Page 80 of Single Omega Dad
He nodded.
“Hmm. Well, you know what?” I rubbed my cheek against his jaw. “It’s not a deal-breaker, you know. Knotting. It’s not a make or break issue with me. We already have a bond forming. We can make a legal claim. You know we can. And you know I want it. With you. Don’t you?”
“I do,” he said softly. “But you deserve the whole deal. Not me.”
“Fuck your whole deal thing. What is that anyway? You’re everything to me. I want only you.”
After a moment, he raised his hand to my face, pulling my chin up until he could touch his lips to mine.
Between us the bond flared in a way I’d never experienced before with Drayden, or imagined it could feel with anyone. A window flung open, it was like sliding into the star stuff of which my lover was made. It was summer and silver fire, safety and warm beds. It was shadow and sunlight and desire made of every beautiful dream I could recall, filling up my future with promises of more. It was as if nothing else mattered but this, and it was explosive.
When we pulled apart, I said breathlessly, “I want you. I want you with me for the rest of my life.”
“I do, too,” he replied, and in the dimness of the house lights I could see the beginning of his smile.
“Just don’t run away from me again. Promise.”
“I promise.”
When we went inside, the boys came running and Tybor and Luke each crashed into my thighs, wrapping their arms around me. Then Tybor turned toward Mathias, looking up at him with big eyes.
“You came back,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mathias.
Tybor broke from me and ran to Mathias, wrapping his arms around his thigh.
At the same moment, Mathias bent down and placed his hands under Tybor’s shoulders, lifting him up.
Tybor gave a little squeal of delight as he was swung up through the air. I watched Mathias bring the wiggling child close to his face and kiss him on the top of his forehead.
He held him close, and Tybor wrapped his arms around his neck.
“Did you think I could ever stay away from you?” Mathias asked Tybor.
My Omega boy giggled in the big Alpha’s arms, and said, as if he were the wisest person in the whole wide world, “No. I knew you’d come home.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mathias
In the darkness, in the softness of Saber’s bed, he held me close, running his hands all over my face and into my hair.
The vodka I’d had—which had been a lot—was still not all the way out of my system. My mouth was dry. My mind careened at inopportune moments. I was more highly emotional than I ever remembered being in my life.
Through our bond, Saber was like a calm, easy, safe space. His mere presence was an embrace. His emotions were sane and sure, like guiding lights dispersing the shadows I’d surrounded myself with for more than a decade.
I never had any idea this was what a mate-bond could be like, even the mere beginnings of one.
He didn’t do anything more than hold me and caress me through my clothing, and let me lie there and tell him things. Secret things. Stuff I had never told another soul.
He listened intently as I spoke of Father. Of my jealousies. Of my shames. I talked to him about Trigg. And then of Kris. And how my skin burned when I spoke of my brother whom I had neglected for so long. I told him what Kris had gone through, how Father had attacked him for being different, and how Thorne had found him hiding in his shed on a frozen winter night.
Trigg had kept me up to date on Kris’s life. I was ashamed I had not kept up myself.
Saber said softly, “You judge the eighteen year old boy you were but forget the man you have become. That’s everything. And I’m glad, so glad you’re in my life now.”
He let me grow quiet when it was too much. He let me take my time when my throat became too thick to speak further, or when I could not breathe.
