Page 46 of Stream Heat (Omega Stream #1)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Kara

The interview with Sarah Kiminski went better than I’d dared to hope.

She had been everything the rumors said she’d be, polished and probing, but not cruel.

Her questions had cut close to the bone, yet she’d asked them with a low-burn empathy, so quiet that I hadn’t even realized I was bleeding until I looked down and saw my own secrets laid out on the table.

There had been no expectation that I would confess anything, but somehow, I did.

Maybe it had been her tone, or maybe it had been knowing the story was coming out with or without my cooperation, so fuck it, I talked.

The things I said I had never admitted in public, how I’d felt at sixteen, cornered into a false choice between my own damn biology and everything I wanted for myself; how suppressants had stopped working and I’d had to keep finding higher doses while pretending everything was fine and normal and safe; the loneliness of hiding it all, carrying a story so heavy it made my bones ache.

I’d spent years perfecting a version of myself who could manage it all. I told her that, too.

“What do you hope comes from speaking up?” Sarah asked, glancing down at her notes but clearly not needing them.

“Change,” I answered, letting the word hang for a second before forcing myself to continue.

“I want younger creators to have better options than I did. I want the industry to admit that forcing people to suppress their own bodies just so they can keep their jobs isn’t only unethical, it’s dangerous. It’s insane.”

She let the silence linger, then nodded. “And personally? Has the experience changed you?”

I thought about that, there was no dodging it with her looking at me like that, equal parts clinical and genuinely interested.

“It taught me the difference between standing on my own and isolating myself. Between looking strong and being too scared to reach out for help. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, but honestly, the most courageous thing I ever did was let someone else care about me.”

When the interview wrapped, Sarah left, and I sat there on the couch, my pulse galloping, my brain empty and electrified all at once. The piece was going live that night. After that, everything would shift again, the target on my back would grow, but so would the sense of relief. No more hiding.

I wandered into the kitchen, half-floating, half-grounded. Reid was already there, assembling what looked like a grilled-cheese army. Typical.

“You stress-cooking?” I asked, dropping onto a stool and watching him butter bread with military precision.

He slid a sandwich toward me, cut on the diagonal, aka. the good way. “Thought you’d be hungry. And the others’ll want to talk. How’d it go?”

I shrugged, mouth already full of cheese and bread. “Actually really good. Sarah’s tough, but she didn’t try to trip me up. She’ll probably write a piece that helps people see I’m not the only one it happened or is happening to.”

“You okay about it going public?” His tone was gentle, but there was an edge to his voice, and I knew he was worried.

I chewed and thought. “Scared. Nervous. Actually kind of…hopeful? I mean I already talked about a lot of it with Callie, but this is just… more. If that makes any sense.” There was something else, too.

Something I didn’t have a word for yet. “Talking about it with Sarah has helped though. It’s almost like…

peace, I guess. Like finally getting a weight off my chest. Relief, but also something bigger than that. ”

He kept moving around the kitchen, lining up sandwiches, and I found myself watching him, the clean, strong lines of his shoulders, the way he hovered, not out of obligation, but because he cared and couldn’t shut it off. It hit me so hard it felt almost physical.

“Reid?” I asked softly.

He glanced up. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. For, you know, supporting me. Letting me talk through all of this. Not pushing, not pulling away, just…being here.”

He met my eyes, and there was a steadiness in his gaze that made it hard to breathe. “Thank you for letting me.”

Something sparked in the air between us. Not biology, not heat. Just history and pain and maybe, finally, trust.

He cleared his throat. “Kara?”

I swallowed. “Yeah?”

He set the knife down and really looked at me.

“I need you to know something. What I feel for you? It’s not about Alpha stuff, or pack dynamics, or you needing someone during a crisis.

It’s about you. The way you never back down from what matters, even when it terrifies you.

The way you let yourself be real, even when you think nobody’s watching.

Being around you makes me want to be better. ”

The words just kept coming, and every one of them hit harder than the last.

“Reid…”

He shook his head quickly, as if he feared I’d cut him off before he got it all out. “I’m not asking you for anything. Just…needed you to know before the story dropped and shit got crazy again. For me, this is real. Not instinct, not biology. It’s a choice. It’s love.”

