Page 55 of Omega's Formula

Instead I just feel... peaceful.

I shift slightly, testing. His arm tightens around me, pulling me closer. His nose nuzzles into the back of my neck, breath warm against my skin.

“Hey,” I murmur.

“Mm.” A sleepy, satisfied sound. “You’re awake.”

“Heat’s breaking.”

He goes still. Then his hand slides up my chest, over my heart, feeling my pulse. It’s steady now. Normal. Not the frantic racing of the past few days.

“How do you feel?”

“Sore.” I cover his hand with mine. “Good. Really good, actually.”

He exhales against my neck—relief, I think. Maybe something else too.

“I was worried I hurt you.” His voice is rough with sleep and something that sounds like vulnerability. “Some of it was... intense.”

“You didn’t.” I turn in his arms so we’re facing each other. His eyes are soft in the morning light, blue and warm and looking at me like I’m something precious. “You were perfect.”

He kisses me. Not desperate like before—gentle. Sweet. The kind of kiss that means something beyond pheromones and chemistry. The kind of kiss that could break my heart if I let it.

When he pulls back, there’s something uncertain in his expression. Something that looks almost like fear.

“Nolan—”

“Not yet.” I press my fingers to his lips. “Whatever you’re about to say, whatever we need to talk about—not yet. Can we just... have this? For a little while longer?”

He’s quiet for a moment. I watch the conflict play across his face—the need to define things, to understand, to maintain control. Then something in him softens.

“Okay,” he says. “For a little while longer.”

He pulls me closer, tucks my head under his chin, wraps both arms around me. I let myself sink into it. Into him. Into this impossible, temporary, terrifying thing that’s somehow become the most real thing in my life.

We’ll have to deal with reality eventually and the fact that this was only supposed to be pretending.

It doesn’t feel like pretending anymore.

But for now, here in the grey morning light with his heartbeat steady under my cheek, I let myself pretend that this is real.

That this could be ours.

That maybe, somehow, we could find our way to something that doesn’t end in a year.

The thought should scare me. It does scare me, a little. But Erik’s arms are warm around me and his scent is wrapped around me like a blanket and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel safe.

That might be the most dangerous thing of all.

14. Erik

I wake to an empty bed and the smell of coffee.

For a moment I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, cataloging the aches in my body. Muscles I didn’t know I had are protesting against even the slightest movement. There are scratches down my back—I can feel them when I shift against the sheets—and what feels like a bite mark on my shoulder that throbs when I press against the mattress.

Five days. Five days of heat, of Nolan, of losing myself so completely I forgot my own name.

I should regret it. I should be panicking about the implications, the complications, the way this changes everything between us.