I suck in a breath, but I can’t swallow it. I try again, but it’s like my lungs won’t work. I’m naked, tucked into this little place on the floor, where I fucking belong.
“Hey,” Silas says, trying to soothe me. I don’t deserve it, though.
He climbs into the backseat, pulls me up from the floor into his lap, but I try to resist. I don’t want his comfort. He’s in pain, I can feel his anguish as if it were my own.
“Shh,” he whispers against my temple, rocking me in place.
The driver’s side door opens. Ghost, wearing a shirt again, climbs in and starts the car. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even look at me, just hands a bag back to Silas, then pulls out of the parking lot.
I barely had a moment to drown in Ghost’s scent before he ripped it away from me, but those seconds scorched through my veins and branded themselves into my memory. He’s so unique, unlike anything I’ve ever known. Everything about him is an enigma, and a secret part of me, despite the growing haze of my heat and the fact that I had only just met him, was excited that he could be mine. That he’d be there during my heat, that he would be claiming me. That was two days ago, though. That wasbefore.
He didn’t claim me. He wants nothing to do with me. Now, he hides his scent away from me, like I’m not even worthy of breathing him in. The connection between us isn’t just gone—it’s empty, like an insatiable thirst, or a wound that won’t heal. It aches deep inside me, like something ismissing, but he seems completely indifferent to it.
Silas holds me while I cry in his arms.
And I decide to take the comfort he offers. Let his petrichor and citrus scent wash over me. Because when we get to Silent Peak, he’s leaving, too.
With one arm wrapped around me, Silas digs through the bag. He pulls out a blanket, rips off a tag, and wraps it around me. I’m still warm from my heat, but the material is so soft, and the gesture feels too good to dismiss. So good that my body responds, pleasure snaking down my spine.
I want it over. No more heat.
But it’s still there. Little spikes of it.
“It’s okay, Mona,” he says.
But it’s not okay. I can never take back what I did to him. It doesn’t matter if I didn’t mean to.
I don’t know what happened to him all these years he was gone, but I can feel through the bond, and from his reaction to Deidre’s voice, it wasn’t good. He’s uncomfortable.
But I know Silas is a good man, even if his words are harsh. Because he doesn’t want to be here with me, yet he doesn’t let me go.
And when a crest of heat spikes through me, tears spilling from my eyes, my omega whimpering, out of control, he arranges my body over his.
His fingers come between my legs. It feels so good, but the pleasure is tainted by reality.
“Please,” the word spills from my lips. Tears steam down my cheeks, wetting his neck. I bury my face so I don’t have to look at him.
I want him so badly, but I can never truly have him.
I’m sobbing, but he rubs my clit, and the feeling is viscerally comforting. “Shhh,” he whispers again. Then holds his erection between us, lifts me just enough, and pushes the crown inside.
I cry harder as he fills me. And he doesn’t fuck me.
He stays just like that, planted deep, while I ride through the heat spike. My pussy clamps down around him. He grunts while our bodies take what they need. Eventually he starts moving, thrusting.
But it’s slow and gentle.
And it almost feels like a goodbye.
The pleasure crests higher. Blissfully, my omega takes over, and my mind shuts off. She rolls her hips, and our sex becomes messy and desperate.
And then he holds my ass cheeks in his big palms, tilts his pelvis, and notches his knot at my entrance. He grinds his hips in rhythmic circles, like he’s drilling himself inside me, until his knot pushes in, then swells, and I squeeze around it. He lets out a shuddering breath, wraps his arms around me, and holds me tighter.
I fall asleep in his arms, selfishly soaking up his cum as he fills me.
Silas. My fierce monster.
I never want to let him go, but I have to.
