Page 27 of Knot Their Safe Haven (The Omega Rebellion Movement #3)

THE GRAVITY OF DANCING

~VELVET~

T he last threads of sunset cling to the horizon like a lover reluctant to leave, painting the glass house in shades of amber and rose gold.

Stars pierce through the darkening canvas above, each one reflected in the windows until we're surrounded by cosmos both real and mirrored.

Alessandro's suit jacket weighs on my shoulders—warm, expensive wool that smells of him.

Leather and storm clouds, power and promise.

The fabric swallows my frame, transforming me into something claimed without violence, protected without cage.

His hand rests at the small of my back, the other cradling mine as we move to Miles Davis bleeding from hidden speakers.

"Kind of Blue" at volume just loud enough to feel but soft enough to speak over. The cottage's main room has been cleared, furniture pushed aside to create this impromptu dance floor where firelight competes with dying daylight for dominance.

He spins me out, the dress flaring like spilled wine, then draws me back against his chest. The movement is practiced, confident— am I surprised he knows how to dance like a true gentleman? Men like Alessandro probably learned waltz before walking.

"Where did you learn?" I ask against his shoulder, breathing him in because I can't help myself.

"Swiss boarding school. They were very concerned we'd embarrass ourselves at galas." His hand traces patterns on my back through silk. "You?"

"YouTube. Last week."

He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest into mine. "Liar."

"Fine. Foster home number three. Mrs. Chen thought every girl should know how to dance properly, even the angry ones who bit."

"You bit?"

"Constantly. Like a feral cat."

"And now?"

"Still bite. Just choose my targets more carefully,” I say with a wink.

It’s odd to be open with him about my past. Most didn’t know about me.

The real me, under the mask of Rebel Queen, the Omega Savior, or whatever titles I’ve gathered over the years.

I’ve never really gotten to speak about my youth or even childhood. It feels odd, but also gives me a sense of calm I can’t quite describe.

His fingers tighten on my waist, and I feel his pulse jump where my hand rests against his neck. The sexual tension between us is a living thing, electric and demanding, made worse by our matched scents creating a feedback loop of want.

When was the last time I danced like this?

The question drifts through wine-hazed thoughts as we sway.

Knox never danced—said it was pointless movement that could be better spent training.

Malcolm would have, probably, but only in darkness where no one could witness.

Adyani sent videos of herself dancing in Dubai clubs, gorgeous and free, but never with me. Guess we never really got the chance.

None of them gave me the experience like this, in fading light with jazz as witness, no agenda beyond the movement itself.

"You're thinking too loud," Alessandro murmurs against my hair.

"Processing."

"What needs processing? We're dancing. Very simple. One foot, then the other."

"This is my first."

He pulls back enough to see my face.

"First what?"

"First dance. With an Alpha. As a...whatever this is."

"Date. It's called a date."

I have to fight myself to not smirk like a giddy girl.

"Right. That."

"You've never been on a date?"

"I've been on plenty of dates. With myself. Wine and I have a very committed relationship."

"That doesn't count." His dismal only makes my grin of pride grow foolishly.

"Wine never disappoints."

"Wine also can't do this."

His hand flexed at my waist, and so abruptly I nearly yelped, Alessandro dipped me low enough for my hair to brush the polished floor.

For a moment, the whole world realigned: above me, the fractured sky, black gaps lanced by the first bright stars, and below, the firelight flickering upside down, making his silhouette a burning mask.

I was suspended in a living painting—his arm a marble column beneath my shoulder blades, the other holding my hand aloft like he’d just won a prize.

"You—" For once, my tongue failed me. He hovered above, that incorrigible smirk making him look a decade younger, the lines at the edges of his eyes bowstring-taut with mischief.

"I what?"

The dip flooded me with vertigo, but it was nothing compared to the rush of knowing he could do anything he wanted with me in this position.

My dress pulled tight at the hips, the silk threatening to slip dangerously north as gravity did its work.

I could feel the corded muscle in his forearm through the thin fabric, his palm like a brand even through the wool of his jacket.

I was used to physical power—Knox had it in spades, and Adyani wielded hers like a blade when needed—but this was different.

