Page 18 of In Stockings
Crouching by the sofa, I carefully draw back the blanket and stare down at her sleeping face.
I remember her from school, even if the others don’t. She’d been in my English class, and it was the one time the quiet girl actually spoke up, her enthusiasm for reading and stories overflowing.
She’d often answer the teacher's question with such energy her hands would windmill around her face, and I would sit watching her, kind of entranced. I hadn’t known she was an omega back then, and with my new alpha designation, all those wild teenage hormones had me in a spin. I chased girls, especially omegas. Although truth be told, most of the time, they chased me.
Chasing girls has been at the bottom of our to-do list since Lyra arrived in our lives. Our focus has been on her. Raising her, keeping her safe, and making her happy. But now …
Now I stare down at the pretty omega’s face. She’s painted her eyelashes, but I can see underneath they are as dark as her hair. The effect makes her skin even fairer. Almost like porcelain. Or cream with a hint of strawberries.
I slide my arms under her warm body and, like a creep, take in a lungful of her sweet, caramel scent. So sweet, I lick my lips as if I can actually taste her in the air.
I shift her against my chest, and she murmurs, rolling into me.
I lean in a little closer, breathing her some more, a wisp of her hair tickling against my nose.
Then I stand. She’s a light little thing, and I wonder if the fantasies that have been forming in my mind of the three of us rutting her together would even be possible. Could she take us? I’m twice her size.
The others are hovering in the hallway, Craig chugging a glass of water.
They watch as I carry her up the stairs. I’ve years of practice moving a sleeping child, and it’s not until I open the guest bedroom door and lay her on the mattress that she stirs.
“Hmmm,” she murmurs, reaching for my arm and tucking it against her. Her eyes are closed, and I think she’s still asleep when she asks, “what time is it?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I attempt to slide my arm from her grip, even though I’m severely tempted to climb into the bed beside her and curl around her body, to hold her through the night.
As I wrestle my arm from her grip, she blinks open her eyes.
“Hi,” she whispers, her voice all breathy and making me hard with the ideas it conjures.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
She yawns, stretching her hands above her head. “I should get going if you're back.”
Then her gaze flits around the room in confusion.
“It’s the middle of the night. So I brought you up here to the guestroom. Thought you could sleep here.”
“The fire was a bad one?” she asks.
I scrub my hand over my shorn hair. “Yeah, it was a beast. Took us ages to wrestle it under control.”
“You look exhausted,” she says with sympathy.
I chuckle. “Yeah, I feel it too.”
Her nose wrinkles.
“Oh shit, I must stink of smoke. I’m sorry.” An omega’s sense of smell is sensitive. I must smell bloody awful.
“It's fine.” She looks at me and smiles with a little shyness, a little coyness. And fuck, she’s even prettier when she smiles. And fuck, I’m right back in that classroom, this girl smiling at me as she finishes her answer and finds me staring right at her.
It made my blood heat then. It makes it heat now.
Fuck, I want to climb into that bed with her.
“I remember you from school,” I whisper.
She buries her face into the pillow. “Oh God, I was such an awkward geek.”
