be shackled by a biological leash, pining after a ghost until I waste away. I saw what that did to him—what it did to all of us kids, watching him curl around her empty side of the bed, breathing in sheets that lost her scent years before. “I just want the smell of her,” he’d say, like that explained the slow suicide.
I shift, trying to slide out from under her without waking her. Her terra-cotta skin slides against mine—silk-smooth, warm from my touch—and my throat tightens. I want to bite her again. Mark her where every other alpha can see.
Get up. Move.
I make it two feet before she stirs.
“Liam?”
Her voice is sleep-rough, confused. The sound of my name on her tongue stops me dead. I should keep moving. Should find my clothes, my phone—Christ, my sanity—and get the hell out of this room before I do something else I can’t take back.
Instead, I grunt. “Yeah.”
Not even a word. Just a sound, low and scraped raw.
She pushes up on one elbow, curls tumbling over her shoulder, and the sheet slips. I trace the curve of her breast to her bark-colored nipple, then up to the mark I left on her collarbone.My mark. My chest rumbles before I can stop it—a possessive, traitorous sound that has no business coming out of my mouth.
Star’s eyes widen, and a soft smile finds her lips. “You’re still here,” she says with a sleepy smile. Why is she always smiling? Does she know the power of it? It matches her name. Dazzling and bright. God, I love it. Another reason to go…
I force a shrug, like I’m not naked and hard again just from the sight of her. “Couldn’t move. You’re like a damn octopus.”
She laughs. It’s bright. Sunshine, warm and blinding. “You weren’t complaining when my legs were around your neck.”
My jaw tics. “Wasn’t thinking much at all.”
“Yeah.” She hugs her knees to her chest, not shy, just… thoughtful. Her gaze roams over me, unapologetic. “Me neither. That was… intense.”
Intense. That’s one word for it. Catastrophic. Life-altering. A fucking natural disaster.
