Page 22 of Small Town Shy Omega (Applewood Falls #1)

“Where does your perfume come out of, sweetheart?”

“Don’t know, Alpha.”

“Tell me,” he rasped, and I knew… I just knew he’d kill me at that moment if I didn't tell him. He’d call me beautiful, but he’d kill me.

“M-M-My pussy.”

My Alpha heaved me up, my hair tugged and yanked. “Please,” I begged, not having my hair pulled like this since I was in grade one, and some mean boys tugged at me. Tugged at my pigtails. “Please, stop!”

“Tell me the truth, Layla. Why did you follow me?”

Clutching at his shirt, I begged for the mercy I knew wouldn’t come.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you all this time, Blake. Since the day at the market.”

“The day where I sliced you peaches?” Blake breathed hotly, nothing but sugar and venom on his tongue.

“Your p-peaches tasted so good,” I muttered.

“Do you remember what you did when you ate the peaches?” Blake wouldn’t let up. “Do you remember how the juice… squirted down your chin?”

“N-No, Alpha.”

“Well, I did…” And he growled, his teeth flashing. “I did, and every time I thought about the shy Omega eating my peaches, I wanted to squeeze…”

“Squeeze what?”

“Just… squeeze,” Blake whispered, and his hot breath let me know: he was no poet, he was a predator.

I cried out, sobs wracking out of me—my tears leaked, little diamonds pouring down my cheeks.

“M-my heat, Alpha,” I begged clawing at his shirt. “Kiss me. Kiss me so you don’t…”

“So I don’t what?”

“Kiss me so you don’t kill me.”

Heaving me into his arms, Blake pressed me against the tree trunk.

He took my jaw, moonlight blazing in his eyes. His arms were around me, supporting me with his body. A moan slipped from my lips, innocent and plangent and true.

I wanted his ire, damnit. I wanted his anger, the pulses of life that flashed behind his heavyset blue eyes.

In a moment his lips were on mine, crushing me in a kiss I couldn’t fathom.

My toes curled, and I moaned as his cruel hand cupped my cheek, passionately holding me.

I grazed my cheek against his palm, strong and sturdy and masculine.

Didn't want to do it. Wished to protest, to tell Blake to get away from my cottage. Leave my property. To get away from me.

Passion overwhelmed me, flowing through my fingertips. I couldn’t be sure whether the moon was giving me power, or whether it was pent-up desire. Desire for Blake.

My Alpha gripped my hair, his fingers on my purple locks. “When I stare into your eyes, do you know difficult it is for me? You drive an Alpha to… the brink of madness.”

I couldn’t respond when he spoke like that. Passion, blinding and true, supercharged through me. Throwing my head back, I cried out and tried to get away.

I’ve got to get free, my Omega cried out, struggling against his powerful grip. Masculine in its unyielding intensity.

Blake held me firm.

“Of all the Alphas, I didn't expect my last kiss to be with you.” My words were cruel the instant they came out, but I didn't wish to change them. I meant them, damnit—Blake made me feel like a little girl again, spoiled and insecure.

“We work our asses off for you,” Blake growled, lips cinching against mine. “You’re our Omega, Layla. We sacrifice, we pour blood and sweat and tears into your happiness. Nothing exists in an Alpha but passion. Passion for his Omega.”

“H-Heat,” the words slipped from me, and my head entered a dizzying fog.

How could I be sensible now? Every other Alpha had left me, or packs treated me like shit. I was the doormat, the wallflower who did as Alphas said. I wasn’t the type of Omega that Alphas served, and yet over the past few weeks…

Blake, Josh, and Dreydon had made me feel like the most beautiful queen. Blake was the one I saw first, cutting those peaches at the farmers’ market. His gaze had been so piercing, yet something about him was kindness personified, the type of Alpha you can’t draw your gaze from.

I wanted to stare, I thought that day, passion overflowing within me, to find out why I couldn’t stop staring.

Blake roughly gripped my hair. “You’re ours, damnit. Believe in yourself—believe in what we feel for you. It’s so fucking real. Our hearts are laid bare, thrown at the feet of an uncaring Omega.”

“Uncaring?” How could Blake say this about me? When he called me uncaring, something broken in my heart.

Crying out, I tried my best to get away. “Leave me alone, Blake,” I called, the kiss too powerful.

Everything about this night, his arms, his lips on mine—his aura and jaw so close to mine, slanting against my smooth feminine one—it overwhelmed me.

All I wished to do was run… straight into my nest, burrow under the blankets.

A light rain drizzled. Lightning flashed overhead, thunder cracking.

“Layla,” Blake growled, his voice aching with pain and desire. “Fuck you, Layla. All we’ve done—has been for you, and you are all we want. Hear that? Three Alphas, and we lay our hearts at your feet.”

