Beautifully Broken Omega: A Dark Reverse Harem Omegaverse Romance, page 13
“I’m sure he’d have done the same for anyone,” I say, but even I’m not sure if I believe the words.
Nolan gives me a look that suggests he doesn’t believe them either. “You sure about that?”
“What else would it be?” The question comes out more defensive than I intended.
“Maybe he cares about you.” His voice is quiet, serious. “Maybe we all do.”
My breath catches. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m...” I struggle to find the words. “I’m nobody. I’m a cleaning lady. Why would you care about someone like me?”
“Someone like you?” He sounds genuinely confused.
“Nolan, I mean just look at me.” I gesture to myself helplessly. “And look at you.”
Just then we pull up in front of my building. He stops the engine and turns toward me, raising one eyebrow as he looks at me. Really looks at me, like he’s seeing something I can’t.
“I am, Kit. I am looking. We all are. And we can’t seem to stop. Maybe that’s the problem.”
My heart slams against my chest. “I... I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you, Kit?” He pauses, his eyes searching my face. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
His voice is soft but intense, and I can barely breathe under the weight of his gaze.
“I see a beautiful woman, one who has been hurt, but is strong. Someone who is used to making herself invisible.” His voice drops even lower. “But someone who, when allowed, shines so bright it’s almost blinding.”
He leans slightly closer. “And we want to see that light, Kit.”
I stare at him, shocked into silence by the raw honesty in his voice.
“Why are you saying these things?” I ask quietly, looking down at my hands.
“Because I want you to know the truth. I don’t want you to think, even for one moment, that you don’t matter.”
I look up at him, taking him in completely. The warmth and caring in his blue eyes, so intense it makes my chest ache. His lips, soft and slightly parted as he breathes. The strong line of his jaw, shadowed by the streetlights filtering through the rain-streaked windows. His scent surrounds me, intoxicating, making every nerve ending come alive and my skin feel too tight.
It does something to me, something I can’t name or control. Heat pools low in my belly, and I can feel my body responding just like it did with Griffin. This man, this alpha who could have anyone he wants, actually sees me. Not just sees me, but cares about what happens to me.
I should get out. I should run away like I always do.
But I can’t stop staring at him.
His lips are full and soft-looking, slightly parted as he breathes. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Would those lips be soft and gentle against mine?
I want to know. I want to trace the curve of his bottom lip with my tongue, want to feel those strong hands touching me in places no one ever has.
When my gaze meets his, his breath catches. The air between us grows thick, charged with possibility.
My heart pounds, and as if being pulled by an invisible force I can’t understand, I lean across the console and kiss him.
The moment our lips touch, electricity shoots through every nerve in my body. He responds immediately, his hand coming up to cup the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair as his mouth moves against mine with devastating tenderness. His kiss is different from Griffin’s—softer, more patient, like he has all the time in the world to savor my taste. Where Griffin’s kiss had been explosive and desperate, Nolan’s is careful exploration, gentle pressure that makes me melt into him completely. His lips are warm and firm, moving against mine with a reverence that makes my chest ache. When his tongue traces my bottom lip, asking for permission, I open for him with a soft gasp.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. He rests his forehead against mine, his thumb stroking along my jawline with reverent touches.
“Kit,” he breathes against my lips, his voice rough with want. “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about this.”
The confession sends fire racing through my veins. His hand traces along my throat, down to where my pulse hammers beneath my skin. I can feel his restraint in every touch, the way he’s holding himself back, and it only makes me want him more.
“I’ve thought about it too,” I whisper, surprising myself with the admission.
Something shifts in his expression at my words, his blue eyes darkening. His hand moves to rest against my waist, fingers splaying across my ribs through the damp fabric.
“Tell me what you want, Kit,” he says softly, his voice careful despite the hunger I can see in his eyes.
“I want...” I struggle to find the words, my heart racing. “I want you to touch me.”
His hand moves higher, tentatively brushing against my breast through the damp fabric of my polo. The contact sends warmth spiraling through me, and I can’t stop the small sound that escapes my throat.
“You like that, sweetheart?” His voice is rougher now, deeper, and the endearment makes me shiver with want.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Please, Nolan. I need you to touch me. I can’t think about anything else.”
Something snaps in him at my admission. The careful gentleness gives way to something more intense, more demanding. His hand moves beneath my shirt, and the feeling of his palm against my bare skin makes me gasp. The sensation is overwhelming—warmth blooming everywhere he touches.
His fingers find the edge of my bra, hesitating for just a moment before slipping beneath the fabric. When his palm finally touches my bare breast, skin against skin, I arch against him with a broken cry.
