Page 75 of The Knotty Omega

“Because, angel,” he sighs, “if I didn’t stop I’d end up knotting you in the back garden and then we wouldn’t get to have the second half of our date.”

My smile pulls at my cheeks as I turn on my side to look at him. “The second half! I completely forgot about the second half. What do you have planned?”

“Why don’t you come and see?” He grins as he gets to his feet and holds a hand out to me, I take it, and we head back into the house. “First, though, we both need a shower. I would come with you, but I don’t trust myself to behave. Meet me in the den in twenty, okay?”

***

“No fucking way. Is that the new GameStation 6?” My jaw drops as Titus opens the door to a room I’ve never been in before. There are two tvs, two consoles, and two comfortable gaming chairs— one in plum, and one in army green.

Two guesses on which chair is for who.

“And two copies of The Redemption of the Broken Sword.” he grins, holding up two plastic cases.

“No fucking way!” I say again, practically launching myself at him. He catches me, a wide smile on his face. My legs wrap around his waist as I kiss him, a purr rumbling in his chest as he kisses me back.

I can’t believe he did this. I know when we first met I asked if he’d want to play together, but he’s actually bought and put together everything we could possibly need.

“Thank you,” I say against his lips, rubbing my nose against his.

“Anything for you, angel. Though I can’t pretend this isn’t just as much for me as it is for you.”

With a nip to his lips, I lower myself to the ground before scrambling to the purple gaming chair.

“Hey, that one's mine,” he grins, and I snort, turning to grab the remote to the TV.

Two hours later, it’s a bloodbath.

Not a real one, thank goodness, but I’m about ready to strangle my alpha.

“For fucks sake, Titus! You’re a damn ranger! You can’t just charge into every battle with flimsy toothpicks!” I maneuver my character to swing her giant axe at the ogre who’s trying to kill my alpha. The same alpha who had charged into a horde of level fifteen ogres equipped with two small knives. Our level? Five.

“For the last time, my character's name is Jaarik!” Titus huffs, hunching over his controller. “And they aren’t knives! They’re Blood Steel Daggers, given to him by his great grandfather! If I use them I get a health bonus!”

“You know what also gives you a health bonus?!” I snarl, pressing the combo to shoot a fireball out of my hand, “Using the weapon specific to your class and stats!”

“That doesn’t give me a health bonus!”

“It does in the sense that you won’t lose all your damn HP in five seconds!”

The door cracks open and Ollie’s voice comes in. “Is everything okay in here? We tried to leave you alone for as long as we could stand it but Mattie is afraid someone is going to walk out of here with a bodily injury based on the amount of yelling happening.”

“Titus will if he doesn’t get his shit together and stop making me use all my mana healing him!” I snarl

“Hot damn, Tink,” Ollie comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. “You’re pretty hot when you’re pissed off. Why don’t you guys pause this and come have some dinner?”

His hands move down my arms, sending tingles to the tips of my fingers before he snatches the controller from my hands and presses pause.

“Hey!” Titus and I turn to look at him.

“We’re putting the controllers down,” Ollie says slowly, “and we’re going to go eat. Okay?” Now that I’m not knee deep in a horde of ogres while trying to keep my alpha alive, a kind of fog lifts from me and I look at Titus.

“Wow. That was really intense.”

His scowl freezes, like he realizes just how ridiculous we got, and it turns into an expression of horror. “Oh my god, angel. Maybe we don’t play together anymore.”

Stifling a giggle at the complete insanity of the situation, I nod. “That’s probably for the best.”

He opens his arms and I crawl into his lap, tucking my head under his chin. “I am so sorry I spoke to you like that.”

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