“I promise,” I breathed out. “Whatever happens, I won’t want anyone but you, Kieran. I swear. I want to stay with you forever. Only you.”
He pulled me into a crushing embrace, his ragged breaths shuddering out over my neck, my omega gland tingling under the warmth.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I murmured. “Whatever happens, we’ll still be together, okay?”
“Okay.”
“But you do feel it, right? That pull that makes you want to bite me?” I whispered, and gasped when he pressed his open mouth against my gland, groaning as he lightly scraped his teeth over it like a threat. Poor baby. He was so afraid of being happy and feeling complete that he couldn’t even bring himself to believe what I knew to be true. “Do it,” I urged him, feeling like I was losing my mind as I tightened my hands in his hair to hold him in place.
I felt lightheaded and dizzy, my body instantly alert and throbbing the moment he’d made contact with my omega gland. It was the same for him, I knew. I’d felt his cock start to perk up and swell against the curve of my ass.
“If I bite you right now, I’m going to come in my pants,” he said, and it was the most pitiful and pathetic I’d ever heard him sound in my entire life.
A laugh burst out of my throat before I could stop it, and I dropped my head onto his shoulder. And then we were just two guys in the back of a truck in a public park again.
As ridiculous as it sounded, it was probably true. It was supposed to be this insanely erotic, intimate thing, so celestial and earth shattering that it would permanently change us. I’d read that it triggered an instant orgasm in omegas, and that male alphas would always pop a knot during the process, if they didn’t already have one. So maybe, as desperate and needy to prove ourbond to him as I felt, the public park wasn’t the most opportune location.
“But you will… try?” I asked, leaning back a bit so I could stare into his face as he nodded.
“I’ll try,” he confirmed. “But I want to do one thing right with you. I already screwed up taking your virginity, and I don’t even know how many other things I’m going to screw up for the rest of our lives. But this one thing… In case… In case it actually works, I want it to be right. Special,” he added, the emotion in his voice intense and beautiful, squeezing my heart.
“What do you mean by special?” I wondered. I was pretty sure biting through my omega gland and marking me as his eternal mate would be special enough, regardless of the setting, but clearly he had other plans I hadn’t been aware of.
“Fuck, I don’t know, Jordy,” he said, sounding so helplessly frustrated already that I couldn’t help but grin. “Let me buy you flowers and take you to a nice hotel or something. Somewhere I won’t have to stifle my moans because our parents could wake up and catch us fucking.”
“They’ll be gone most of the day tomorrow,” I offered. “For work.”
“Somewhere nice,” he repeated firmly and flatly, so there was absolutely no room for interpretation.
“Okay,” I finally relented, sighing. “But when? I don’t want to wait anymore. I’ve been waiting forever already.”
He let out a deep breath, and I felt his fingers tighten on my waist, one quick twitch like it’d been involuntary. “I can look up hotels when we get home. Maybe we can stay somewhere tomorrow night. I… I need it to be just you and me, in a bubble, like it was when we stayed on the beach.”
I wasn’t exactly sure how we’d explain it to our parents, or if we evenwouldattempt to explain it to them until it was all saidand done and his mark was on me. But tomorrow was the best answer I could have hoped for.
“I love you,” I said. “I can’t wait.”
“Yeah, me neither,” he answered back, but I could tell by the doubt and fear swirling in his eyes alongside the love for me, he wasn’t quite as prepared and at ease as I was. It didn’t matter. I would keep reassuring him up until the very last second, whatever I needed to do.
Because I was through waiting, ready for everyone in the world to catch up to what I already knew. Kieran was mine, and I was his. And there was nothing anyone could ever do or say to ruin that.
JORDY
THE NEXT MORNING, I waited for my mom and dad to leave for work before sneaking back up the stairs and creaking open Kieran’s bedroom door. It was way too early for him, so he was still basically dead to the world.
Carefully lifting the edge of his blanket, I slipped in next to him, cuddling into his side. He didn’t wake up, but he shifted slightly, like he was instinctively making room for me. The rise and fall of his chest, along with the warmth of his body, lulled me back to sleep.
When I woke up an undetermined amount of time later, feeling rested and eager and lovesick, I stared down into Kieran’s handsome face for what was probably long enough to be convicted for stalking in a court of law. Brushing the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip, I traced his cheekbones with my fingers.
He’d booked a room in a nice hotel in the city when we’d gotten home the night before. Just thinking about it had adrenaline bubbling up to send my heart and pulse racing inside me. But we couldn’t check in until 3:00 so I still had a while to wait.
And then I would inevitably get that text from my dad when he got back from work, asking where I was and why I wasn’t home. I wondered if telling him I was with Kieran would be enough to satisfy him, although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t know I would mean I waswithKieran, in the biblical sense. Something to worry about later. I was sure they wouldeventually understand why we couldn’t exactly be forthcoming about everything.
Deciding I’d let Kieran sleep long enough, I pressed a line of kisses along his cheeks, following the path I’d traced with my fingers, before landing on his mouth. He blinked a few times, gently sighing as he was pulled into consciousness.
“Mm,” he murmured out an approving noise against my lips as his hand lifted up off the mattress to cup the back of my neck. “Morning, Angel.”
“Good morning,” I answered, running my palms over his shoulders and chest, giving him a little massage. When I slipped my fingers down just a bit lower, teasing him with firm little circles, he raised an eyebrow as he watched me.