“God, you’re so soft,” he murmurs, his voice thick with wonder.
His mouth finds my neck as his fingers work magic on my breast, thumb circling my nipple until I’m arching against him with a broken moan. He inhales deeply against my throat, his breath hot on my skin.
“Fuck, Kit,” he growls, his voice rough with need. “That sweet vanilla scent... You smell like the sweetest fucking dessert.”
I can feel myself growing wet, slick gathering between my thighs as my body responds to his touch. My core clenches with need, empty and aching in a way that’s both foreign and desperate. The sensation is overwhelming—like every part of me is waking up after being dormant for years.
Without thinking, without any conscious decision, I grab his other hand and guide it down, pressing his palm against the apex of my thighs through my uniform pants.
“Kit,” he breathes, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, his fingers move against me through the fabric, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves with unerring accuracy.
The pressure is perfect, exactly what my body is craving. I arch against his hand with a broken moan, and he captures my mouth with his, swallowing the sound. His kiss is hungry now, desperate, his tongue stroking against mine while his fingers work magic through the barrier of my pants.
His mouth leaves mine to trail hot kisses down my throat, and when he finds that sensitive spot where my pulse hammers beneath my skin, I nearly come apart.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, my voice breaking on the words.
He continues that perfect pressure, his fingers circling and pressing while his lips worship my neck. When he lifts his head to look at me, his blue eyes are dark with desire.
“Come for me, sweet girl,” he murmurs against my lips, and the rough command in his voice is my undoing.
The climax hits like lightning, devastating and all-consuming. Wave after wave of pleasure crashes through me, leaving me shaking and breathless in the passenger seat of his car while he holds me through it, his mouth soft against mine.
For a moment, we just stare at each other, both breathing hard. The reality of what just happened crashes over me like cold water.
I kissed another one of my bosses. Let him touch me, make me come in the front seat of his car like some desperate—
“Kit—” Nolan starts, but I’m already moving.
I bolt from the car, running through the rain toward my building without looking back. I can hear him calling my name, but I don’t stop, don’t turn around.
I make it to my apartment and lock the door behind me, sliding down against the wood until I’m sitting on the floor. Despite what Nolan did to me, I feel an emptiness aching to be filled, growing stronger by the second. The intensity almost shocks me—this need so powerful that my core clenches on its own, my slick growing heavier between my thighs.
What is happening with me? Years of practiced self-control, gone. Why can’t I seem to control myself around these alphas? How can they affect me this much?
But somehow, deep down, I already knew the answer.
Chapter Twenty
NOLAN
Well, fuck me.
Kit just bolted from my car like the devil himself was chasing her, leaving me sitting here with my cock still hard as steel and her scent lingering in the air like some kind of sweet torture. Her faint chamomile smell clings to the leather seats, but underneath it—Christ, underneath it is vanilla. Warm, rich vanilla that shouldn’t exist in a beta’s scent profile but somehow does.
Kit Ellis is a goddamn wildfire under all that careful control. All that hiding, all that practiced invisibility, and beneath it burns something so fierce it nearly brought me to my knees. The way she’d responded to my touch, the desperate little sounds she made, the way her body had arched against my hand like she was starving for contact.
Jesus Christ. I adjust myself through my pants, wincing at how painfully hard I still am. The taste of her is still on my tongue, sweet and addictive, and all I want to do is follow her upstairs and show her exactly what she does to me.
But she ran. And I can’t say I blame her—what we just did was insane on about fifteen different levels. She’s our employee, for fuck’s sake. A cleaning lady who we should barely notice, let alone... whatever the hell this is becoming.
I start the engine and pull away from her building, forcing myself not to look up at the windows to see if she’s watching. My hands shake slightly on the steering wheel, adrenaline and arousal making it hard to focus on the road. Every breath brings another hint of her scent from the passenger seat, making my cock throb with want.
The drive home passes in a blur of rain-slicked streets and red lights that seem designed to torture me. By the time I pull through the iron gates and up the long circular driveway of our estate, I’ve almost convinced myself that what happened was some kind of fever dream. That I didn’t actually make our beta employee come in the front seat of my car while she whispered my name like a prayer.
But the vanilla scent clinging to my clothes says otherwise.
I walk through the grand foyer and up the sweeping marble staircase to the main living area on the second floor. When I reach the top, I’m greeted by the warm glow of our spacious living room and the familiar sight of Griffin and Declan sprawled across the leather furniture with glasses of whiskey in hand. They look up when I enter, and something in my expression must give me away because Griffin’s eyebrows rise slightly.
“Rough night?” