Page 17 of Omega’s Forward

Okay. I’m just trying to be a good host. “I mean if—”

“I won’t. And I’d appreciate it if you left me alone. I will arrange my own meals, preferably while you are out. I will not be joining you for any activity. Or using your gym. Or anything else.”

I put my hands up. “Fine.”

“And you stay out of this room until we’re done here.”

What the fuck? Is he expecting me to come ravage him in his sleep? Not that the thought doesn’t do things for me but I’m not a barbarian.

“Works for me,” I say.

I stand there a moment too long. He raises his eyebrows at me.

Okay, fine. I get it.

I leave, closing the door behind me.

I stand in the hallway and breathe out heavily. Fuck. That little omega smells like pure heaven. I really, really want to open the door.

I don’t.

Instead, despite him telling me he didn’t want to eat with me, “I’m making food,” I tell his closed door. “You want in?”

A pause, long enough that I almost walk away. Then: “No.”

I cook because I was going to cook anyway. It’s the team diet, nothing fancy: chicken, rice, steamed vegetables.

I put the fan on high and open the windows. The food smells amazing, but underneath it all I can scent him.

There is no way I am going to sleep tonight. Not with him down the hall.

I’m just plating up when the doorbell rings.

Only one person rings my doorbell. Deliveries stop at the gate, and the gate calls my phone. There is exactly one person alive who has had my gate code for years and a spare key he’s too polite to use.

Crap.

I get there as the bell goes again and open the door eight inches, my shoulder filling the rest.

JP is on my porch, holding up a six-pack. “Don’t know what’s been bothering you, bud, but I figured this would solve it.” He’s already stepping forward, fifteen years of walking into each other’s houses, and stops when I don’t move.

He looks at my hand on the frame. Then at me.

“You’re not letting me in?” He laughs when he says it.

“Bad night, man. I’m wiped.”

“Uh huh.” He leans an inch to the left, casual as anything, and looks past me. I move with him, but the hallway is the hallway. There’s nothing there. Everything of Rourke’s is in his bedroom, with him.

I can still smell him though. The question is whether JP can or whether the cooking chicken covers the orange.

The kitchen fan hums away behind me. If he steps inside, JP will know somebody’s here. If he breathes deep enough, he might know everything. My heart is going like it’s overtime.

JP looks at me for three long seconds. He knows my face better than my sister does.

“Okay,” he says at last, slow. “You good?”

“I’m good.”