Page 149 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

He looks up at me, his lips swollen, his eyes dark and half-wild, and he looks nothing like the man who makes everyone laugh. He looks like an alpha who’s barely holding on.

I kiss him again, harder, and I can feel his bare chest against my breasts, his hands in my hair, his cock hard against me, and I want—I want⁠—

Then I feel him pull back. The kiss slows. His hands settle on my waist, and I can feel the effort it costs him, the restraint vibrating through every muscle in his body.

“Sophie, sweetheart.” His forehead rests against mine. “The first time I take you, it won’t be in a kitchen. It’ll be somewhere I can take my time. Because that’s what I want for us.”

My heart is pounding and my core is still pulsing with need.

He reaches for my shirt from where it landed on the counter and gently pulls it over my head, easing my arms through the sleeves, his fingers brushing my skin as he tugs it down. He smooths it into place and presses a kiss to my forehead.

Then he turns toward the fridge, still shirtless, the muscles in his back shifting as he moves, and I sit on the counter in his packmate’s shirt and think I might actually be losing my mind.

“Cheesecake,” he announces. “This is the perfect time for cheesecake.”

CHAPTER 39

Max

The river is the one part of this estate I never had to reclaim from my father.

Everything else I’ve rebuilt. The house, the company, all of it reshaped into something that no longer belongs to Theodore Cavill. But the river was never his. It runs along the edge of the property, and it was here long before he decided to put a wall around it. It’ll be here long after the last trace of him is gone.

I used to come here as a boy when the house got too loud. I’d sit on the bank and put my feet in and let the cold work its way up through my legs and think about nothing.

I still do.

The water is cold for early morning, sharp enough to register on every nerve, and I let it. I pull through the current with long, even strokes, feeling the resistance in my shoulders and the familiar burn in my arms. The light is low and pale, cutting across the surface in long ribbons. Every Saturday morning, this is what I do. Ethan and Finn both like to sleep in, but I prefer this—the cold and the quiet.

Except this morning, even the river can’t empty my head.

I don’t think about Sophie.

I surface near the far bank, turn, push off, start back. The cold water moving over my skin, the pull of the current against my arms, the silence that exists only near moving water.

I don’t think about the night in the library. The rain in her hair. The way she stood in front of me in her underwear and pointed at every scar and dared me to leave, and asked me how I could love her.

I surface. Turn. Push off again.

I don’t think about Ethan’s hand on her shoulder and the way her face changed when her body stayed still instead of fighting, or about the scent that filled the room after—rain and crushed rose petals pouring off her skin.

I don’t think about the fact that it’s been two days since that night and everything has changed and nothing has changed and I told her I loved her and she fell asleep in my arms.

I reach the near bank, stand, and look up.

Sophie is sitting on the bank.

For a full second I just stare. She’s cross-legged in the grass, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her shoes off, her chin resting in her hand—and she is watching me with an expression I’ve only seen once before. In the library, right before she jumped.

Open and unguarded.

The moment she realizes I’ve seen her, color floods her cheeks. She sits up straighter and drops her hand from her chin, but she doesn’t look away. A month ago, she would have.

“I was just—” she starts.

“Sophie.” I can’t keep the amusement out of my voice. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“I literally just arrived.”