Page 45 of Worthy or Knot (Serendipity Omegaverse #3)

Forty-Five

COLE

M arcus kisses my cheek as he returns from opening the front door to the townhouse, holding my trembling hand as I slowly climb each of the five steps that lead to our home.

Even after two weeks, stairs are difficult to navigate—and nearly impossible on my own, especially after the morning walk we’ve just taken.

Marcus doesn’t say a word, a quiet pillar beside me.

Even in the bond, all I feel is the quiet, steadfast love that’s become the calm in this entire storm.

Charlotte’s bag is gone from the entry table.

A pang of sadness hits under my sternum at the realization I didn’t get to see her at all this morning.

It’s only a couple weeks until her fall season opens, and rehearsals have gotten longer every day.

I know she won’t be back before it’s nearly dark outside, probably after dinner.

“Are you all right?” Marcus asks once the door is closed.

I nod. He grabs my chin, forcing me to focus on him.

“Really, I am,” I say. “Just sad she’s gone already.”

A soft smile curves his lips.

He kisses me, soft and slow and deep. I melt against him, apple swirling around us both, and he laughs. Then he sighs, and the elephant is back in the room with us.

Today’s the first day he’s going back to his office since the crisis. He won’t say it, but I’ve felt his nerves, his fear that something bad will happen again once he’s gone.

“Megan’s here,” I remind him, slowly starting toward the kitchen.

He’s quick to shadow me, helping me sit in one of the barstools and grabbing the yogurt I’d planned on eating once he was gone. He sets it in front of me, his eyes locked on me, soaking me in.

“Marcus,” I say. “Megan’s here, and my markers have been steady.”

Lower than they’ve ever been, actually. Almost like my body decided to finally respond to treatment after the crisis.

“You’ll know if something happens.”

“I knew something was happening last time,” he admits, his heart in his eyes.

I grab his hand and press his palm to my cheek, breathing in his scent: salt from his skin and sandalwood from his cologne. And nutmeg, of course. Even now, it curls around me like it’s truly a blanket on its own.

“I love you.” The words are soft and fervent. He smiles, and softness wells in the bond.

“I know, Omega.” He leans across the counter and kisses me again. “Charlotte and I will be back in time for dinner.”

And then he’s gone, grabbing his bag from its silent perch beside the front door and quietly shutting the door behind him without a glance back. I slowly eat through the yogurt and then take the morning set of medications Megan’s organized for me again.

Inevitably, like every other day for the last week, I end up leaning against the threshold of the living room, my gaze taking in the way the sun touches each piece of furniture, every framed piece of art and small decorative item on the shelves.

The piano blends into the room, almost like it’s been here the entire time the sofas have.

Every day since coming home, I haven’t had the courage to step foot in the room.

Today, though, I manage to cross it and sit on the piano bench.

My breath catches the moment I’m settled in front of it.

I count back from sixty, grounding myself, reminding myself that heightened emotions make the tremors worse.

Finally, I reach for the dustcover and ease it back.

My hands shake worse than their new baseline as I display the untouched keys.

Nerves crowd up my throat, more complex than just being anxious about possibly playing again. I touch middle C, the ivory cold under my finger. A stair creaks behind me, and I glance over my shoulder.

Megan stands just inside the room, her hair spilling over one shoulder, her green eyes bright with unshed tears. She takes me in, seeing more than most, and then a soft understanding sweeps across her beautiful features. She rounds the sofa without a word, settling onto the bench beside me.

“I remember the first Christmas without them—my parents,” she says quietly, her voice blending with the sun-speckled room.

“It was terrifying. My friends and extended family had put together a big party. Ugly sweaters, white elephant gifts, the whole thing. They wanted to make sure I wasn’t left alone. ”

“That was thoughtful,” I murmur when she drifts off.

She nods and gives me a sad smile. “I almost didn’t even walk in the house because I knew once I did…

it would be real again. I wouldn’t be able to go back and imagine how it might have been different.

I’d have to face the reality that I was living in instead.

” Her throat moves with her swallow. “Parts of it hurt. But most of it was… good. Beautiful in its own way, though I didn’t see it that way at the time. ”

“No one died this time,” I say, though I know that’s not really what she’s trying to say.

“You did, though,” she argues softly. “The vision you had for your life died the day you got sick on that sailboat, and the version of yourself that you saw in this life with us died in that ER when we were trying to get your pulse back.”

A wave of raspberry with a bitter edge emanates out from her as she relives those moments of me dying in her ER’s trauma bay. She blows out a breath and adjusts her hair.