The word hung there, daring me to flinch. I didn’t. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

“I love you, too.” The truth of it was so obvious I wondered why it had ever been hard to say. “And it’s not new, either. I think I’ve been sliding toward you for months, even before I wanted to admit it.”

Reid’s smile was like sunrise, all gold and warmth and impossible not to stare at. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You made me crazy, but you also made me feel safe. You made me braver. I don’t know what else you call that if it’s not love.”

He didn’t hesitate. He came around the island and stopped just close enough for his warmth to chase away every last shiver of doubt. “Can I touch you?” he asked.

“Please.”

His hands cradled my face, slow and reverent, thumbs skating along my cheekbones as if memorizing them.

“I want to kiss you,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.

“Not because of heat. Not because of instinct. Because I love you, and you’re beautiful, and I’ve wanted this for a long, long time. ”

“Then do it,” I whispered.

Reid’s kiss was hungry, raw and blinding and desperate, but only for a moment, then it turned slow and sensual as though he realized he could take his time. It was built on purpose, laced with emotion.

Every press of his lips felt measured and fierce, as if he cared more about making me feel something than about satisfying some animal need.

I noticed the difference in every pass of his mouth, the careful way he explored, the sounds he gave up into the space between us, all soft and shaken and real.

His hands curved around me, like I was a puzzle he meant to solve until he could close his eyes and see it all behind them.

The smells of kitchen food, the tang of grilled cheese, the muffled voices from the living room, all of it faded.

My pulse thumped in my ears, loud as thunder, but I barely noticed anything except the way he felt against me.

I parted my lips. Invited him in, and got a groan out of him in return.

It was low and rough, vibrating straight through my bones.

It wasn’t the sound of someone staking a claim, but reverence, pure and crystalline.

Like he’d been waiting for this, like I was the answer to some ache so deep in him it barely had a name, and now he had me he’d never take it for granted.

He broke the kiss, just long enough to sweep across my jaw, then lower, tracing the side of my neck in light, fluttering passes. My skin shivered, and my hands found their way up under his shirt, greedy for his warmth.

“Come upstairs with me,” I whispered, my voice barely there. “Please.”

Reid paused. He didn’t let go, just tipped his head a little so he could see my face. His pupils were blown wide, the darkness in them deep, but his voice was steady as a heartbeat. “Are you sure? We don’t have to rush. Really.”

“I’m not rushing,” I told him. I didn’t even try to hide the desperation in my voice; I couldn’t. “I’ve been wanting this for weeks. Not because of biology. Because it’s you.”

Something behind his eyes softened, not the hunger, that stayed, banked but burning. But there was something else, a kind of awe, or wonder, or maybe just relief. Like he trusted this, trusted me, in a way that reached all the way down.

“Okay,” he said, quiet but certain. “Let’s go.”

He took my hand, threading our fingers together, and we slipped through the house on silent feet, neither of us speaking as we passed the landing and the murmured voices in the den. My heart hammered, but not with nerves. With anticipation. With the certainty that I wanted this.

His room was dim, the only light coming from a lamp on the nightstand, amber glow washing over the tangled dark green sheets.

He shut the door behind us, slow and careful, the soft click felt like the closing of a chapter, and the beginning of a new one.

When he turned to me his face went soft and open as I stepped into him.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed. Like it was a confession he’d been holding onto, afraid to let it out. “Every time I see you, it’s like the whole world stops.”

I smiled. “Then stop looking,” I said, finding the edge of his shirt, “and help me feel it.”

He didn’t need more encouragement. His mouth crashed back to mine, more urgent than before, hands skipping to my hips as he guided me backward until I hit the mattress behind my knees.

I sat, tugged him down with me, and we sort of fell together, our bodies slotting into place like this was just muscle memory, like we’d always known how.

“I want you,” I breathed, so soft I might’ve doubted I’d said it if not for the way Reid’s eyes snapped to mine. A hush settled. The air was tight between us. He looked at me, every inch of me, like I was a riddle he needed to solve, darkness rimmed around his iris.