Page 16 of Worthy or Knot (Serendipity Omegaverse #3)

Sixteen

MEGAN

T he bar of the railing digs into the tops of my thighs.

Cole’s eyes close as he tilts his head back just as one of the clouds breaks and the rays of the sun gild him in golden light.

It highlights the lean strength of his arms where he’s holding the railing and the warm red undertone of his hair.

The combination reinforces the thought I had when I’d first seen the photo in the Council’s packet: he is gorgeous in a way money can’t buy, can’t replicate.

Even as we stand on the very obvious wealth his family holds, regardless of if this yacht itself is owned by the Fallon family.

Raspberry bleeds out from me, and his breath catches for a moment.

The yacht lurches as it begins to move, pulling away from the dock. Someone calls out, just loud enough for us to hear them, but I don’t see Frank anywhere around us.

“I thought they’d be up here to move everything,” I admit after a minute.

“They’re a deck lower, closer to the water,” Cole says, his voice blending in with the quiet afternoon. “There’s the bumpers they need to stash while we cruise and recoiling the mooring line.”

For a moment, I realize this must be how I sound when talking about events in the ER—completely nonsensical. It makes me smile just a bit.

“You know a lot about sailing?”

He shrugs without opening his eyes. “Some. Not much about a yacht like this, though.”

My gaze catches on the others as Marcus fills a plate with the snacks and then settles into one of the lounge chairs across the back of the boat.

Charlotte joins him, eating a piece of melon as she sets the glass of lemonade on a small table nestled between them.

Before she sits down, she slides the black sweater on.

It looks just as good with her purple skirt as the plain white crop top she just covered.

Charlotte is like that, though, always blending in and looking fashionable.

The yacht moves faster than I’d expected, the dock disappearing from view over the course of the next ten minutes.

There’s a smattering of other boats in the water, but they’re far enough away to have it feel like we’re truly alone.

I twist, looking over my shoulder as the last bit of Seattle blurs into the distance, too. My arm brushes his at my movement.

“How was your class?” Cole asks.

His body is still the epitome of relaxed, but there’s a breathlessness to his voice that has my thighs clenching.

“Fine,” I manage to say. “It was an open exam, so it wasn’t the most stressful. And now I have it out of the way for when my license needs to be renewed in another few months.”

He nods. “How often do you have to renew your nursing license?”

Confusion sours my stomach for a moment before I realize it must have been part of the information the Council gave him.

“Every three years. I try to space out the required continued learning. The first time I didn’t realize just how much work it would take and had to run myself ragged for about three months to get it all completed on time.”

“What kind of nursing?”

“Emergency medicine. I’m currently in a level-one trauma center in the heart of Manhattan.”

“Do you enjoy it?” he asks. And then he scrunches his nose. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re asked that all the time.”

I can’t help but smile. “Most of the time I do,” I tell him, closing the distance between us just a bit more. I grab the railing, too, letting our arms barely brush. “Like any job there are good days and bad. But mostly I love knowing I’m helping people.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a nurse?”

I shake my head before remembering he still had his eyes closed. “Definitely not. I was dead set on becoming a veterinarian all the way through high school and into my first year of college.”

He drops his head, his hazel eyes practically burning in the golden glow of the sun. “A veterinarian?”

My smile is more shy this time. “I know, cliché. The blonde girl from the suburbs who grew up with a rescued golden retriever wanting to become a vet.”

His laugh is rich and warm and draws me in like a moth to a flame. I press closer to him, and he relaxes, his shoulder bumping mine.

“So what changed?”

The snide comment rises like a reflex, guarding me from the memory, but I swallow it before it can hurt Cole. Instead, I offer sadly, “My parents.”

He frowns. “Your parents? Did they not approve of you pursuing animal medicine?”

I shake my head and breathe through the burning ache that’s still so potent even after eleven years. They’d have loved Cole, I just know it. He’s the calm, sweet partner they’d always pictured me ending up with.

“No, they loved that I was trying for vet med. I’d been one of those girls that played obsessively with a stethoscope, putting bandaids on my stuffed animals and insisting on making paper mache casts for them, too.

” I blow out a breath and just say the words.

“It was their deaths that made me change my major. They were killed by a drunk driver on the Fourth of July between my freshman and sophomore years. They were heading home from a friend’s barbecue, something they’d done for years. ”

Cole stills, not even breathing. After a minute, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“Mom was already gone by the time I got to the hospital. Dad was critical, unstable. They were trying to get him up to the OR to try and repair some of the bleeding caused by the wreck, but he never made it.” My voice is flat now.

