Page 22 of Knot So Lucky

There’s always a moment before the start light goes green when every cell in my body short-circuits—heart stuttering, breath stilled, the rest of the world somehow silent.

That’s what it feels like to be here in this bed with her now, waiting for the next round, knowing I’m about to cross another line with her and praying to every god with a grudge that she doesn’t wake up pissed before I’ve had my fill.

I think about it—about the moment she let me into her bed and the million moments before that, the wars and truces and filthy little secrets that turned a childhood rivalry into the only addiction I've never been able to shake.

How long have I been watching her sleep?

No, really—how long? The city’s gone from a blue haze to full midnight, all neon flickers and chrome-bright pulse, but I haven’t closed my eyes once. Not even a blink. I don't need to. Every sense is dialed to eleven, burning up on the fuel of her scent and the heat of her body curled against my chest.

Aurora Lane—best-kept secret of the Lane dynasty, Omega in hiding, my nemesis and my obsession—fits under my arm like she was custom built for it. The king bed in her penthouse is so stupidly big that we could sleep on opposite continents and never touch, but she’s right here, one palm trapped by my hand on her waist, her ass pressed sinfully tight to my groin, bare legs hooked in the tangle of ruined silk sheets.

I bury my nose in the crown of her hair and inhale like it’s the last oxygen left in the goddamn city.

Vanilla—smoked, not sweet, edged with gasoline like a warning. Motor oil, under her nails and in her pores, never fully scrubbed out no matter how many times she bathed. And tonight, sharp and fresh, the lavender bath bomb I sent her as a joke, now ghosting off her skin like a fucking dare. Even with the suppressants, there's something underneath, a heat rising that doesn’t belong—her scent, Omega and raw, bright as a pit lane crash and desperate to be noticed. Most would miss it, buried under chemistry and willpower, but I’ve had her enough times to map every beat and deviation.

She is not fine. Not even close.

The thought claws at me, violent and greedy, the need to protect twisted up with the need to grab and mark and own.

I tighten my grip on her waist, fingers digging in. She barely stirs—just a little sigh, one of those noises I could record on a loop and listen to forever. I want to dig my teeth into the spot where her neck curves to her shoulder, leave a bruise deep enough that she’ll cuss me out for days.

Want to make her bleed my name…

Instead, I hold still, like a fucking lunatic, and let the memories burn through me like nitro.

Eight years old.

Summer heat, sticky and loud, the tail end of a Lane-Thorne “peace dinner” that was anything but polite. She dared me torace our bikes down the quarry hill, and I took her up on it—roared ahead, cut her off, sent her flying straight into a gravel skid with my handlebars jammed into her spokes. She landed at my feet, knees torn open, blood running down her shins. She didn't cry. Not once. Just stared up at me, green eyes blazing with hatred, and said, “I’m going to stuff your head down a toilet for this.”

She did, too. Less than a week later.

Little slip of a girl hauling me half a head taller by my hair, shrieking like a banshee, while our families pretended not to watch from the next room.

Thirteen.

The go-kart debacle. I’d just gotten the custom engine, all chrome and illegal mods, and she got her hands in it the night before my time trial. Rigged the fuel line with a hair of epoxy—stalled halfway through, humiliated in front of the entire fucking pit crew. She watched from the stands, eating ice cream, and smirked at me as I raged. I fantasized about making her pay for months. She lost her eyebrows in a sulfur bomb prank gone wrong three months later—my masterpiece, if I’m being honest.

We kept escalating. Always.

High school was a powder keg—fistfights behind the gym, shouting matches at every family reunion, the kind of hormonal, insane rivalry that made adults nervous and the other kids keep their distance.

It never changed.Not really.Even when we grew up, even when she started hiding who she was, and I started learning how to fake not caring, the need to destroy each other never left.

And then she presented as an Omega.

That changed everything—the power dynamic, the lies, the fucking rules of engagement. There was suddenly this whole new world of biological sabotage and secret signals. She came to me first. Not with words, obviously—she would rather die. But hersuppressants failed after a track day, and she showed up at my door, shaking and gray-faced, and told me if I ever told anyone, she’d set my favorite car on fire.

We fucked on that couch until she passed out.

I carried her to bed after.

We don’t try to act like we weren’t each other’s firsts…

After that, it became a regular thing—a dark little pact.She needed help. I needed someone who wouldn’t be clingy or try to fuck me over with fake scent-trails and demand relationships. I helped her, she helped me, and we both pretended it was just a biological thing and not the beginning of a chemical dependency.

Except now, with her melting into me and all her guards down, I realize it’s not just “biology”. Not for me.

I want her because she’s mine—because we’ve been at war so long, I don’t know how to exist without the friction. Because nobody else gets the full, jagged, bleeding version of me she always has. Because she lets me touch, lets me see, lets me into the cracks she hides from the rest of the universe.