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Now every Omega in Noelle would know it.

Chapter 11

Klaus

Our home smelled like gingerbread and peppermint, which was absurd, because it was July.

Christmas had always been a lonely time for me. Orphaned young, I’d grown up with more money than people, and the holiday was just a day the world closed down and left me alone with it. Then I met a woman who decided we’d both missed enough Christmases, so ours would never end.

Our tree was still up. It had been up since December, glowing in the corner of the living room through spring and summer heat, and every time I’d hinted at taking it down, she’d looked at me like I’d suggested burying a body without her. I never meant it. She knew.

So the tree stayed.

But now we had one in every room. The bathrooms even had their own miniatures.

It made me feel things—love, adoration, home. My Omega was the warmth from a fire. The first sip of hot chocolate. Light through the snow, even in summer.

I’d wanted to buy her a nice house. She could have picked one out or I would have built her one from scratch, but she didn’t want that. Instead, we knocked down the walls and made the entire floor into our home. She was happy, and that’s all I needed.

This morning, she’d gotten into a car for the first time since the accident. Her hand had crushed mine the whole way to the cemetery two towns over, the privacy screen up between us and the driver, while I purred for her until her breathing matched mine. She’d knelt in the grass at their graves and told them about me.

On the drive home, she’d laid her head in my lap, and I’d soothed her with my cock until she relaxed.

Then she’d come home and baked Christmas cookies in the middle of July, like nothing in the world could touch her.

Because nothing could. Not anymore.

I put the box down against the wall and watched her from the doorway, drawn to her as she swayed and worked, humming “Run, Rudolph, Run” under her breath.

I breathed her in from across the room. Her scent still hit me like it had the first night in her doorway. Some mornings, after she got up, I buried my face in her pillow just to keep her in my lungs a little longer.

Her shoulders were loose. An easy, unguarded smile on her fuckable lips. I’d watched her for six months before I ever touched her, and I thought I knew every version of her face. She’d shown me so many more since. This one was my favorite. Lighter.

I knew she’d hum eleven more bars before she noticed me. I still counted everything.

Her curls were piled on top of her head, a few loose strands stuck to her neck from the heat of the oven. Flour dusted one cheek. Her caramel skin glowed under the kitchen lights, and when she reached over the counter to wipe it clean, her sweater rode up and offered a tease of soft belly.

She looked up and a smile meant just for me broke across her face. Every drop of blood in my body went straight to my cock.

“Welcome home, Ghost. Ready for some cookies?”

Her eyes widened as the growl vibrated from my chest and filled the room.

My gaze drifted down her body. A red sweater, a short skirt, and bare feet, my mark the centerpiece on her throat. She hadn’t worn a patch since I’d torn it from her neck. She didn’t need one anymore. Every Alpha in Noelle knew who she belonged to the second they caught her scent—honey and cherry tangled with my woodsmoke.

The skirt was short. Too short. Her caramel thighs were begging to be wrapped around my neck.

Just like that, I went from thinking she was beautiful to wanting to wrap her hair around my fist and fuck her over the counter.

I picked the box up as she opened the oven, bending at the waist. Her hem rode up as I neared. A thin green string of lace.

I groaned, my cock straining against my zipper.

The humming died. She straightened slowly and turned. The blush staining her cheeks told me she knew exactly what she’d done. She placed the tray on the counter before her gaze met mine. Pure, unfiltered want stared back at me.

“My little lamb is such a fucking tease.”

She dropped her gaze, all innocence, and pulled off her oven mitts. Gingerbread men with ghost masks. Christmas trees. And a handful of little cookies shaped like butcher knives. My gaze went to the red piping bag.