Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 129691 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129691 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Then let’s get you to the communal backyard so you can earth. After that, you need to get some sleep. Then we’ll eat. Then we’ll fuck. Or maybe we’ll eat while we fuck.”
“As long as you make me come hard, I don’t care what order we do it in.”
Alex groaned at the feel of her pussy squeezing and rippling around him as her orgasm tore through her. Son of a bitch. Leaning back against the dining chair, he punched up his hips while forcefully slamming her down on his cock once, twice, three times. Then he exploded inside her, filling her with his come.
She melted against him, gasping for breath. “Dude, I continue to be amazed by the amount of game you bring to the table.”
Alex’s mouth almost canted up. “Always happy to please.” He splayed a hand on her back. “Don’t move. I don’t want to lose your pussy yet.” Utterly sated, he pressed a kiss to her temple and breathed her in. There was something very peaceful about just holding her when she was all limp and loose like this.
They didn’t speak for a while. They just sat in silence while he ran his hands over her—tracing, shaping, stroking. Her own fingers softly doodled patterns on his chest or followed the thick, curved lines of the tribal tattoo on his shoulder.
When his softening cock came close to slipping out of her, he carried her to the bathroom. After cleaning themselves up, they settled in bed on their sides, facing each other.
He skimmed his fingertips down her arm. “You going to tell me what Rose said?”
She groaned. “I’ve got a real good post-orgasmic buzz going on. Can’t I keep it a little while longer?”
He nipped her lower lip. “Tell me.”
“Fine.” She quickly relayed the conversation she’d had with the retired primary.
“Is she right?” asked Alex. “Do you fear you’ll fall like your mother?”
“Charity heard people’s thoughts, just like I do.”
“That wasn’t what killed her, Bree. Like Rose said, Charity was fragile. She didn’t have your strong sense of self.”
Bree’s eyes dropped to his neck. “As a kid, I blamed her omega abilities for her death. I guess I liked to blame external things for her suicide, because I didn’t want to face that she just didn’t love me and my dad enough to work through her issues.”
Hating the little shake in her voice, Alex massaged her nape. “I don’t think it was that she didn’t love you enough. I remember how family-oriented Charity was. You and Jim were her priorities.”
Bree shook her head. “She knew she could kill him if she committed suicide. She did it anyway. She knew that if he died, I’d be alone. She didn’t care.” Bree bit her lip and met his eyes again. “She left a note. She said she couldn’t handle the voices and the energies anymore. She didn’t feel that she deserved to live or be loved. She said we were better off without her. But that was all bullshit, Alex. She was just prettying up the simple fact that she wanted to end her own suffering.
“I get that it must have been hard for her to function with faulty shields. I do. It was like at the memorial today … the energy from all those emotions just invades you. It hurts and it sucks large and it drains you. But she could have tried to fix her shields; could have sought help from other omegas.”
Alex smoothed a hand down her back. “I know a little about what it’s like to feel that you failed someone; that their death is on you.”
“Freya,” she guessed.
“Freya,” he confirmed. “Is there a bigger failure than being unable to save the life of your true mate? I doubt it. I didn’t just fail her physically, Bree, I failed her emotionally. You hear about how people feel an immediate, primal attraction toward their true mate. The one I felt toward Freya wasn’t that strong. I didn’t feel drawn to her. My beast was curious about her; wanted to spend time with her. I didn’t question his interest.” Alex swallowed. “She deserved better.”
“People can be around their true mate for years and not sense it. They need to be open to mating or their unwillingness blocks the frequency of the bond—you know that. My guess is you wouldn’t have sensed it that night of the crash if you hadn’t been half out of it.”
“That moment when the mating bond pulled at me … it lasted seconds, Bree. Felt like a fucking lifetime, though.” He’d never forget the sensation of it yanking at his psyche, desperately trying to join him to her. “And then it was just gone, the same as her. Gone. I should have been devastated. Broken. A mess. I wasn’t.”
“Be honest, you didn’t feel that you had the right to grieve—simply because you hadn’t known her or realized who she was to you. And then there’s the fact that you stupidly felt to blame for her death.”