She tilts her head, studying me. I stare back, letting her see the granite edge I present to the world. Most people flinch. Betas look away. Omegas usually scent my aggression and submit.
Star just smiles. “You’re scowling.”
“I’m always scowling.”
“Good to know.” She stretches, catlike, and my fists clench at my sides. I want to touch her. Want to drag her back under me and spend the next week proving she’s mine. “So… what now?”
The question is a dangling noose.
I don’t have an answer. I have obligations. A contract I signed in ink and boardroom silence, a future that doesn’t have room for honeysuckle and heat. It means less than nothing to me. It would mean everything to Star... If she knew.
“Now?” I scrape a hand over my stubbled jaw. “Now we get dressed. I have a meeting, work… I need to…”
Lies. There’s nothing on my calendar I can’t clear. But I need space, distance, air that doesn’t smell like honeysuckle, and bonding.
Her expression flickers—hurt, maybe, but she covers it fast. Too fast. That sunshine dims, and I hate myself.
“Oh. Right. Of course.” She stands, unsteady on her feet, and I move before my brain catches up. My hands catch her waist, steadying her. She’s so small compared to me. Delicate in a way that makes my protective instinct snarl and snap at its cage.
She looks up at me, fingers resting on my forearms. “I always wondered,” she says softly, “what it would be like. To be mated. To feel… complete.”
My blood ices.
“Star—”
“It’s okay.” She cuts me off, pressing a hand to my chest. Right over my heart, which is hammering like I’m in a fight. “I know it’s sudden. I know we’re strangers. But I felt it, Liam. The bond. It’s there.” Her thumb strokes my skin, gentle. Soothing. The way I’d calm a spooked animal. “I always hoped my alpha would be… well, someone like you.”
Someone like me. A lying bastard with obligations that don’t include her.
The words stick in my throat. I should tell her. Should rip this bandage off now, let her hate me before she’s in too deep. But her scent is wrapping around me, sweet and hopeful, and my father’s hollow eyes flash behind my lids.
I just want the smell of her.
I’m a coward.
“Don’t,” I manage, voice like gravel.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pin your hopes on me, Starlight.” The nickname slips out, unplanned. Her eyes brighten at it, and I want to punch the wall. “I’m not the alpha you think I am.”
She studies me for a long moment, head cocked. Then she nods, slow. “Okay.” She steps closer, and my hands tighten on her hips, gripping when I should be releasing. “But you’re my alpha. Whether you like it or not.”
I like. I like it.The bond screams. The challenge in her voice snaps the last thread of my control. I growl—an actual, rumbling growl that vibrates from my chest—and spin her around. Her hands slap against the wall, palms flat, and I press against her back. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then show me.”
I’m inside her before the words fade. She’s wet, ready, and the heat of her clasp shorts out my brain. My thrusts are deep, deliberate, each one marking territory I have no right to claim.She meets me, push for push, her moans a symphony that drowns out the voice screaming liar, liar, liar in my head.
When the knot swells, locking us together, she throws her head back against my shoulder. “Mine,” she whispers like a brand. “Mine, mine, mine.”
I bury my face in her neck, breathing in the scent that’s already rewriting my DNA, but I don’t say it back.
I can’t.
Because I’ve been claimed already. And the contract sitting in my desk drawer—that sterile, loveless agreement—it’s a rope tightening with every breath she takes against my skin.
The knot finally relents, and I pull out with a slick sound that makes her shiver. She stays beneath me, breathing hard, her thighs trembling. I should step away. Should put distance between us before this thing crusts over into something permanent. Instead, I turn her gently, my hands on her waist again as if they’ve found their favorite place in the world. Her eyes are glazed, pupils blown wide from the hormones and aftermath. She looks up at me, and the trust is so blinding it burns.
