Page 10 of Small Town Shy Omega (Applewood Falls #1)

“I’m so sorry that Gretel is going through crap, and that you did too, Layla. You didn't deserve that—there are some assholes out there, and it sucks to deal with them.”

“When you present as Omega, you’re at the mercy of Alphas. Unless a good pack steps up to defend you, when you get sucked into a bad pack, you have nowhere to turn.”

“I know, baby,” Blake murmured, his finger on my jaw. “I wish I could’ve been there. To put a fist through your last pack’s faces, to make them pay. Mark my words: if I see them on the street, I’m beating them up.”

“Oh, they’re not here in Applewood Falls,” and I had to sniffle. “They hated living here, and I think they moved back West. Where they came from.”

Big city Alphas. They didn't know how to connect with an Omega like me in a small town.

“Baby,” Blake growled, and he even dropped his fishing pole. And tackle box. To focus solely on me. “You deserve the world, baby. So much more than a pack who hurts your feelings or forces you to serve them. Do you know how special you are?”

“I never believed I was special,” I whispered, my nose twitching. “Until you called me a queen.”

Wind gusted through the trees, and dappled sunlight fell upon us. A green leaf drifted past Blake’s shoulder, and he let it fall to the ground.

“You… are a queen,” Blake rasped, and I peered into his heavyset blue eyes, which I now saw were dark and riotous. Like the sea. “You’re the most beautiful Omega in Applewood Falls. The second I saw you, my Alpha called out to you.”

“My Omega responded,” I had to confess, because there was no way to deny it. “Really, Blake: I’d vowed to remain single through my next heat, but you make me feel things I never have.”

After picking up his pole and tackle box, Blake led me to his favorite fishing spot.

I knew nothing about fishing, and I found it didn't matter.

I watched Blake work.

He cast his line, waited for a nibble, then reeled the line in. If he didn't receive a nibble he left his bobber in the water before he snapped it back.

Sparrows swooped by our heads, and frogs croaked and splashed. A single lily pad floated by, a mauve flower receiving sunlight.

“Lily pad,” I muttered, dragging it toward Blake with my toe.

“Hook,” Blake snapped, carefully yanking my foot away from his line. “Damn, I don’t want to snare you.”

I want you to, I wanted to whisper.

I gazed upon Blake’s beautiful face and took note of everything beautiful about it. Chiseled jaw, sculpted nose, serious blue eyes. Unfortunately I smelled no cinnamon or sugar today, which led me to believe that he, and likely his pack mates too, were taking suppressants.

“Oh Layla,” Blake murmured, and I could tell he didn't mind the way I gripped his arm.

“What kinda fish are ya catching, Blake?”

“Have you never been fishing here before?”

“Once, with my grandfather,” I muttered, watching big fish swirl under the water.

Fishing was magical, I thought. I didn’t have the patience to sit with a pole, but I had respect for everyone who could.

“Wanna try?” Blake shot me a look.

Growing shy, I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Might not catch anything,” I muttered, shrugging my shoulders. Might make a fool of myself, embarrass myself horribly.

“And is that so bad?”

My eyes lifted to Blake’s. “Wouldn’t want to make a fool out of myself,” I heard myself mumble, then I shrugged. “In front of you.”

“Why would I care if you acted a little foolish, Layla?” And Blake brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. He even adjusted my glasses. “And rather, why is not catching a fish considered foolish?”

“Dunno.” Now I felt silly.

“Maybe catching the fish is foolish,” Blake suggested, mulling this. “I mean, all we do is toss them back… If we ate them it’d be different.”

Blake handed me his pole.

I cast a fishing pole for the first time since I fished with Grandpa.

My hook soared through the air, the line glistening behind it. It splashed in the water, though I received no nibbles.

“See?” I said as we watched the little waves come to shore. “Nothing.”

“Not nothing,” Blake muttered, his breath ghosting on my cheek. I didn’t know what he meant… but then I thought about it, and I figured it out.

It dawned on me when I returned to my nest that night, after processing his words.

Blake hadn’t been talking about the fish. He’d been talking about us, what we caught as we sat there, catching nothing.

I replayed the feel of his big rod in my hands, feeling how firm and strong it was. I replayed the sound the lure and hook made sinking under the water, the little waves fanning out.

Nothing beat it, I realized, my cheek pressed against a snug pillow. My nest was so cozy, but I really desired to be back on that lakeshore. Sitting beside Blake, his fishing pole in my hands.

Josh was shirtless, water flying from the hose. I couldn’t believe he’d washed my entire car before I woke up, but it was nice not to have dust on it.

“Fresh bacon muffins,” Josh growled, sounding like a caveman as he turned the water off. “I can smell Dreydon’s breakfast coming out of the oven.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, setting my keys on my car roof as I headed inside.