“And now sitting here, you’re like I was standing on my aunt’s porch. You can go inside and realize just how different everything is, or you can run back to your car and stuff it all down and do it alone.”

Her eyes flick up to mine.

“We’re with you,” she says, her voice earnest in a way I’ve never heard before. “Even if you run back to the car, we’re with you. I’m with you. Even if you never step through that door, if it’s always too painful, I won’t leave you.”

Emotion clogs my throat.

I know they won’t, that the match is permanent, and they have no interest in overturning it now.

But Marcus and Charlotte, they’re bonded to me.

Megan? She could find someone not damaged or sick.

Someone she doesn’t have to take time away from the job she loves to help them navigate stairs or brush their hair or check their blood markers three times a day.

She could be like the Alphas Scarlett had and leave when it gets hard.

“I’m here, Cole. I’ll always be here.”

Slowly, I press down on the ivory key. The note rings through the room, the piano tuned so acutely that harmonics layer over top of it.

And then I slowly start working through my favorite piece, the one from Swan Lake I first played for them when the piano arrived.

It’s the one I would play when Sienna had been at her worst, when Scarlett was crying and Violet was angry and my dads were doing their best to keep the pieces of their children from shattering everywhere on the marble floor.

The chords shake, and I miss some of the notes, my fingers not always moving when I want them to.

Megan leans her head against my shoulder as I work my way through the song.

Her warmth seeps into me, another guiding ship on the water.

I let my eyes fall closed and focus on her instead, the way her body nestles into mine and the way her raspberry scent slowly fills the air around us and the searing heat of her palm against my thigh.

No, she won’t leave. She… she loves me, too.

As I let the last note linger, I whisper, “Will you bond with me?”

She freezes, her breath catching for a heartbeat, then two. I open my eyes, unable to take the silence any longer. Her green eyes are full of tears again, a couple falling down her cheeks as she lifts her head and stares at me.

“Of course, Cole.”

She palms my cheek and pulls me into her, and I settle into the perfection that is her, that is us, that is this moment.

With steady hands, she guides me from the piano bench and onto the plush rug.

We haven’t done this since the crisis. None of us have.

She’s slow and methodical as she strips us both of our clothes, dropping them onto the sofa behind her.

Her hands are soft, warm slashes of heat as she traces them across my body.

The sunlight starts to burn, but I don’t dare close my eyes, wanting to watch every moment of her exploration of my body.

I want to see every kiss she lays, every scratch she leaves, every bruises she makes.

She seems to sense that I don’t have the stamina like before, that while the romantic thing might be to make this a long, drawn out occasion, I can’t actually manage that.

She presses a single kiss to the underside of my dick, causing it to twitch, and then rises above me, guiding me inside her.

I groan as she takes all of me, as her hips wedge against my own.

I grip her hips, my tremor worse than before.

She holds us there, suspended in time, and soaks me in, her eyes catching every nuance, every line and flinch and shudder.

“Does your head hurt?” she asks, spreading her palms on my chest.

“A little,” I admit.

“Close your eyes,” she whispers.

“I want to see you.”

Her throat ripples with a hard, sudden swallow.

She leans forward and kisses me, soft and deep.

And then she moves. My thoughts fall away, the intimate sensations flowing through my body a welcome change from all the changes over the last two weeks.

Heat builds between my hips and at the base of my spine.

Our scents mingle together, her raspberry so damn strong. Her walls clench tighter, and I groan.

“Megan, please,” I mutter.

With a smile pressed against my cheek, she speeds up. Fuck, I’m so damn close already. Again. Always, it seems with them.

“Touch me, Cole.”

The order whips through me. I slip my hand over her hip and press a thumb to her clit, keeping my movements small, controlled.

She shudders and then freezes. Before I can brace for it, her lips are parting over my other collarbone, and her teeth are sinking into my skin.

The dual pain of the bite and the sudden, violent orgasm, has my back arching off the floor.

I scream, overwhelmed by the flow of pleasure and sensation across the new bond. When I finally can think through it, can feel the rug under my skin and her warm body above me again, I wrap my shaking arms around her, keeping her tight to me.

“You’re not alone, either,” I whisper into her hair. “I love you.”

And later that night, when Charlotte and Marcus come home, their hands intertwined, their eyes catch on the scabbed, healing mark that adorns my right collarbone that’s only halfway visible under my shirt.

And then the four of us are a heap on the floor of the kitchen, tears and laughter and a steady warmth I never thought I’d have.