Page 101 of Run Wild Omega

“Because I like it,” I say. “Being here. With you. I didn’t expect to, but I do.”

Her expression softens. She doesn’t say anything else, and I’m grateful, because I’ve already said more than I intended to, and if I keep going, I’ll end up telling her that I go home every night and stand in my shower with my hand around my cock and her scent in my head and that I come so hard my knees buckle and then I hate myself for it because she’s supposed to be a strategy, not an obsession.

Her scent is the problem. That’s the data point I can’t integrate into my model. When I’m close to her—when I’m scenting her, when I’m sitting next to her in my car, when she laughs at something I said and the sound hits me like a frequency I didn’t know I was tuned to—something in my brain switches off and something else switches on. Something feral. Something that doesn’t care about strategy or timing or the fact that she’s recovering from a broken leg and I’m supposed to be the rational one.

I fucked my fist in the shower this morning. Again. I scented her last night—my usual evening shift—and the residue was still on my hands when I got home. I washed them three times, but it didn’t matter. The scent memory was encoded, and by the time I stepped into the shower, I was already half-hard.

I pressed my forehead against the tile and closed my eyes and imagined her underneath me, her neck bared, my mouth on her skin, her body arching up to meet mine. I came in under two minutes, my release hitting the drain in hot, helpless spurts, and then I stood there with the water running cold over my shoulders and thought, very clearly: This is unsustainable.

It is unsustainable. The research I did—the same research Tess independently confirmed—shows that scent transferred during sexual contact lasts two to three times longer. Which means that if I were inside her, if I were marking her the way my body wants to mark her, I wouldn’t need to come back every thirty-six hours to refresh the scent. The claim would hold.

But I can’t propose that. I can’t even hint at it. Because suggesting that we have sex to optimize the scent retention timeline would be the most Miles thing I’ve ever done—reducing intimacy to a logistics problem—and it would also be a betrayal of whatever fragile trust we’ve built.

So I keep my mouth shut. I keep my hands to myself. I shower and I spill and I hate it and I do it again the next night.

And in the meantime, I take her for ice cream and burgers and pretend that’s enough.

The café is warm and busy when we arrive. The dinner rush is in full swing—locals filling the booths, the smell of coffee and grilled cheese and Margaret’s famous chicken pot pie filling the air.

Tess crutches through the front door, and I see the moment the room registers her presence. A few heads turn. A few whispers start. But Margaret is behind the counter, and the look she gives the room—a single, sweeping glance that says I will end you—is enough to silence the gossip before it gains momentum.

“In the back corner,” Margaret calls out, nodding toward the large booth near the kitchen. “I’ll bring tea.”

The booth is already occupied. Mara and Daniel sit on one side, Gray and Leo on the other. They shift to make room as Tess approaches, and I slide in beside Leo, leaving the end of the booth open so Tess can prop her cast on the empty space.

“Look who’s out in the wild,” Leo says, grinning. “How was the hospital?”

“Good. Rod is straight, bone is growing, new cast is lighter.” She settles in, arranging her crutches against the wall. “Miles fed me ice cream and burgers, so I’m basically at peak performance.”

“Ice cream and burgers,” Daniel says, raising an eyebrow at me. “That’s your idea of post-hospital care?”

“It’s her idea of post-hospital care. I facilitated.”

“He also named the group chat ‘Tess’s Pack,’” Tess adds, pulling out her phone.

Daniel’s expression flickers between amusement and something else, something more protective. “Did he now.”

“It’s efficient,” I say.

“It’s honest,” Mara says, and there’s a warmth in her voice that surprises me. She’s looking at Tess with an expression I can’t fully decode—pride, maybe, or relief, or the particular tenderness of someone who remembers what it feels like to be claimed by a pack and knows how overwhelming it can be.

Margaret arrives with a tray of tea and cups, distributing them with the efficiency of someone who’s been serving this town for thirty years. She lingers after the last cup is poured, her hand resting on Tess’s shoulder.

“You look better,” she says quietly. “Color in your cheeks.”

“I feel better.”

“Good. You need anything, you tell me.” She squeezes once and retreats to the counter.

The conversation moves to logistics—who’s scenting Tess tomorrow, what time, where. It’s the same discussion we have every day, but it feels different in the group setting. More real. More established.

“I can do the morning shift,” Dylan says. He’s leaning against the wall near the booth, having arrived a few minutes after us. “I’ve got the early shift at the firehouse, but I’ll be done by seven.”

“I’ll take the afternoon,” Wyatt says. He’s sitting in a chair pulled up to the end of the table, his arms crossed, his attention fixed on Tess in a way that he probably thinks is subtle and absolutely is not.

“That leaves the evening for me,” I say. “Same as usual.”

“We could adjust the rotation,” Dylan suggests. “Mix it up so it’s not the same person at the same time every day. Less predictable.”