Page 14 of The Omega’s Nest

I tighten my grip and my cock, already embarrassingly hard from holding him, flexes against his back.

“No,” I whisper. “I’m not taking that from you.”

There’s an order to this—courting, and if he agrees at the end of the courtship to be with me, I’ll claim him when he goes into heat. My alpha has always recognised his scent as being the one for me, but that doesn’t mean we can skip those steps. They exist for a reason, to ensure the alpha and omega are compatible beyond a fated connection.

Addie and I might not have ever discussed our scents, but I always knew I was going to do it right once we were both old enough to bond. My alpha didn’t want me getting bonded before I finished my training, though—a revision on his rule that I had to wait until I was eighteen—and I reluctantly let him talk me into agreeing.

Stupid. I was so fucking stupid.

Addie laughs quietly. His scent and voice are both bitter when he speaks. “Do you know how many alphas have run through me? You’re not taking anything.”

My arms constrict around him and a growl rumbles out of me before I can stop it.

Addie’s scent drops out—putrid sewers, exhaust fumes, humiliation, fear.

“No, Addie, no,” I tell him urgently. “I don’t care about that.” Not quite true, but I don’t care the way he seems to think I do. “I care about doing this right. I can do right by you. You deserve that.”

And now his laugh is not even pretending to be anything approaching humour—I’ve never heard such a derisive sound from him.

“Leo,” he starts, and then seems to give up. “Look, if I don’t smell like … something happened here, they’ll think an alpha is trying to court me.”

“An alpha is trying to court you,” I tell him fiercely.

He ignores that and continues by dropping a bomb. “If they think that, it’ll be bad … for me.”

His scent turns polluted again, rancid with more fear. What the fuck will they do to him?

I run my nose up his throat, scenting him insistently until his scent returns to the cool, calm vastness I love.

“Not if you leave with me, they won’t,” I say once he’s relaxed again.

Addie sighs. “I’m not ruining your life. Please, Leo,” he goes on when I try to cut him off. “Don’t make me responsible for that.”

I press my face to his nape and breathe in deeply, then exhale long and slow. He’s not going to walk out of here with me. And I’m not going to command him to do it. I need to convince him to leave, but I can’t force him to see that I really don’t care about my so-called life if he’s not in it. I need to make him see it.

I need to revise the mission parameters.

“I can touch you, scent you,” I say, my voice shaking, cock throbbing. “But I can’t penetrate you until after I’ve courted you, and you … you’ve accepted me.”

Addie’s scent does something weird—floods with desire, excitement, hope, before spiking with a melancholy I don’t understand.

Then he turns in my arms, and in the dim light of his closet, nestled in the soft warmth of his nest, his eyes are all heat when he breathes out, “Yes.”

Chapter 5

Adrian

Leo props himself up on his elbow and stares down at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. The sound of his breathing is loud, even above the din rumbling from downstairs, and the hazel of his eyes is washed out in the dim light, but it’s impossible to miss his pupils dilating, the awestruck and reverent way they widen. It’s as if he thinks he’s looking at something special. I want to look away, but before I can, he slides a hand along my jaw, holding me in place.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, his voice a deep rumble between us.

Slick pulses between my legs. His nostrils flare and I know he can smell it. Why he thinks he even has to ask is beyond me—I’d give him everything if I could. If he genuinely wanted it, if it meant I wasn’t going to ruin his life, he could take everything. But selfishly, I can take this. He’s here tonight, he wants me. I can let him take everything he’ll give me. And I’ve wanted him to kiss me since we were fourteen.

“Yes,” I say again, biting my lip.

He strokes my bottom lip with his thumb. He’s done nothing and I’m all heat, slick pouring out of me in a way it’s never done before outside my heat. The closest I’d gotten to this was before I came here, when I used to jerk off and finger myself with my face buried in the nest I’d made with his clothes. And now I’m drenched. All from a hand on my face, a thumb on my lip.

When he moves down, he does it so slowly, telegraphing every move as if to give me a chance to change my mind. I pant, searching his eyes as they dart from mine to my lips. He brushes his mouth against mine so delicately I moan.