Chapter 175: Pride vs. Horniness (18+)

It had been two whole days since Lorenzo had actually looked at me longer than it took to grab a clean shirt or talk to his guards through his phone.

Honestly, I was counting the hours like some neglected houseplant waiting for water, which made the whole thing feel even more ridiculous.

Lorenzo was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, kissing me on the forehead right before rushing out of the estate before the sun was fully up, disappearing into meetings I wasn’t a part of because I had other stuff going on, and then coming back just long enough to change clothes and take a bath.

Dante, as usual, kept his stubborn silence, and then Lorenzo would vanish again into a maze of calls and pressure tactics aimed at whatever was left of DeLuca’s network.

I got why he had to do it, really...I did.

Still, understanding didn’t ease the restless void that had started to grow behind my ribs around the second sunset.

It didn’t stop my body from remembering every brief, distracted touch of his hand on my shoulder like those fleeting moments were the last drops of water in a desert.

The days were far from empty, which only made the contrast of the nights feel worse.

Emil had decided, with the certainty of a kid who had seen too much already, that I was his go-to soft place to land, and I didn’t have the heart or courage to argue.

"Please carry me, Mommy!"

We walked the long gravel path around the lake until his little legs grew tired and he demanded, with all the authority of someone who had just learned how effective a well-timed pout could be, to be carried on my shoulders like a sticky little monarch surveying his kingdom.

I passed on the ancient art of hiding candy under the loose floorboard in the nursery, making him promise to keep it secret with a pinky swear that he took way more seriously than any of Lorenzo’s actual security briefings.

When I made the mistake of trying to read him one of the older, creepier horror novels from my collection, something with dramatic candlelight and a ghost that whispered through the walls... he froze against me, eyes wide and serious, and asked quietly if the ghost could find him under the blankets if it really wanted to.

I went still and looked down at the book, wait a minute...was reading horror novels to four year olds even advisable?

Leon, who had been hovering by the door like a shadow, gasped at the sight and just stepped in, snatched the book from my hands, and replaced it with a bright volume about a rabbit learning the hard lesson of sharing.

The look he gave me was pure, wordless advice to get my life together before Emil ended up scarred for life from my questionable choices of storytelling.

I took the hint.

We spent the rest of the afternoons reading about rabbits and dragons that turned out to be mostly large, misunderstood lizards that loved tea.

Eventually, Emil dozed off against me, his small hand curling into the fabric of my shirt.

Those hours were warm and good, making the nights feel like a different world altogether, one where the air was thinner and the silence had teeth.

By the time the estate sank into that deep, expensive quiet brought on by money and carefully cultivated paranoia, I was lying alone in our bed, staring at the ceiling as if it might eventually take pity on me and offer some advice.

The sheets still held that never fully washed out no matter how often the staff cleaned everything, and underneath all that, just the warm, personal smell of Lorenzo.

It was the most merciless kind of perfume.

Every time I turned into the pillow, I got another breath of it, and my traitorous body, now acutely aware of desire, reacted as if he had just walked in and summoned me with a simple wave of his finger.

"Come here, tesoro mio..."

I pressed my hand against the pressure building between my legs and hissed through my teeth at the sharp, unwanted spike of sensation.

Holy fuck!

"Stupid war," I muttered into the darkness, feeling thoroughly unimpressed with my own existence. "Stupid DeLuca. Stupid beautiful, fucking husband who doesn’t even have time to annoy me to death anymore."

I rolled onto my side, then my back, then my stomach, which only made things worse because the friction of the sheets against my half-hard cock was both a relief and a punishment.

The moonlight filtered through the half-drawn curtains, casting a pale stripe across the bed.

I watched it like a prisoner might watch a sliver of light from a high window, hoping it might eventually morph into the shape of my husband and solve everything for me.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the quiet stretched on, and I realized I was not just lonely.

I was pretty freaking aroused.

Properly, sharply, restlessly aroused in a way that felt new and unsettling and, frankly, unfair.

Outside of my regular heats, outside of Lorenzo’s teasing that always knew just how far to push before I snapped, I’d hardly ever felt this kind of horniness. It felt like my skin was too tight.

Like every nerve ending below my navel had filed a formal complaint about the absence of his large, capable hands and the low, pleased sounds he made whenever I stopped being such a difficult Omega.

Part of me was genuinely terrified by how much I craved those hands on me right now.

Another, more embarrassing part was already crafting increasingly elaborate fantasies where he would walk through that door, find me like this, and decide that the war could wait just five more minutes.

I buried my face in the pillow and groaned, the sound muffled and completely pathetic.

There was no way I could march downstairs to to his study in the middle of one of his meetings and say,

"Hey, you there! Husband, fuck me, now!"

Just picturing it made me want to crawl under the bed and hide until the next century.

My pride, whatever was left of it, would vanish right there.

Unfortunately, Father’s voice was still around for commentary, even this late at night.

Omegas who touched themselves were impure. Dirty!

Seeking pleasure without an alpha’s approval or presence was the sort of thing that led to the worst kind of gossip... quiet, venomous stuff that could follow a person for years.

I’d spent most of my life believing that, or at least pretending so hard that it had become my reality.

But then Lorenzo had looked me dead in the eye the night that I gave him my virginity and ordered me to touch myself.

"Who are you to listen to now?" He had whispered, "Your father? Or me, your Alpha?"

I lay there, breathing too hard, face flushed, pulse racing in places it really shouldn’t be, and tried once more to talk myself out of what was becoming inevitable.

Every shift made the soft fabric of the bed sheet graze against my cock, sending another spark of sensation shooting up my spine.

I thought about the last time he had taken me apart...how he’d held me open with those large hands, how he’d taken his time with slick-covered fingers till I was shaking and incoherent, and how he finally pushed inside with that low, satisfied sound that always teetered between a growl and a groan.

Just the memory made my hips twitch.

A soft, involuntary sound escaped me before I could stop it.

"Just get it over with," I whispered to the empty room, the words a mix of defeat and defiance. "It’s fine. It’s high time I...uh, explore my body right? Isn’t that how they say it?"

My hands trembled as I finally pushed my pajama pants down my hips.

The cool air against my heated skin made me flinch, and for a moment, I just stared at myself in the moonlight as if acknowledging it all would somehow make it less absurd.

It didn’t.

I was hard, flush, already leaking a bit at the pink tip, and the sight felt both familiar and humiliating.

The decision had been made; there was no graceful way to pull the pants back on and pretend this had never almost happened.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath that did nothing to calm me, and reached down.