Page 122 of Run Wild Omega

“You smell incredible,” he murmurs against my skin. “Apples and something warm.”

“It’s just me.”

“No.” His lips brush the spot beneath my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “It’s you, and it’s want. I can smell it on you, Tess. It’s all over you.”

My brain short-circuits. The dream is still clinging to me, and having him this close, his mouth ghosting over my pulse, scatters every rational thought.

“I wanted to mark you before I left,” he says against my throat. “So when I’m on that mountain, I’ll know you carry my scent.”

“Then do it.”

He pulls back to look at me. His eyes are dark, heavy, carrying a question he doesn’t voice. I nod.

His mouth finds my neck.

This isn’t like last time. Last time was clinical. A biological formality, his mouth laying down a territory marker and nothing more. This is completely different.

His lips seal against my skin, his tongue tracing a line from the base of my throat to the hollow behind my ear. I gasp, fingers curling into his hair. He pulls the skin between his lips, teeth grazing the spot where my pulse hammers.

He works down to my collarbone, nudging the neck of my sweater aside to press against my shoulder. Each touch leaves a bloom of heat that seeps deep into my belly.

“Wyatt,” I breathe.

“Hmm?” His mouth rests against my skin, hands sliding to the small of my back, drawing me closer.

“I’m going to combust.”

He laughs, warm air puffing against my collarbone. “Good.”

He pulls back. His eyes are black, pupils swallowing the iris. He looks wrecked, his chest heaving. He reaches up, tracing his thumb over the marks he left.

“There,” he says. “Now you smell like me, too.”

His scent wraps around me—pine and smoke layered over the sagebrush Miles left behind, over the fading traces of Dylan’s amber. I smell like all three of them, and the reality of it makes my knees weak.

“I’ll miss you,” he says.

“It’s just one day.”

“Too long.” He kisses my forehead. My nose. The corner of my mouth.

I turn my head, catching his lips with mine.

The kiss starts tentative, a question he answers by pulling me in. His hand cradles the back of my head, his mouth moving over mine with a focus that steals the air from my lungs. He tastes like black coffee, and I yield beneath him, letting the kiss take over.

He groans, the sound vibrating through my chest. His grip on my waist tightens, but instead of dragging me off the table, he breaks away, breathing hard, his forehead resting against mine.

“Saturday,” he says.

“Saturday.”

He steps back, running a hand through his hair to steady himself. “I need to go before I do something that gets us both in trouble.”

“Like what?”

“Like carry you upstairs and finish what I started on your neck.”

My face burns. He grins, the expression cracking his stoic façade and letting the boy I knew at sixteen shine through.