Page 24 of Knot So Lucky

For as long as she’ll let me have her.

I can’t lose this—so I don’t.

I refuse.

Even if it means making her hate me a thousand times just so I can keep her coming back.

Her sleep is never peaceful—she tosses, knots the sheets up, sometimes wakes up thrashing if the suppressants are off. But tonight she’s dead to the world, body limp and warm, and I know it’s because I’m here to hold her. Maybe that’s arrogant, but it’s also true. I’m the only leash that can keep her from running herself ragged, from overdosing on self-destruction.

I think about tomorrow, then immediately reject it.

Better to live in this second:her bare skin under my palm, the lap of her breath, the animal sweetness rising under the bath bomb and designer bedding.

I could lay here forever.

But if I’m honest, I want more.

I want to touch.

I want to take.

I want to see if she’ll let me play with her even in her sleep.

My hand drifts lower, cupping her hip, thumb digging into the dip above the bone. Her slip is a joke—barely a barrier, and even that is starting to ride up. I’d bet my last dollar she did that on purpose, just to see if I’d try something.

As if she doesn’t know me by now.

I press my mouth to her neck, right where her pulse hammers, and taste her skin—lavender, then the wild sweetness of Omega beneath it, faint but impossible to miss. She shivers. Not awake yet, but it’s as if her body senses my presence.

I want to wake her—but not just yet.

For now, I just savor it.

Savor and wait, like the villain of her story, the one she’ll never admit she needs.

That could be all I’ll ever get, but I’ll fucking take it.

I flex my hand, sliding it under the slip until my fingertips can graze the barest edge of the thong she’s chosen—emerald, to match her eyes, probably the only color she actually likes besides black. Fuck, I love this woman for making even lingerie a weapon.

I could lose myself in this.

But before I do, I take one last deep inhale, burning her scent into my lungs, branding it deep where nobody can ever scrub it out.

Motor oil, vanilla, lavender—and underneath, the Omega perfume she tries to strangle. Hot, rich, dizzying, tinged with need and something else: a warning, or a promise.

The suppressants are losing.

Her scent’s coming for me, and I want to be the only one who ever gets to drown in her.

Ever.

My hand hovers at her hip, weighing right and wrong, but if I’m honest, I’ve never cared about doing what’s right when it comes to Aurora. All I want is what I can take. All I want is her.

Again and again and again.

I tighten my grip, dragging her back until there’s no space—just skin, silk, and air that tastes like lavender and sweat and the ozone before a lightning strike. My cock is already hard, fightingfor space in my shorts. She’s so small I could crush her, but all I want is to swallow her whole.

My lips find her nape again, but this time I linger.