Knotting omegas was something that had been a semi-weekly occurrence before I’d finally settled down and devoted myself to one of them. Even then, it was something that felt good and satisfied a need for both partners, but I’d never fully understood what all the fuss was about. Sure, it was nice, but so was getting a blowjob. It wasn’t this mystical, spiritual experience everyone painted it as, and until I’d knotted Ellis—my destined mate—I had always assumed it was one of those things people blew out of proportion to avoid being the odd one out. Like pineapple pizza or cult classics that are never really that good when you finally cave to peer pressure and watch them.

The morning after, as Ellis was sleeping soundly, I was still reeling from the realization that it really was everything they said it was and more. I’d just never known what it was like to be inside of the omega I had been destined to claim, to care for, to satisfy in every way. The realization filled me with as much guilt as wonder. Janie was gone and had been for years, so why did it still feel like I’d betrayed her?

As I’d made love to Ellis, I had lost any sense for what was his pleasure and what was mine. It was all jumbled together and I wondered if he could feel it, too. The connection, the link, the intimacy.

Or maybe it was just what we’d agreed on. A temporary arrangement. A matter of getting him through his heat and nothing more. I decided I’d find out soon, one way or another.

Once I showered and got dressed, I got up to make breakfast and when I returned with a tray of food, he was still fast asleep.

“Ellis,” I called softly, stroking his face. He was always perfect, always a dazzling blend of strength and beauty. Most omegas were soft, if not feminine, but neither of those words described him. As gorgeous as he was, there was no denying his masculinity. The cut of his jaw, the hardness in his eyes when they finally opened, even though I’d just roused him from what seemed like a nice dream. Even his body was hard, toned, chiseled to perfection like a stone statue. He was undeniably, unapologetically a man and I had just spent the night worshipping every inch of him and loved every minute of it.

Whatever lingering doubts I’d had, that night had cured. Accepting it was so much easier than running from it. Now that I had, I found myself wondering why I’d ever even bothered. Why I’d ever thought it was a choice I could make, like leaving cream out of my coffee. Maybe I wasn’t ready to label it yet, but there was nothing unnatural about the way I felt toward this man and there was no shame in it, either.

He was mine. I’d come so close the night before to letting the whole world know it, and if he hadn’t stopped me, I would have. I would have placed my mark on his neck and claimed him as my own as I should have done a few short years after I’d realized who he was to me, but I hadn’t because it wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to expect that he should want me just because I’d come to my senses and finally decided to stop fighting how much I wanted him. Why should he have to bear the burden of being tied to a man he didn’t need or love?

No matter how reasonable it was, there was still part of me that remained fixated on the idea of marking him, like it was the one worthy pursuit in life and nothing short of seeing my mark on his skin would satisfy it. I told that side of me to wait, to be patient, and it told me to go to hell.

“What time is it?” he asked, looking around the room. We’d knocked the alarm clock off his dresser during our third attempt to sate our endless hunger with each other’s bodies.

“A little after three.”

He groaned, throwing off the covers. “I had an interview today.”

“Ah,” I said knowingly. “Probably not getting that job, then.”

“Probably not.” He opened his hands to receive the cup of coffee I put in them. After a few sips, he seemed to notice the food. “You cooked.”

“I told you, as long as I’m here, tending to your every need is my full-time job.”

“The royal treatment,” he said dryly. That look in his eyes was gearing me up for round four, but I reminded myself for the hundredth time that this was about him, not me, and we had to go at his speed. Something told me that getting him through withdrawal was just going to be the beginning of my addiction. “Lucky me.”

“There are perks to being mated to a Roman,” I said, smirking. “I’d be happy to show you all of them if you’d let me.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” he said, taking a bite of the pastry I’d brought him.

“How’re you feeling?”

“I have a blinding migraine, I’m confusingly horny and nauseous, and the only excuse for missing that interview that would actually work is the truth, which is just going to remind the hiring manager why omegas stayed at home in ‘the good old days.’”

I decided not to tell him I could understand the instinct, to a degree. I’d always taken pride in knowing that I could provide enough of a comfortable life for Janie and our daughter that she didn’t have to work unless she wanted to. As a socialite who was used to her father giving her whatever she wanted, she’d both expected and enjoyed being pampered by her mate. Ellis was different, as I had to constantly remind myself. In fact, just about the only trait they had in common was their stubbornness. What had worked in my marriage wasn’t necessarily going to work if I did manage to convince him to extend the bounds of our relationship beyond pure practicality.

After last night, I had hope that I actually stood a chance, if only a small one. Now that I had gotten over my hangups about claiming a male omega and the obstacle that had originally stood in the way of our bond was taken care of, I just had to convince him to give me another shot I didn’t deserve.

“There’s always one place I know for sure is hiring.”

He gave me a weary look. “I’m not going back to working for your father. Besides, Vincent is a more than capable replacement.”

“Vincent is good, but there’s no replacement for you. The company hasn’t been the same since you left, and everyone knows it.”

“I’m not going back, Reece. I spent months fighting the buyout, and I’m finally done.”

“That company is your life. It’s part of you.”

“That’s part of why I can’t go back,” he murmured, pulling his knees to his chest. “I poured my everything into Stover Electronics, telling myself it was what my father would have wanted, but something my mom said stuck with me. He built the company not just because he was passionate about what he did but because he wanted my brothers and I to live a good life. He wanted us to have the opportunities he never got, and to be happy. All this time, I’ve been furious at my brothers for not wanting to carry on his legacy, but now I realize that they’re doing what he actually wanted by living their lives. I need to start living mine.”

