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“Obviously, I did. I’m an omega. Submissiveness is written into it. I would have submitted to whatever you wanted, and you wanted—”

“No.” He was matter-of-fact about it, no real emotion. But he was sure.

When he was sure, it was hard to argue with him. It was hard not to be sure. His certainty reached into me and made me certain as well.

“I was pretty freaked about it, actually, Leo,” he said. “I started doing all sorts of things to try to make sure I was never that intense with you again. I figured if we were always having sex at your place, where your dad could walk in at any minute, that would mean I’d have an incentive to keep myself in check. I used to jerk off before I came over. And I felt like we needed to, uh, to keep letting off a little steam. If we were fucking regularly, it could be easier, gentler, less intense. And I didn’t knot you after that.”

“What? Yes, you did,” I said.

“Not often,” he said. “You always gave me a fucking knot, though. Always. With Opal, it was only when she was in heat.”

I didn’t like thinking of them having sex. That twist in me went sour and spilled acid all through me. “Just because you felt guilty about it afterwards, it doesn’t mean you didn’t like it,” I countered.

He set the trash bag on the coffee table, which was mostly clear now. He tilted his head to one side. “Maybe that’s true. I was conflicted about it, but maybe I did like it. Hell, witness what happened to us yesterday.”

“You tried to bite me,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’ve wanted to bite you every time I’ve ever had my dick in you. I’ve always wanted to tell you how much I wanted it, but I’ve always known that if I told you I wanted it, you’d start begging me, and if you begged me, I’d do it. And I knew we both wanted to wait.”

Did I want to wait? Or was it just him who did? And did he really want to wait, or did he just want Opal?

“Did you ever really want me?” I whispered to him. “Or was it just the scent match? Did you actually want her, deep down?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Did you ever want me?”

“Obviously,” I said, very hurt by that.

“But how would you know?” he said. “You never had a chance to know what it was like to want someone before you felt the scent match. You don’t even know what that feels like.”

That hurt me, too.

His shoulders sagged. “Hey, come on, Leo, don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” I said.

He went around the coffee table and closed the distance between us. He reached down and took one of my hands in his. He picked it up and pressed it against his chest. He ran his finger up and down my forearm and the back of my knuckles, gazing into my eyes. “You’re all right,” he breathed. “You’re okay.”

I felt a surge of relief go through me.

“I want you, Leo,” he murmured. “I’ve always wanted you, and I want you all the time, and there’s nothing like the way I want you. You want me, too.”

“I do,” I admitted, my voice thick. “But you… but I don’t forgive you.”

“No, I know,” he said. “And I am grieving my wife. The scent match is pitiless. It won’t give us the chance to work through this. It just wants us bonded. But we do need time. You go back to the city, and we’ll keep in touch, and we’ll meet on weekends, and we’ll take a few months, and we’ll figure out what this could even look like. That’s the smart, safe way to go forward with this.”

It was.

“This between us, though,” I managed. “You don’t think it’s real.”

He searched my eyes with his own, and I lost myself in the light green of his irises, drowned myself there. “What does that mean, ‘real’?”

“You know what it means,” I said.

“You’re the one that just said, yesterday, that desire wasn’t a choice,” he said.

It was true. I knew that was the power of desire, the power of attraction. We did not entirely know where it came from. We did not know why we were drawn to one person over another. It wasn’t from the conscious mind but from elsewhere, a cocktail of instinct and preferences formed over our whole lives, from observations and experiences. The scent match was all instinct, overriding the other things, though, maybe. “You don’t like being with me,” I said. “I guess that’s what I mean. Some part of you doesn’t want it.”

He spread his hands. “I think it was always just the responsibility of it. I was afraid I would hurt you.”