Page 122 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

She rises onto her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.

Soft. So soft it barely qualifies as a kiss, more a question than a statement, her mouth finding mine with a tentative, trembling pressure. Her hands come up to my chest, fingers splayed against my shirt, not quite steady.

I kiss her back. But I hold myself in check, every muscle in my body tense with the effort of keeping it gentle, of not deepening it beyond what she’s offering. Because this is Sophie choosing me in a warm kitchen at midnight, with the lights on and the masks off and the full weight of everything she’s told me tonight sitting between us, and I will not be the one who pushes too far.

My thumb traces her cheekbone. My other hand slides to the side of her neck, my fingers threading into the hair at her nape. She leans into it, tilts her head, pressing her neck into my palm with a trust that makes my chest ache.

Then she pulls back.

Her eyes are heavy-lidded, her lips parted, her breath coming fast.

“Finn.”

“Yeah?” I ask, her cheek still in my hand.

“Kiss me properly.”

Every ounce of restraint I’ve been holding shatters and I pull her into me and kiss her like I’m drowning and she’s air, my hand fisting in her hair, her body crashing against mine, her back hitting the counter. She gasps into my mouth and I swallow it, tasting her, faintly sweet, and the sound she makes—a low, desperate moan, vibrating against my lips—rewires something in my brain permanently.

Her tongue finds mine and suddenly she’s the one leading, her fingers gripping the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, kissing me like something inside her just let go.

Her hands slide up my chest, over my collarbone, her fingers brushing the side of my neck and I actually shiver and she makes that sound again, that breathless moan that I’m going to hear in my sleep for the rest of my⁠—

Then I hear footsteps on the stairs.

We both hear them at the same time. Sophie pulls back, her eyes snapping open, and I turn toward the kitchen doorway.

Ethan.

He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs in a t-shirt and sweats, his hair mussed. He sees us. Sophie’s flushed face. My hands in her hair. And I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what we were doing.

His gray eyes find Sophie past my shoulder. The kitchen is silent.

I wait for it—for Sophie to shut down, to pull away from me, to reach for her bag and become the operative again.

But Sophie doesn’t step back. She stays exactly where she is, her hand still resting on my chest.

CHAPTER 33

Ethan

Aweek has passed since the night at the pack house, and it feels like everything has changed without anything actually happening.

Sophie comes to work. She does her job. She’s professional and focused and exactly who she’s supposed to be. But the air around all four of us is different now—there’s this tension, a charge, like the moment before a storm breaks. I can feel it in the way Max watches her when she’s not looking and Finn goes quiet when she walks into a room. In the way I catch myself rereading the same paragraph for the fourth time because my mind keeps sliding off the numbers and back to the kitchen.

I keep seeing it. Sophie’s body against Finn’s. Her hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. The breathless sound she made. And then her eyes opening and finding mine.

Her eyes were half-closed, dark and liquid, her cheeks flushed pink, and she looked... undone. And when those eyes met mine across the room, I felt it straight to my cock.

Fucking hell.

We’re all waiting. For what, none of us will say out loud. But it feels like the whole pack is holding its breath, and Sophie is the only one who gets to decide when we exhale.

I close the report and walk out of my office before I can think about it too hard.

Diana is at her workstation, reviewing trial data, her dark hair pulled back in its usual low bun.

“Diana, have you seen Sophie?”