Page 23 of Cost of Courting

To his credit, he doesn’t say anything. There’s no mocking, no sneers. He just studies me with a blank face.

“You’re here again.”

A car door slams, and I hear the van drive, taking the body somewhere else to dispose of. I need to thank my dad.

“Always,” he murmurs. “What have you been up to tonight, Bailey?”

I shudder. The rasp of his voice, so calm and soft, goes straight through me and leaves me wanting to lean into him.

“What do you want?” I try to sound aggressive, but it just comes out tired.

“You. I want you.”

Months of us dancing around each other have come to this sharp point.

His words send tingles of awareness right before his lips touch on mine. I stand frozen, lost in the way he breaks my entire world apart, and then I kiss him back, stepping closer and spearing my fingers through his hair.

“BAILEY!”

I let go, stepping back from him with all my strength. I turn around, cursing. What kind of moron calls someone else’s name at a crime scene?

With a furious growl, the idiot who called my name runs for his bike. Waving hastily as he vanishes.

I glance over my shoulder, but he’s gone. Like a ghost. I should never have given him the nickname Deimos. It’s started to work on my psyche.

I’m not my normal self. Everything is getting to me. The sacrifices I’ve made to become the head of Raines Entertainment. The war I had to conduct to force Alpha Labels to remodel. Losing my club.

I haven’t lost my club, not really, but I’m not one of them now either. I will never wear the president patch. It won’t be me leading the club into a new era. I won’t even be able to be around them.

All my futures got blown up and scattered in the wind, and I’m tired.

I’m so tired.

And now this. What was I thinking, killing him? I wasn’t thinking, that’s the thing. I just reacted.

She needed me, and I need him.

But they both bring weakness and turn me into that lesser version of myself. That omega side that is becoming impossible to contain.

I don’t sleep, just replay her smile and his kiss over and over in my mind. Instead, I pace around my new penthouse apartment that doesn’t feel like home or like me.

My uncle Charles said that I would get used to it, but it’s not coming. I’m not getting used to it. I hate the smells, the echo, the modern furnishings.

I feel constrained and out of control, and the more I try to be this person they all need me to be, the more I lose control of other parts of myself.

My omega scent blossoms into the air, and I clench my hand into a fist, resisting the urge to reach down and touch myself, try to find some relief.

It doesn’t work. I can come over and over again, but it never gets rid of the erection, it never eases the ache. This yearning for a fucking knot.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

I’ve been guarding this secret so viciously that I think only a handful of people know about it.

My dad suspected. It’s why he sent me away from the club. He didn’t want to see me becoming the club whore.

I’d never recover my position or the respect. But just because I understand doesn’t mean it hasn’t hurt me deeply. My own mother didn’t want me, and now I’ve lost the only family that gets me.

I swipe my hand over my face, but that just has me thinking about him. And because I’m thinking about him, I’m also thinking about her.

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