Page 6 of Knotty Nights

There was absolutely no fucking way that this big, burly beefcake of an Alpha was my perfect match!

I swiped through her pictures, looking for one flaw—anyflaw—that would make me feel better, but that was just an exercise in stupidity.

She was perfect.

I stopped at the last of four pictures—a selfie of her at the gym with several thick weights at her feet. In it, she was smiling into the camera, her lips tilted at the corners in a little shy smirk.

Well, the algorithm had gotten one thing right—they’d matched me with the soft Alpha I’d requested.

I wondered what she’d sound like, what she’d smell like…

Am Ireallydoing this? Is this some kind of mid-life crisis slash millennial breakdown?

I shook my head as I perched on the edge of my bed. No, I’d already had a millennial breakdown in the grocery store last week when I saw the price of eggs.

My decision to pay a shit ton of money for this app was something else entirely.

I couldn’t actually remember the last time someone touched me—not in a way that meant something more than a polite handshake.

It had been five years—five years since the divorce, five years of getting used to the ringing echo of a solitary bedroom. I’d convinced myself that it didn’t bother me. I could build routines that had nothing to do with my ex-mate and thrive in my singleness, but when I sat on the massive king-sized bed that had once held the lingering scent of an Alpha, it hit me how truly alone I was. Lonely enough to hire an escort off an app.

Pathetic.

Could I really get away with talking to a painfully attractive younger Alpha? Especially after I’d spent the last five years pretending that my pussy had gone into retirement?

A sigh rippled through me as I fell backwards on the bed, surrounding myself with the familiar comforts of my nest.

It had been so long since I’d nested, but the ritual hadn’t changed. The needy little spirit omega in my chest still remembered how to arrange the three weighted blankets, two duvets, and quilted curtains I’d found buried deep in storage.

A heated blanket was the base of the perfect nest, warming me from inside out.

The only thing missing was an Alpha.

It had been so long since I’dletmyself think of pleasure. The past few years had been focused on getting over the divorce and making sure Rosie went to college. My needs hadn’t been a factor in such a long time.

It was hard not to be sad about it—I’d mourned my youth, my thirties, watching it pass by in a flash. Strands of white in my thick black hair were kept in check by my daughter’s monthly haphazard dye job.

I stared at my hands, turning them around slowly to inspect them. I’d watched too many videos that claimed that the handsand neck showed signs of aging quickest. I squinted at the skin around my knuckles, wondering if they looked extra wrinkly today, or if it was just my imagination.

I flexed my fingers slowly, trying to remember what it felt like for someone’s hands to cup mine, to thread their fingers with my own… what it felt like to be wanted.

Maybe that was why I’d done it—why I’d impulsively signed up for the app. Maybe I was tired of being untouched.

No matter how self-sufficient I’d become, no matter how well I pretended to be okay with my solitude, there was still a part of me that ached fiercely to be held by an Alpha, even if it was just pretend.

My doctor had been the one to bring up my irregular Heat cycles. He’d assured me that inducing this Heat was best for my health.

“Regulating your hormones in the peri-menopausal stage with a controlled cycle could stabilize your endocrine responses.”

The idea that I was yet another omega at the mercy of her hormones was devastating.

I reached for the remote to the heating blanket and turned it all the way up, sighing when the soothing warmth spread up my back.

The Heat symptoms hadn’t kicked in yet, but they would soon enough. I could already feel the telltale ache at the base of my spine.

I hope Arya is ready for a needy mess.

I pulled a weighted blanket over myself and glanced at the phone again. Maybe I’d misremembered how cute she was…