CHAPTER FOUR – WANT MORE

BRIAN

I stood naked in front of the mirror. 

And stared at who I was in it. 

An Omega who refused to bend, refused to kneel, refused to be anyone's idea of soft. 

I could still feel his eyes. Dark. Hungry. Denying everything. I was already half-hard.

"You'll want me," I told the mirror. 

"You're going to want me so bad."

My hand slid down my own chest. Slow. I thought about his hands instead of mine. His mouth. His weight pressing me into something, a wall, a bed, didn't matter which. 

It never mattered which, in my head. Just him. Just the weight of him, finally letting go.

"Fuck," I breathed.

I should've stopped there. I didn't.

I imagined him behind me. His hand at my throat. His voice, low and rough, right against my ear. 

‘Be good for me, Brian.’

My breath came out broken. When I opened my eyes, there were pale streaks across the glass, leaving faint stains on my hands. I watched myself fall apart in the reflection like it was someone else's ruin.

I stayed there a second longer than I needed to. Waiting for the shame to show up. 

It always showed up eventually. It always found me, no matter how far I ran or how loud I turned the music up.

It didn't. 

Just him. Still him.

—

I came out an hour later, dressed in black. 

Leather pants, tight shirt, boots laced tight. My mask was back on. Arrogant. Untouchable.

Ace was on the phone.

"Yes, Melinda. No, nothing dangerous." 

 There was a pause. 

"I'll be home sometime."

Something in his voice went gentle, "I love you too. Kiss Flaminia for me."

He hung up. 

Something ugly curled in my chest. Jealousy. No. Couldn't be that. I wouldn't let it be that. I didn't get jealous. I got even.

"Melinda." I said her name like I was tasting it, testing it. 

"Your wife. Sweet. Loyal. Completely oblivious."

"Don't."

I circled him anyway. 

"Don't what? Tell you I can see right through you? That you're bored with her? That you want something… someone… more?"

He grabbed my wrist. Fast. Hard. Harder than he needed to. 

"You're a job. Nothing more. Remember that."

My pulse went off like a shot. His hand on me felt like a live wire.

"Then let go." I leaned in. "Prove it."

His grip tightened instead. 

And just for a second, I saw the hunger, raw and unguarded, before he shoved me back and buried it again.

"Get in the car. Now."

I smiled the whole way to the garage. I'd won that round, and we both knew it.

—

The drive to my father's estate was quiet. 

Too quiet. 

I watched him instead of the road. 

Studied the tight line of his jaw, the white of his knuckles on the wheel. He drove like a man trying very hard not to think about something. I knew exactly what that something was.

"Tell me about your wife."

"No."

"Why not? She's a beautiful Omega. I'm sure she's very sweet."

He glanced at me. "You're trying to get a reaction."

"Is it working?"

"No."

"Liar." 

I leaned closer, close enough to see his throat move when he swallowed. 

"Your hands are too tight on that wheel. Your jaw's locked. 

"You're thinking about me. About what I said. About how I looked in just my boxers this morning."

"You're delusional."

"I'm right." 

A whisper, just for him. 

"And you know it."

—

My father's study smelled like the same cold money it always did. 

I slouched in the chair.

Elias lectured me about responsibility. About the election. About my image, like I was a problem he needed to manage before the quarterly report.

"I don't care," I cut in. 

"I don't care about your election. Your reputation. I don't care about anything."

"You're being impossible," he sighed. 

I stood. 

"No. I'm the inconvenient stain you want out of the way so you can play happy family with your girlfriend and her soft little son. 

"So you can pretend my mother never existed."

"Your mother—"

"DON'T YOU DARE talk about her." 

I stormed out. 

Ace followed, like always. 

Like a shadow that had learned to walk. 

I heard his footsteps behind me the whole way down the hall, steady, patient, never once catching up to grab my arm the way he usually did.

He was giving me room. I hated that he knew when to. Like he knew me so well. 

—

The garden still had her roses.

I found the one she used to love best. I touched a petal. It felt soft. Alive. 

She would've loved that it survived without her. She always said the ugly ones bloomed the longest, the ones nobody watered on purpose.

Ace came up behind me. 

Didn't say anything at first. Just stood there, close enough that I could feel him without looking.

"She used to bring me here," I said. 

"When I was little. She'd tell me stories. About love. About hope. About never giving up, no matter how bad it got."

"She sounds like she was a good person."

"She was." My throat burned. 

"And my father destroyed her. Piece by piece. Living happy the whole time he did it."

"Brian—"

I turned on him before he could finish. 

"Don't. Don't pretend to care. You're a hired guard. You'll be gone in a few months, off back to your real life, your real family. 

“And I'll still be here. Alone. Same as always."

"I'm not going anywhere."

I laughed. It came out uglier than I meant it to.

"That's what they all say."

I looked back down at the rose so he wouldn't see my face. So he wouldn't see how badly I wanted to believe him, how some stupid, starving part of me had already started to.

"But then they leave."

He didn't argue with me. Didn't push. 

He just stood there in the cold beside my mother's roses. Close enough I could feel the heat coming off him. 

For once he let the silence do the talking instead of trying to fix something that couldn't be fixed with words.

I almost hated him for that. For not fighting me on it.

For making it so easy to almost believe.