We were soaked in a flash, rain pelting our bodies.

I cried out, my pretty sundress ripping in two. A branch tore it—and I turned to Blake, my sundress leaving me naked.

Blake gripped my hand… Passion swelled within me, mingling with the rain as he hurried us back to my cottage.

The rain grew so bad, and we had to stop under a fallen tree.

We huddled under that tree. Like two scared mice.

When the rain wasn’t so bad, Blake ripped off his shirt and used it to protect my decency.

“There, there,” he whispered, wrapping it over my shoulders. Halfway through our walk he just carried me in his arms.

Blake laid me down in his bed. He kissed my neck, my shoulders.

The smell of cinnamon and sugar filled the room, and I moaned as it mingled with my pink raspberries. I was… beginning to scent, not fully, but a little. At last.

“Baby,” Blake moaned, dropping down between my legs. “Let me be good. Let me please you.”

He knew… I was sensitive. The intensity of the rain kiss had come and gone.

Blake swept his lips across my neck, his fingertips dancing across my ribs; he entered me, and I groaned, fingers inching around his neck. Fuck, it felt so good—it wasn’t a heat fuck, because I wasn’t even fully in my heat yet but…

It was… right. Not too fast, not too slow. Neither too hard nor too soft: Blake just entered me, taking away my fears.

“Omega,” Blake whispered, his voice a rasp against my eardrums. Desire and pain mingled within me, like butterflies in a glass cage. His fingertips lit up sparks on my skin, and my nipples turned to two taut buds.

I cinched my legs up, needing more. Needing his cant. His hips, his cock in me. “Oh Blake,” I moaned out, feeling so silly. So silly and exposed.

Omegas were throbbing sponges of feeling, I knew that now. All my heats, I’d just opened up, unable to contain my emotions. I cried easily, I threw tantrums, and if I grew angry it always led to a breakdown.

With Blake, I didn't feel as if I had to suppress my natural state. He got that I was Omega, damnit—he accepted it, and his Alpha purred in response.

Cookie and cream filling.

We belonged together, two puzzle pieces long since separated. He dusted my collarbone with his fingertips, his chiseled jaw swiping across mine. Soft lips met mine, and I moaned as I felt those muscles… Moaned as my own fingers danced across his chest, the whirls of chest hair on his defined abs.

My poet, my Alpha, my protector.

His firm body pressed into mine, and when his length was deep inside me I moaned. At this moment I was passion, my very beating heart was ecstasy, drunk and needy. My heart opened wide, and I bore it all for Blake—I cried out, not feeling like my body had ever been wanted like this. Desired.

He didn't begrudge me for my past. He didn't hate my glasses, which other Alphas had made me remove. He kissed me through my glasses—his nose met mine, and I knew he accepted every part of me. Every. Damn. Part.

“Look at those eyes,” he muttered, still deep inside me. Working, stoking the embers of my need. My arousal.

“Do you want me to remove my glasses?”

“Never,” Blake growled, and my heart soared.

My soda-bottle glasses would stay, then. They’d stay on my nose, an emblem of my identity. I wasn’t like other Omegas— I wasn’t a natural beauty queen, I’d never win first prize in a pageant. My glasses were fucking geeky, but did Blake mind?

No , I realized as he kissed me, his nose bumping up against my glasses—we were like two first-timers kissing at the movies, I realized, and my heart swelled.

Two people who’d never kissed, an Alpha and a trembling Omega, who’s only read about kisses in books.

“Beautiful,” Blake purred, and he removed his length.

The pull-away was so painful, my soul nearly wilted. “Blake,” I gasped, needing his member back inside of me. Fuck, where’d you go? I wanted to whisper, the loss so powerful like a fucking funeral or some shit.

Blake finished on my body, his lips never leaving mine. “Shhhh, baby. Take it. Take what I have to give.”

When he finished, I did as well. His fingers were inside of me, I didn’t even realize. Filling the emptiness left by his cock, he ensured I wasn’t lonely.

The rain started up against, drizzling down the glass windows.

Pale starlight flickered through the glass, dancing off the watery trees.

Blake cuddled me in his protective, strong arms. He wasn’t too muscular—not too defined, not over the top or anything. Certainly not like a bodybuilder, or some fitness buff guy who passed his life in the gym.

Blake was just… protective. Strong, with nothing too crazy.

He held me in his wiry, athletic body, and I moaned as I fell asleep.

Outside, the sounds of Applewood Falls reached my ears, though the small town was only a mile away. I could walk there if I wished, I thought with a grin, even through the storm. The bar was hopping, and the sounds of country music reached our ears.