Page 95 of Run Wild Omega

“Same as yesterday. Throbbing. Itching inside the cast in a way that makes me want to scream.”

“The itching is a good sign. It means the bone is healing.”

“I know. I still want to scream.”

A faint smile crosses his face, quickly replaced by something more serious.

“You ready?”

I set the clipboard aside. “Yeah.”

I shift on the couch, turning my body toward him, tilting my head to expose the left side of my neck—the side with the mark. The scar has healed into a thin, pale line, barely visible unless you know where to look. It sits on my mating gland like a small, permanent reminder of the morning in my bedroom when Wyatt’s hands shook and his mouth sealed the wound and I made a sound I’d never made before.

Wyatt stands from the chair and moves to sit beside me on the couch. Close. Closer than he needs to be for the scenting—usually he does it from the armchair, leaning in, keeping a measured distance. But today he sits right next to me, his thigh pressing against mine through the fabric of my sweatpants.

I don’t move.

He turns toward me, and his hand comes up to my jaw, tilting my head to the angle he wants. His fingers are warm—callused from rope work and climbing gear, rough against the soft skin below my ear. He holds me there, his thumb resting just below my cheekbone, and for a moment he just looks at me.

Not at my neck. At my face. My eyes. My mouth.

My heart slams against my ribs.

Then he leans in and presses his lips to my throat.

His mouth is hot. That’s the first thing I register—the contrast between the cool air of the room and the heat of his breath as it ghosts across my skin. He exhales slowly, and I feel the warmth of his scent sinking into the places where Dylan’s has already started to fade.

His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, cupping the base of my skull. His fingers thread into my hair—not pulling, just holding—and the touch sends a shiver racing down my spine that has nothing to do with the temperature.

He shifts closer. His thigh slides between mine, a warm, solid pressure against the inside of my left leg, above the cast. The contact is indirect, filtered through layers of clothing, but I feel it everywhere. In my hips. In my stomach. In the place low in my belly that clenches whenever he’s close.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

His mouth moves along the column of my throat, tracing the line from my collarbone to the spot below my ear. Each exhale is controlled, and each one lands on a different patch of skin—my pulse point, the hollow of my throat, the sensitive spot behind my ear that makes my toes curl inside my boot.

His thigh shifts. Just slightly. Just enough to increase the pressure, and I feel the friction of his jeans against my sweatpants, the seam pressing against a place that is achingly, embarrassingly responsive.

I grip the couch cushion with both hands. My knuckles are white. My eyes are closed. I’m holding myself so still that I’m practically fossilized, because if I move, if I shift even a fraction of an inch, I’m afraid of what will happen.

I’m afraid I’ll kiss him.

This isn’t the first time. That’s the terrible truth of it. Every time one of them scents me, I have to force myself not to turn my head. Every time Wyatt’s mouth is on my skin, I have to fight the gravitational pull of his lips, the magnetic draw that makes me want to close the distance and find out what he tastes like when he’s not just breathing on me.

It was just as bad with Dylan this morning. He came by the house at dawn, as usual, and I’d been half-asleep on the couch, my defenses down. He’d leaned in to mark my wrists, and the warmth of his mouth on the thin skin there had made my whole body flush. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound.

It’s bad with Miles too, in a different way. His precision—the careful, methodical way he applies the scent, like he’s conducting an experiment—somehow makes it worse. Because there’s no passion to hide behind. And the fact that even his clinical touch affects me makes me feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with skin.

But Wyatt is the worst. Wyatt, who I loved when I was seventeen. Wyatt, who broke my heart and then spent ten years becoming a stranger. Wyatt, whose hands shook when he marked me and whose eyes looked at me like I was something precious and terrifying all at once.

Wyatt is the one I almost kiss every single time.

He pulls back. His thigh is still between mine, his hand still in my hair, but his mouth has left my skin and the absence of it is its own kind of agony.

“Your scent is fading faster than it should,” he says.

“I know.”

“The usual interval isn’t cutting it anymore.”