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Maddie clings to me, and I indulge in this forbidden moment of recklessness to the fullest extent possible, I allow myself this one taste of her, reveling in the softness of her lips and the sweetness of her tongue. Her full curves pressed against me are so different from Wolf and Tai’s hard bodies. While neither is necessarily better than the other, this feels really fucking good.
Really fucking right, too.
As she melts into me, I hold her tighter. She winds her arms around my neck, not stopping until we’re flush against one another. All rational thought leaves me, and the next thing I know, I’m walking her back toward her bed, my cock straining to get inside her and my hands itching to feel every inch of her soft skin under them.
My instincts roar at me, urging me to claim her as ours right here and now. In the end, it’s those urges that force me to pull away from her.
Fuck!
Get it together, Kaz.
Breathing heavily, I break the kiss and take a big step back, my hands clenched into fists at my sides as I fight with the beast within. The beast urging me to fuck. To knot. To bond her to me forever.
Those instincts claw at the flimsy cages deep within me when she opens her eyes. I see the hurt flickering in them as she looks at me.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice husky before she drags in a deep breath and clears her throat. “Kaz?”
“I’m fine,” I grind out the lie, following her example and filling my lungs with air.Abort mission. I should never have come down here. I should never have come into her bedroom where her scent is so strong it permeates directly into my skin. I repeat, abort. The. Fucking. Mission.
Her scent is so overpowering in here that I comethis closeto giving up the fight, but eventually, I remember why I’m here. “I have something to show you. Get dressed. I’ll meet you outside in a minute?”
“At the Rose Garden?”
I nod. “See you there.”
Before I make yet another mistake, I turn on my heels and flee from her room, not breathing again fully until I’m outside where the air is clear of that incredible, sweet but spicy scent. I fucking love that there’s a bit of spiciness to her scent. It’s so like her, all soft and sweet until you really get to know her and you discover how strong she is at her core.
My head is spinning, and I’m reeling from that one fucking kiss.If that’s what kissing her is like…
But no.
I can’t let myself go there. Down boy.
When she finally joins me about ten minutes later, she’s wearing a sweater and her hair has been brushed, but she hasn’t bothered with makeup and those freckles are out to play. For the rest of my life, I know I’ll be thinking about her whenever I see freckles.
Any will be a painful reminder of that one time I threw caution to the wind and nearly claimed an Omega who would’ve sent my world into a state of disarray.Still, I wonder if the chaos would be worth it.
Tai seems to think it will be, but then Maddie sends me a puzzled frown and folds her arms again. “Well?” she asks quietly, cautiously almost. I really hate that she feels this way around me now. “What did you want to show me?”
“A cottage,” I say vaguely before motioning for her to walk with me. I’d have offered her my arm, but that’s probably not a good idea.
“A cottage?” she repeats as she rolls her eyes, but follows when I start toward the path. “Pray tell, Your Highness, why are you showing me a cottage?”
“It’s Kaz,” I correct her on instinct. “You and I have a deal, remember? This is me holding up my end of the bargain.”
Maddie slams to a stop and spins toward me, her eyes wide and twinkling with excitement and relief and some other emotion I cannot name. “You’re showing me this cottage because it’s where my family will live?”
I nod. “I’ll do you one better than that but come on. Showing is better than telling.”
With a cautious quality to her steps, she takes my arm and allows me to pull her along. When we press to the edge of the gardens, we round the corner of hedges, and she spots her family waiting across a short lawn on the front steps of the old staff cottage. She’s overcome with emotion.
She stops moving again, but then she releases me.
The next second, she’s running at a full sprint toward the three figures in front of the old gardener’s cottage. We have a bunch of these staff quarters on this side of the property, but most of them are uninhabited these days. The wages now sufficient enough for the staff to live outside of palace grounds.
This particular cottage is a quaint, three-bedroom stone-built home with a fireplace, two bathrooms, heating, and a fully functioning kitchen. I had the staff clean it out and make sure everything was up to par before sending for Maddie’s family.
For the first time, I realize the implications of what I’ve done here. What I may have subjected myself to. When Maddie leaves the trials, will she live here, on my palace grounds, with her family? She will, at least until she’s claimed by a pack.
