Page 70 of Heat Lightning

Only for me? Only for me? I scowled, wriggling against him, but he didn’t budge. “Don’t play games with me. You said you fucked⁠—”

“I said I tried,” he cut in, voice cracking.

Caught off guard by the vulnerability in his voice, I halted, waiting for what he’d say next.

His eyes found mine, pleading like he had the other night. “I’d just dropped you off at the clinic. You were in so much pain, screaming for help. Before I left, you called out for me.”

I sucked in a breath. I didn’t remember that.

“But when I got close to you, you smelled like fear,” he continued with a whisper. “The bond was overriding your senses, but you didn’t actually want me. I tried to leave again, but the farther away I got from your room, the more agitated you became. So they locked me in the room next to you to keep us both calm.”

He stayed? For me? He’d been there the whole time?

Faintly, I remembered an alpha roaring down the hallway of the clinic. That was him?

Our chests synced, breathing like one living thing. “Then what happened?”

His jaw clenched. “An alpha in an uncontrollable rut is dangerous. I was a liability. There were other omegas in heat at the clinic who were open to a mutually beneficial agreement. They thought it best to try and calm me down.”

I nodded, looking away. He didn’t need to go on. “I understand,” I said.

And… I did. The more I thought about what Owen said, the more it made sense. The Masked Man didn’t try to break our bond on his own because of anything to do with me, but because it would be miserable—and life-threatening—to live that way, and he was trying to do the right thing.

I respected him for it, even if picturing him with someone else only a room away made me want to stick my head in a bucket of ants. My omega growled and lashed out at the image.

“No,” he said. “Let me finish.”

Cupping my jaw with one hand, he tangled his fingers in my hair with the other to bring my gaze back up to his. “I couldn’t stand the sight of them, Max. I hated the way they smelled. I threw them out.”

I stared. And stared.

“Do you know why?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head no.

He leaned in, dropping his forehead against mine. “Because they weren’t you,” he whispered. “Since then, there’s been no one else for me. No one else I want or long for. Only you. Always you.”

My breath shuddered out. Gwen said I’d been left outside by the clinic’s front door. Why would she lie about that? Why keep this a secret? To spare me? Maybe she thought I wouldn’t want to remember?

To be fair, I didn’t want to remember. I wanted to forget it all and move on.

Until now. Until I had him—my lighthouse in the storm.

Lightning cracked outside, flashing through the gloom. “Why didn’t you just explain this to me before?”

He dragged a hand across his exposed cheek. “I know I’m not… not who you’d pick to share this with. You’re too good for someone tainted like me. I can’t give you what you deserve. I should’ve stayed away. I tried to stay away…”

My chest hurt. He hadn’t explained because of the awful things I’d said. The untrue things I’d said. They haunted me, and him, if the pain in his eyes was anything to go by.

Tentatively, he nudged the tip of my nose with his. “But I can’t. Not anymore.”

Even though the storm wailed outside, I had my lighthouse right in front of me, guiding the way. There was nothing to fear, because I finally knew what I wanted.

My body melted against his. “Then don’t.”

EIGHTEEN

MAX