Page 33 of Omega’s Fold

I’ve never had a heat with an alpha. Or done it outside of a heat. Not with an omega. Not with an alpha. Not with a beta. Not with anyone. I went through high school with a stutter that the boys in the year above me turned into a game, and I learned very early to say as little as possible to anyone. By the time the stutter was mostly gone it was too late, I was the quiet one, the one who didn’t talk to girls at the dance and didn’t talk to boys either. Then Mom was gone and there was nothing but the land, the bank and Caleb and Matthew. The opportunity has never come up.

I don’t know what he’ll expect. I mean I know the basics. I know what goes where. I’m not slow, no matter what Julian might think.

I know there are a whole unspoken set of things you are supposed to have learned by my age, and I have learned none of them. Julian Duffield is going to know within about thirty seconds that he is in a room with a twenty-three-year-old virgin.

It doesn’t matter. Because we’re not going to have sex. He’s a jerk. He should not be my first.

The light at my window goes from late afternoon to gray.

It gets worse at night. I had forgotten that it does, or I had never had one bad enough to remember. The heat comes in waves that are longer and closer together and each one leaves me wetter and more undone. My jeans are sodden at the back. I take them off. I take myself in hand and try to get some relief but it’s not enough, no matter how many times I do it.

I take the undershirt off. I lie on top of the quilt in my underwear and try to sleep.

I want to go to him. At midnight, I get up before I even think it through. I get as far as the door, my hand on the handle. I let go of the handle and go back to the bed.

Later, I try again. I don’t know what time I make it to the hall. The air in the hall is colder than the air in my room and it is a mercy for about three steps. I get to his door. I can smell him through the wood. My body goes heavy and hot and stupid and I put my hand on the frame to hold myself upright and I stand there.

I cannot make myself knock.

I want him to assist me. I am not going to ask.

I go back.

Dawn comes in gray at the window.

I have not slept at all. My mouth tastes of metal, and there is slick on the sheets beneath me.

I am hyperaware of his presence. He hasn’t snored. I’ve heard him moving about. The bed creaks as he shifts position. I don’t know if he is simply not snoring or if he is awake like me.

Just after first light, he gets up, opens the door and goes to the bathroom. Of course he does.

The bathroom door opens. Closes.

Water starts.

He is not just washing his face. He has turned the shower on and moments later I hear the sound of the water shift as he gets underneath it.

I sit up.

Oh god, he is naked. He is naked and in my shower. The water is going to be sliding over his bare skin. I want that. I need that.

He said he would assist me. He said it. That’s probably what he meant. It must be.

My body makes the decision for me. I’m on my feet and across the room and my hand is on the door handle. I am out into the hall before I think about it.

The hall is cold on my bare skin. I am in my underwear and nothing else. My hair is wet at the temples from sweat and my chest is damp. I don’t care.

The lock on the bathroom door has been broken since before Mom died. We never got around to fixing it. You just knocked, in this house, and you waited until whoever was in there said come in or don’t.

I don’t knock.

I push the door open. I’m crossing a line and I know it. The heat is the excuse but what’s he going to do?

The worst thing that will happen is that he’ll throw me out. And the best… I need this.

He has it hot. The bathroom is filled with steam. The glass of the shower stall is half-fogged. I can see the shape of him through it, the line of his back, his arm braced against the tile, his head bent under the spray. He’s heard the door. He goes still.

He turns his head.