“One of the nurses sat with me most of the night. Her and the social worker made sure I wasn’t alone at all while they went through the process of… everything.”

Without a word, he gently pulls my hand off the rail and laces our fingers together, running his thumb over my knuckles. “I’m glad you had someone. I… can’t even imagine how awful that must have been.”

My vision blurs, but I blink back the tears.

“I realized that night I wanted to be like that nurse, wanted to make sure nobody had to sit alone while the person they loved was taken. So I walked into my counselor’s office that August and switched to nursing.

Everything I’d already done transferred easily enough, so it wasn’t really even an inconvenience. ”

“July must be a rough month for you,” he offers.

I can’t help but laugh just a bit. “It’s not my favorite, no. But honestly? The worst part isn’t the anniversary, it’s all the small things that were suddenly gone. Things that you don’t ever really notice until they stop.”

He eases closer to me, his hip brushing mine.

All at once, I realize we’re almost the same height.

I’m tall for a woman at 5’10”. My parents hadn’t been quite so tall, and we always figured it was the Alpha designation that had caused me to end up taller than them both.

Maybe the same was true of Cole except in reverse.

Omegas are often smaller than typical, leaner and more fragile both physically and emotionally.

“Like what?” His voice pulls me from the musings, and I scramble to remember what, exactly, we’d been talking about.

Right, the little things that were missing once someone was dead.

“There’d always be fresh flowers in the kitchen.”

It’s not the one I meant to bring up. I intended to say something lighter, something that wouldn’t derail this entire afternoon with my sob-fest of a history. Instead, I gave him the one I missed the most, the one closest to me, somehow trusting already that he’d understand the significance.

“My dad bought my mom a new bouquet every time they went on a date. When they got married, he didn’t stop.

He’d buy her a new one each time the old one started to wither.

And then suddenly, there wasn’t a new one to replace it.

They withered and rotted, and I realized he wouldn’t be able to get a new bouquet. ”

I cut off my rambling. Cole doesn’t say anything, and I mentally kick myself. No one really understands the loss unless they’ve lived it, too. They never have.

“Sorry, that’s way too heavy for a first date,” I mutter.

His smile is softer this time as he squeezes my hand.

“Don’t apologize.” His cheeks darken, and he glances across the boat to where Marcus and Charlotte sit in the loungers near the front, laughing about something.

“Besides, I feel like everything having to do with the Council and matching should be viewed in dog years, so really this is, like, our fifth date.”

My laugh is warm and bright. Cole’s answering smile has heat sparking across my skin.

I start to push the feeling away, not wanting to overstep, but it’s hard when such an enigmatic Omega is the one fueling the response.

I focus on him again, that sinful small smile and the golden flecks in his hazel eyes.

Fifth date? That’s at least three dates past when most people kiss for the first time.

“Cole?”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the moment changes, the sparking undercurrent evident in my breathless voice.

He turns, blocking our view of the others in one seamless movement as he presses me just a bit harder into the railing, his open arm grabbing it and caging me in.

That shouldn’t be so hot, but damn . Heat pools in my core at the blatant possession in the move.

“Yeah?” His voice is different, too, lower and richer. My raspberry scent surrounds us in a steady wave, insulating us from the sound of the boat on the water and the call of the gulls in the air—even Charlotte’s quiet laughter.

“I want to kiss you,” I breathe into the suddenly intimate space between us.

He smiles again, this one both softer and yet more heated than any I’ve seen before.

Without a word, he presses his lips to mine.

They’re just as soft and warm as I imagined, stealing my breath and igniting that sizzling fire across my skin until it burrows deeper.

The raspberry grows stronger, and Cole grunts like he’s been punched.

“Like this?” he asks, pulling away just enough that I can see his eyes—the way that the hazel has darkened with desire.

The urge to dominate him, to let our intrinsic natures out to play and feel him submit under me, has my voice dropping.

“Yes, Omega.”

The smallest of whimpers falls from his lips, and I smirk. I lick his taste off my bottom lip. His eyes narrow as he takes in the sight. I know that his scent would be blending with mine if not for his scent blockers. Damn, I want to smell him.

“Do it again.” My voice is low and sultry, laced with the command that’ll have him fawning at my feet. “Kiss me until the whales come.”