Josh was right that breakfast was ready to eat, the smell of bacon muffins strong in the air.

I went to the kitchen, and Dreydon was busy helping himself to some muffins.

“Mmmmm,” Dreydon growled, sinking his teeth into a muffin. “Delicious, Layla.”

“Oh, they look great,” and a laugh slipped from me.

Dreydon waggled his eyebrows, sliding a cup my way. “You drink coffee?”

My hands went to my hips.

“Are you asking if I’m old enough, mister? It sounds like you are.”

Dreydon let out a chuckle, shaking his head. “No, ma’am. I know you’re twenty-seven, perfectly capable of drinking coffee. Still…”

He poured me a cup, and I took a long sip.

I promptly spat it out. “Bleh,” I said, wiping my lip on my sundress sleeve.

“Something wrong?” the tattooed Alpha responded.

Moseying over to the bacon muffins, I put one on a plate. “Definitely need more cream,” I admitted, ignoring the coffee while my belly focused on eating this muffin. “And sugar. Lots of sugar.”

“When you go to the Applewood Falls café, what do you typically get?”

“Mocha frappe.”

“How do they make those?”

“It’s better to just go into town,” I snorted, the bacon-and-egg muffin melting in my mouth. “Hard to make them at home.”

Dreydon and I ate our muffins like two stepsiblings who snuck downstairs for a bite after their parents fell asleep.

With every bite, I looked over at the towering Alpha, and a shudder went through me.

He looked right back at me, then he smiled… and in a flash, he’d wrapped his arms around my waist.

He sniffed me, groaning as his jaw went to mine. “Who have you kissed, Layla?” he rasped, his voice low and throaty.

“J-Josh,” I whispered, anxiety and tension—and a delicious, heart-melting heat—washing over me, filling me with sensation.

“Only Josh?” came the Alpha’s growl.

I mewled, my head going up and down. “He kissed me… Blake hasn’t. I don’t know if he will.”

Dreydon took my chin in his hands.

I looked at his hands. Studied them.

Dreydon’s hands were so strong, they could crush my skull in a single squeeze. Crush it by accident.

He’d killed men before, I knew with terror. My eyes combed across his scars, which I’d tried so hard to dissolve with paste. My paste failed, and his deadly scars remained.

Tattoos traveled up his arms, and I groaned as I steadied myself. In Dreydon’s arms I felt like a porcelain doll, ready to break.

He peered down at me. His eyes were dark, specs of gold flitting through the black irises.

“Baby,” he growled, his hand rifling up my back. “Stick with Blake and Josh. Stay away from me, okay?”

He was dangerous, I now knew.

And my heart soared—Dreydon was not a safe Alpha, and for some reason, that was exactly what I wanted.

I thought I didn’t.

I thought I only wanted a gentle, poetry-reading Alpha, like Blake.

I… was wrong.

Heat bloomed within me, and everything in me from my toes to my breasts begged for more.

Begged for more with… Dreydon, who’d seen horrors in war.

Leaning in, I pressed my lips to his.

The kiss was so fast, it was almost over before it began—and it was hardly a kiss, hardly anything at all.

I just… inched forward, and muah. My lips pressed to his, and then it was done, like it never happened.

Like I was a hummingbird, quickly coming up to a dew feeder, and flying away just as quickly.

Peck. Then. Vanish.

Dreydon leaned back, blinking in surprise. “My Omega,” he growled, but I felt the part that I shouldn’t be feeling get very hard.

Oh yes, when I pressed my thigh toward it… it was hard.

Twitchy, masculine, and hard—like steel, I thought. Steel wrapped in velvet.

“Bye, Dreydon!” I shouted nervously, darting out of the kitchen. I went straight to my car, grabbed the keys off the roof, then sat in the driver’s seat.

Did I make a mistake by kissing Dreydon? I wondered, panic and tension ebbing through me. I prayed I hadn’t…. I prayed he wouldn’t take it the wrong way.

I felt it , though. And no amount of self-talk in my sedan could change that. When I kissed Dreydon, or even just before I kissed him, I knew what I felt.

His cock was hard, and he wanted me.

“Breathe,” I whispered, sliding my key into the sedan’s ignition. Josh had washed my car so well, and he even vacuumed the interior. All was sparkling clean, all without me asking. “Breathe, Layla. It’s okay, you’re not in danger of an Alpha now.”

I went into town.

Blake and Josh taught me how to shoot later that week. Blake slid the gun in my hand, muttering lines from Virgil and Homer as he straightened my arm. Poetry, I thought. War poetry.

Bang .

When the gun rocketed off, I squealed and had to bury myself in Josh’s shirt.

“Scary!” I said, shuddering from head to toe.

Josh’s hand dropped down my back… and he began to massage my backside, tenderly and comfortingly.