Page 109 of The Heart of Winter

But I knew what he really wanted. We fucked, and I wasn’t really into it. I felt pressured, and in a way, it ruined everything.

After that, sex always seemed forced on me through his constant pleading, sweet-talking me, and giving me those puppy-dog eyes… so eventually, I just gave in for the sake of it.

After I broke up with Finn, I met a guy at a job-related symposium. He was an omega, and he was very into me. We went on three dates. One day, he told me he’d prepared dinner and invited me over. I had a sense of what was about to happen. And… it did happen. When I sat on the sofa, he suddenly straddled me and kissed me, and just like that, he impaled himself on my dick. It went on from there.

Then, with my next boyfriend, it was a similar story. He was a beta and initially seemed more restrained than the omega before him. Until one day, on our fourth date, while we were sitting and talking in my car, he climbed onto my dick. I wasn’t into it… but again, I went with it.

And so on, and so on.

The next three guys were similar cases. They always initiated it way too early for me. And once the sex started, that was it. It was locked in. I couldn’t form real feelings for them. The sex became mechanical, like a duty.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it, and it was physically pleasurable, but it never gave me anything deeper. I never got even close to loving them.

And now… it seemed like things were heading down the same path.

With this one significant difference: this time, I physically really wanted it. And that urge was very confusing.

Aimlessly, I wandered across the beach and ended up near the far side of the bay, almost at the tip of the peninsula. A cliff rose there, steep, but potentially climbable. I just wasn’t in the mood.

Frustration rolled through me. Because I really cared about this relationship. I wanted to nurture it, explore it, and grow it like a delicate orchid. Sex was supposed to be the cherry on top, not the whole damn cake.

I was buzzing inside, like a hive of furious bees.

Buzzing?

I jerked my head up.

Did I hear something?

The sound was faint, super distant, barely audible. I looked around.

Realizing what it could be, I took off running toward the center of the beach, since the cliff blocked part of the sky from that side.

As I got closer to a big pile of twisted driftwood the sea had washed up, the sound grew a little clearer.

Moving frantically, I climbed up on a log and scanned the horizon.

And then I saw it.

Way out there, just a tiny dot, barely visible. Something was flying parallel to the island, over the open ocean.

Not over the island. Over the water. Far off.

Fuck, fuck! I stood there, staring.

"Stop!!!" I tried to yell.

Then I raised my arms and waved, but after a few seconds of mad flapping, I realized it was pointless.

"Fuckers!" I shouted desperately.

Whatever it was, a drone, or maybe a helicopter seen from a huge distance, it was already moving away, heading north.

Then a terrifying thought hit me.

The crash didn’t happen over this island, we knew that much. It must’ve happened somewhere farther north or east. If that was a drone, or part of a rescue team, that’s where they’d be heading…

Sariel thought that it was some kind of weird miracle we ended up here. And indeed, I hadn’t seen any wreckage on the island. No parts of the plane. No luggage. No bodies. Nothing.

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