Page 5 of Omega on the Rocks (Pubbin’ Mates #1)
Branches clawed at my skin as I ran, bare feet pounding the earth, lungs seizing against the cold bite of air. I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Not when my body was still soaked in him—my thighs slick, my hole stretched and aching from where he’d been, but empty. Still empty.
And that emptiness? It was driving me out of my fucking mind.
He hadn’t knotted me.
And I didn’t understand why .
He’d taken me. Driven into me like he needed it— like he needed me —but when the moment came, when my body opened in a haze of heat and need, he’d pulled back .
Held himself still, pumping me full of cum without the pleasure of his knot.
Denied us both the thing my omega instincts were screaming for.
And now every step was torment.
My body begged for something he’d refused to give me, and my heart couldn’t figure out if that made me rejected—or protected.
I stumbled into a clearing, chest heaving, legs trembling. The slick between my thighs felt obscene in the open air, a physical reminder of what we’d done. Of what we almost did.
I dropped to my knees, fists digging into the dirt. My throat burned. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. My body was too busy aching, pulsing, needing .
Why hadn’t he finished?
Why hadn’t he claimed me?
Was I not good enough? Was he disgusted afterward? Had it been a mistake for him , even if it felt like everything for me?
Behind me, I heard the brush part.
Kieran.
His scent hit first—warm, leathery and masculine, laced with the faintest edge of desperation.
I didn’t turn. “Preacher.”
The nickname on his lips wasn’t rough this time. It was soft. Tentative.
“Don’t,” I said, voice raw. “Don’t pretend this didn’t just happen.”
“I’m not pretending.”
I whipped around, still on my knees, trembling. “Then why didn’t you knot me ?”
The silence that followed was deafening.
He looked like I’d punched him. Like the words hit harder than my running ever could.
“I wanted to,” he said finally, voice hoarse.
“Then why didn’t you?” I demanded, tears burning now. “You were right there, Kieran. I needed it. I still need it. And you just… stopped. Like I wasn’t worth finishing. Like I wasn’t—”
“Don’t,” he cut in, stepping forward fast, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
I froze.
He crouched in front of me, close but not touching. His hands curled into fists at his sides like it physically hurt him not to reach for me.
“I didn’t knot you because I respect you,” he said, voice trembling with restraint.
“Because it was your first time. Because your heat isn’t on you yet.
Because I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold anything back, and you deserved better than being claimed while your body’s too overwhelmed to tell the difference between instinct and choice. ”
Tears spilled down my cheeks then—hot and humiliating.
“But I wanted it,” I whispered. “I wanted you .”
He exhaled sharply, like it broke something in him.
“I know,” he said, quieter now. “And I wanted to give it to you. God, preacher, I’ve never wanted anything so bad in my life. But you were already shaking. Already scared. And if I’d locked myself inside you—if I’d given you my knot—you wouldn’t have been able to run .”
I blinked, stunned.
“I didn’t want to trap you,” he said. “I wanted you to stay because you chose me. Not because your instincts took over.”
I bit down on my lower lip, hard, trying to steady the mess inside me. The tears. The need. The painful, gut-deep ache of being so close to something I didn’t even know I’d been craving all my life.
“But what if I don’t know the difference?” I whispered. “Between what’s real and what’s instinct?”
Kieran finally reached for me, brushing a knuckle along my cheek, reverent and cautious.
“Then we figure it out,” he murmured. “One night at a time. No pressure. No knots. Not until you ask for it. Not until you know, without a doubt, that you want to be mine.”
I closed my eyes against the weight of that promise. Because it hurt . And yet—it healed.I nodded, just barely.