Alessandro didn’t just possess strength; he moved with the assurance of someone who had always gotten what he wanted, who’d never been told no by the world or its rules. And it was intoxicating.

"You absolute show-off," I managed, the words leaking out as more of a moan than a rebuke.

He gave a little bounce at the bottom of the dip, making me gasp again. "If you’ve got it, flaunt it," he whispered, his voice dropping to a register normally reserved for sin. "Isn’t that the Omega philosophy?"

I bared my teeth at him, but the effect was ruined when my lips curled up with laughter.

He kept me there, just a beat past comfort, his breath stirring the tiny hairs at my temple.

The only thing keeping me from melting into a puddle on the floor was the iron pressure of his hand, steady and unyielding.

And then, just as suddenly, he snapped me upright.

My vision blurred, the room spinning with leftover momentum, but his grip never faltered.

He drew me in, pelvis to pelvis, our knees knocking in a way that would have been comical if not for the fact that I could feel the evidence of his arousal hard against my thigh.

"Careful," I warned, not sure if I meant him or myself.

"Always," he said, but his eyes told a different story—one of calculation, hunger, and something perilously close to care.

We glided back into the rhythm of the music, our bodies now mapped to each other’s with new coordinates.

I barely recognized myself— the Velvet that led coups, that commanded armies of Omegas, that could kill a man with a sharpened heel —replaced by someone very soft, very breakable, and very, very willing to be held like this.

He spun me again, slower this time, letting me savor the centrifugal force that threatened to pull us apart but always snapped us back together.

We were our own binary star system, orbiting close, each daring the other to let go first.

The sexual tension, already a constant companion, now vibrated at a frequency that made my skin feel too tight. I wanted to bite him, to sink my teeth into the juncture where his neck met his jaw and mark him as mine, but I held back.

There was a strange pleasure in the suspense, in not knowing exactly when the dam would break.

He twirled me through the dying sunlight, the last rays painting my bare arms gold. When I looked up, his gaze was fixed on my mouth—not my eyes, not my cleavage, but my lips, parted with anticipation.

It was the kind of look that made me want to misbehave.

I didn’t know if this counted as a date. I didn’t care. The rules were different here, in this glass sanctuary at the end of the world, where the only witnesses were the stars and the ghosts of our old selves. I could have danced until the sun rose again, just to keep feeling this alive.

"Absolutely." He grins, boyish despite the silver threading through his temples. "I have seventeen years of showing off to catch up on."

We settle into rhythm again, Coltrane replacing Davis, the tempo slower, more intimate.

The fire crackles, casting shadows that dance alongside us.

The wine makes everything soft-edged, but his scent keeps me anchored.

Black coffee and rain, underneath the expensive cologne.

It wraps around me more thoroughly than his jacket, sinking into my skin until I can't tell where his pheromones end and mine begin.

My body responds without permission— nipples hard against silk, wetness gathering between thighs I have to consciously keep from pressing together. Every breath brings more of him, every inhale a dose of biological imperative screaming to be filled, claimed, knotted.

"You're killing me," he says quietly.

"I'm just standing here."

His voice was barely more than a vibration against my hair, yet it curled into every nerve ending like a whispered spell. "Your scent shifts when you're aroused," Alessandro murmured, the statement so matter-of-fact it might have been a medical diagnosis.

"Becomes sweeter. Like burnt sugar."

He said it with a kind of reverence, as if I'd somehow managed to surprise him despite his encyclopedic knowledge of Omega biology. The words hovered between us, sticky and dangerous as caramel on the verge of burning.

He had to know what it did to me, hearing that. The way it drew my blood to the surface, pooling heat in places I was sure he could sense even through layers of silk and self-control.

"That's unfair insider information," I shot back, but the retort landed too softly, struggling for air beneath the rising tide of want.

It wasn't just my body betraying me—the heat, the tremors, the way my fingertips itched to claw at his lapels.

It was the way my mind began to flicker and fade, the ruthless survivalist in me growing weak at the knees just to know he was paying such microscopic attention.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so thoroughly observed, let alone by someone who seemed to catalog every molecule of my existence as if I were a rare perfume or a complex code to break.

He didn't release me from his orbit, just spun us tighter, suffocating the space until my breath was shared between us.