Page 130 of Knot So Fast
Outside, the city glows, but here it’s all dark velvet and skin. His heart hammers against my cheek, every thump a silent echo of what we just did. I can’t stop smiling. My lips are swollen, my thighs are soaked, and I am more content than I have been in a year.
The car slows, engine rumbling in neutral, and I realize we must be getting close to wherever Lachlan lives these days. I shift a little, then hiss when the knot tugs at my insides.
“Gonna be a while before you get out,” I mutter, voice sleepy and slurred.
He laughs—actually giggles, which is so un-Lachlan I almost snort—and strokes a lazy circle on my back. “There are worse fates.”
A pause. Then he presses a button on the door, rolling down the privacy window just enough to talk to the driver. “Do a ride around town. We’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
“Yes, Mr. Wolfe,” comes the cool, professional reply. The window slides shut again, and for a second, I’m so mortified at the idea that our driver heard everything that I consider launching myself out the sunroof, knot be damned.
But the embarrassment fades. The city is ours now. The world is reduced to this—luxury leather, the hum of the engine, and the press of my Alpha’s body.
Lachlan tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his face so open it almost hurts to look at him. “I hope you’re ready for this, Sugar. There’s no going back now.”
I nuzzle his jaw, bite it gently. “Literally. I think we’re stuck together for a while.”
He groans, burying his face in my neck. “You’re impossible.”
“Damn right,” I shoot back, grinning like a maniac. “And you love it.”
He kisses my forehead, then my nose, then the corner of my mouth. “Sex drunk,” he says, voice all warm and amused. “You get like this every time. Completely loopy.”
I consider protesting, but he’s right. The world is soft and bright and oddly hilarious, and for once, I don’t have to fight it. I let myself melt into the moment, into his arms, into the certainty that nothing and no one is going to take this from me again.
After a while, the knot starts to subside, and I shift so I’m straddling his lap properly, head on his shoulder. The city rushes by outside—cathedrals, neon signs, the endless blur of nightlife—and I try to imagine what it would have felt like to be trapped in that birdcage life my parents wanted for me. Pilates and dinner parties, hollow Omega friends, years of carefully controlled misery.
Instead, I have this. I have him. I have a future that’s mine.
“You know this makes it official, right?” I say, poking his chest with a lazy finger.
He raises an eyebrow. “What does?”
“You. Me. The knot. It’s, like, the primal equivalent of a wedding ring.” I giggle at the thought. “If my mother finds out, she’s going to go full Godfather and try to whack you.”
He snorts, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. “Bring her on. I can handle one pissed-off Russian matriarch.”
“I think she secretly likes you,” I admit, “but don’t push it. She still has friends in government.”
He grins, then gets all serious. “I mean it, Auren. There’s no going back now. We’re a team. I’m not letting you go.”
I believe him. I really do. It’s written in the way he looks at me, in the steady weight of his arms, in the scar on my thigh from the last time he saved my life.
I close my eyes, breathing him in. “Good. Because I’m not letting you go either.”
He shifts us so we’re both more comfortable, then just holds me, the city and the world and everything else fading into background noise.
I drift a little, lost in the rhythm of the car and the softness of his shirt under my cheek. In the back of my mind, I know there’s a storm coming—Lucius and the rest of the pack, the next race, the media, the endless complications of being the first Omega to ever race at this level. But for now, I’m allowed to be still. I’m allowed to just…be.
Eventually, Lachlan nudges me gently. “We’re almost home.”
I look up, startled at how much time has passed. The city is behind us now, the world gone quiet. He kisses me, slow and soft, and I know I could get used to this.
“Ready for round three?” he asks, voice low and full of promise.
“Always,” I say, and it’s the truth.
As the car pulls into the drive, I let myself imagine what comes next. The others, the pack, the wild impossible future that suddenly doesn’t seem so scary anymore.