“I want that for you, too,” I said, taking his hand. “I just don’t want to see you throw yourself into another job you don’t really care about because you can only define yourself by what you’re doing now.”

It was a bold statement to make, and not one I had the right to, but he didn’t shut me down the way I’d expected. Instead, he seemed to be considering my words. “I know,” he muttered. “I just don’t know where to go from here. Taking time off obviously isn’t doing me any good.”

“There’s a difference between taking time off from the world and taking time to do something for yourself,” I reminded him. “If you could do anything, just for you with no strings attached, what would it be?”

He fell silent, and I could tell he was thinking about it. “There is something, but it doesn’t have anything to do with my career.”

“What is it?” I pressed. “No strings attached, remember?”

He bit his lip, but I could see the shift in him. The way his eyes got a little brighter, the way his energy changed as he spoke. “There’s this program I did in high school over junior summer. I just needed to get away for a while and figure things out, you know?”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I get that.” I’d known he was out of town that summer when I’d gone by his father’s factory, hoping to catch a glimpse of him only to be informed that he had gone on a trip for a few months. The same sense of dread that had overcome me then with the realization that my mate was far from home and there was nothing I could do about it, even if I hadn’t been willing to claim him, was even sharper now. “Where did you go?”

“This little village in Guatemala.” He smiled a little. “The program built wells and worked with the local leaders to help develop other infrastructure. I didn’t speak a word of Spanish when I got there, and as soon as I got off the plane, I remembered thinking I’d just made the worst mistake of my life. Those three months weren’t easy, but it turned out to be the best time of my life. No one knew me, so it was like having a vacation from myself, from all the things everyone expected me to be. All the things I felt like I had to be. When it was finally time to come back, I felt like I was leaving paradise.”

I was sure the fact that he knew he’d be walking right back into hell when he returned had played a role. “It sounds amazing,” I said, trying to keep the hoarseness out of my voice. I warred with myself for a long while, trying to talk the better part of me out of saying the words I knew he needed to hear. “I think you should go.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “Seriously?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I hate the idea,” I said with a dry laugh. “But if it helped you find yourself once, maybe that’s where you need to be now.”

“Maybe,” he said, his tone unreadable as he stared at me. I couldn’t help but feel like he was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. “Wouldn’t that be hard on you, now that we’ve…you know?”

“It’s not about me.” Saying the words out loud gave me the push I needed to deny my selfish wants. Maybe I’d learned how to do that fourteen years too late, but it was better now than never. “It’s about you figuring out what it is you want to do with the rest of your life. What it is that’ll make you happy. You’ve always deserved that, Ellis. It’s about time you got it.”

He pursed his lips and looked away. “I’ll think about it,” he said quietly. “But there’s something else I need right now.”

“Anything.”

When he met my gaze, the answer was as clear as if he’d said the words. I pulled him into my arms and he wrapped his around my neck. I kissed him like it would be the last time and tried not to think too hard about the fact that it might. I turned him over onto his stomach and unfastened my jeans. He got to his knees and I straddled his hips. This time, I slid into him a little easier, but he was still tight and hot and slick with need.

I’d wanted to taste him all morning, but this was good, too. Better than good. As I sheathed myself inside of him, his back arched like a cat’s and he let out a moan that shook me to the core. I pulled him up and wrapped my arm around his chest so his back was pressed against me and then reached around to stroke him from behind. I could see him in the mirror, curved back against me like a bow, his cock a stiff arrow ready to be released. The sight of him alone, his head thrown back in ecstasy, his lips fallen open with another gasp as I impaled him, was enough to make my knot swell.

He was mine. Every bone in my body knew it, every jet black corner of my soul, and as I gave him what he needed—what we both craved—I knew he felt it, too. I just finally loved him enough to realize that the only gift I could give him that was remotely worthy of offering him at all was to let him go.

Morning bled into the afternoon and seamlessly into the evening, and the only time I left that bed was to bring him food and force him to eat. His other appetite was harder to sate, but trying was my own idea of paradise. I realized as I held him in my arms, the mating pheromones that had made it impossible to think of little other than how badly I wanted to fuck him again, and again, and again until he cried out breathlessly for reprieve, were finally starting to fade.

His heat would be over by morning, and we’d be back to reality, where his idea of paradise was being a few thousand miles away from me. And I was going to drive him to the airport, watch that plane leave, and be happy for him even while my soul split in two, because the pain I already felt so acutely even though I was still living in the fantasy world that had been ours for the last couple of days, was so much less than the pain I’d inflicted on him.

Looking back, the idea of seeking Ellis’s forgiveness seemed laughable. Even if I somehow managed to earn it, how could I ever forgive myself without penance? If losing him now that I knew what it was like to have him was what it took, so be it. It was only the beginning of what I deserved, and if he did come back and by some miracle wanted anything to do with me, I would spend the rest of my life in awe of his mercy, but I would never forgive myself.

Encouraging him to follow his dream was only half altruism. I still owed Drew a visit, and I wanted Ellis as far away as possible when that happened. Getting vengeance on my old friend was less about forgiving myself and more about making sure that Ellis knew he no longer had anything to fear. If I was able to look at my own reflection a little easier after he was gone, so be it.