Page 27 of Omega Forged (Hartlock Omegas #2)

Lloyd sucked in a fortifying breath. “When I got my scholarship, she paraded up and down the alleyways, bragging. I promised I would buy her a house where she had space and a garden of her own, she loves gardening.”

I stroked the side of his face, pressed a kiss to his crown. My vision warbled through the sheen of tears.

“You succeeded, Lloyd. You work for the Baylark Foundation and are part of an amazing pack,” I soothed.

“The pack and I offered to buy her a house but she refused. She likes the community around her, and it’s all she’s known. We talk on the phone and I make sure she has enough money in her account, but I can’t go back there. I refuse to step foot in The Barracks ever again.”

I pressed my wet cheek to the top of Lloyd’s head and clutched him closer.

My heart ached as if his words punctured it.

I offered him the warmth of my body, hoping it was a cocoon in the wake of his confession.

I thought of my dad and how he was the first to help the community that raised him when they were in trouble.

“You’ve been through so much,” I whispered into his locks. “If the pressure gets too much, you can lean on me.”

His gaze turned molten. Thumb trailed down the smooth column of my neck. The touch seeped through my skin, like a tattoo on my soul.

“What about you? Who do you lean on, Tully?”

Who did I lean on?

I chewed on my bottom lip and shrugged. Everyone left, eventually. It might not have been their choice, as in my parents’ case, but they were still gone. My skin ached with the weight of my loneliness sometimes, but it was familiar now.

I was on an island. Unreachable.

Except Lloyd was pressed up against me. He was here, and from the moment we’d met, it had been easy. Warm. A net from the lingering hurts life dealt me. Even through a phone screen, he wanted to be there for me. He buffeted against my shields, and all I had to do was let him in.

Lloyd was the soft landing I never knew existed.

“Since my parents died, I feel like I have always trusted the wrong person.”

Lloyd cupped my face, his breath puffed against my lips. I’d never lain with another person like this, trading oxygen. Sharing heat. We were an untouchable bubble.

He made me feel safe.

“You can trust me.” Lloyd brushed his lips over the tip of my nose, and my insides unstitched. One by one. I snaked my arms around his neck as goosebumps erupted over my body.

“Promise?” I whispered.

He’d seen me splayed out in front of him more than once, but this was more intimate, more charged. I wanted to taste him on my tongue. To see if his promise was as sweet as his lips, as solid as his muscular body.

“On everything that I am,” he replied.

With a sigh, I leaned forward, let the surge of want take over.

Lloyd rolled me under him in one languid movement.

Our lips fused together, and I moaned into his mouth.

Sunshine-warmed ocean, skin slick with salt and hot from golden sand.

Lloyd’s scent whipped me away. His hands tangled in my hair and his tongue danced against mine.

With all the tender love Lloyd was capable of.

My cheeks spilled over with tears, and he kissed the moistness away, trailing his lips down my neck.

“I can’t tell you how many times I imagined you in our nest. My honey girl,” Lloyd muttered, and the awe in his voice made my throat choke with a rush of adoration.

His touch and taste took me under the swell of ocean waves. Where the world dropped away. Lloyd nudged his knee in between my legs and settled his weight on top of me.

“I want you.” I pressed little kisses over Lloyd’s face, unable to stop a giddy smile. He rocked against me, his hard bulge pressed to my heated core.

Lloyd’s fingers scrambled at his buttons. He revealed a surfer’s body, lean, tanned muscle. On his chest, above his heart, was a tattoo of a shooting star.

“What’s this?”

“It’s my reminder. There was a time when I was ready to give up. I thought no one was coming to our rescue. So, I snuck out and stared at the stars. There was one that lit up the sky, and I swear, it was like a sign.”

I trailed my fingers over the tattoo. My chest throbbed with pain. And the need to be close to him.

“I need you, Lloyd.”

In more ways than one.

I flicked open the button of his jeans and he shed them.

A beam of sun bleach blond trailed down to his long, narrow cock.

I pulled him down against me, feverish with desire.

He was my star, my sign, and he’d blown my world open for joy again.

As Lloyd captured my mouth in a tender kiss, I knew he felt it.

The warmth in my chest, the flutter in my stomach.

We were sweet like spring morning dew. The way my heart burst, I expected petals to fall out of the sky and rain down on us in slow motion.

I was giddy.

“Promise?” Lloyd pushed my dress up and sank back on his haunches. Vulnerability scored lines in his face, and I wondered how anyone could ever find him wanting. The handsome beta who never let me forget him, not from the moment we met. I spread my legs and nodded, desperate to feel him inside me.

Lightning coursed through my veins, and it cleansed.

Lloyd rubbed his cock through my soaked slit and sank into me. His eyes crashed closed, and his mouth dropped open on a low moan. His weight fell forward, and arms bracketed my head. I wrapped my legs around his waist and met his jerky thrusts.

This was lush. It was ripe raspberries making my teeth ache. This wasn’t my first time, but it felt like it was. Each tender thrust carved my body anew. My channel strangled his hard length, hungry for every steel inch.

“L-Lloyd, kiss me,” I begged, as his hips rocked.

He pulled down the collar of my dress and latched onto my breast instead. His tongue pebbled my nipple, and I arched into the scrape of his teeth. It was only the two of us in the entire universe. Everything dropped away and my chest caught.

“My perfect girl,” Lloyd muttered in a fevered tone, tracing his tongue to my other breast. I met his thrusts with a whimper, seeking something only his body could give me. “I want you in every way.”

“S-soon,” I promised, and the delicious throb between my legs blanketed my entire body with velvet desire.

This gentle joining unlocked my heat, and with each roll of his narrow hips, the crevice widened.

My heart crashed like waves on the shore, and salt flooded my tongue.

Lloyd drowned me in pleasure. The sound of our bodies slapping together filled the room, as did the chorus of our moans.

The nest was a bubble, and we rocked against each other with no barriers in our bodies and our hearts.

Contained heat throbbed through my body, like sunburn stretching my skin.

Lloyd’s fingers slipped between our bodies and coaxed a waterfall of pleasure.

It grew and grew until I gasped, the soft lust turning hungry.

Sharp. I needed more. Lloyd felt the change as I did.

His pupils blew out as he stared at my face.

How was it he could look right through me?

From the first instant he’d seen to my core and desired me despite everything.

“I’m going to fill you up, Tully.”

Our movements turned primal, seeking oblivion in flesh. I tangled my fingers in Lloyd’s hair and tightened them into fists as he bellowed his release. Warmth flooded my insides, and Lloyd sank into me. Our chests kissed each other with sweat.

Lloyd pressed a featherlight kiss to my jaw. “The way you hold my cock inside you, g-gods, Tully.” He stumbled over his words as my pussy clenched around him. Lloyd circled my clit, tender like the start, and my orgasm unfurled inside me until I sagged underneath him.

“That was…” I gulped, still boneless. “Nobody else has ever made me come before,” I admitted in a whisper.

Lloyd made a strangled noise.

“Nobody? Nobody ?” Lloyd leaned back, still hard. “What about that alpha?”

I shook my head. “I’m not a virgin, but the guy I was with never thought about making it good for me.”

Lloyd ran his hands down my body.

“I hope you know that isn’t the last one I’m giving you.”

“We have time. But I think we need to invite the others.”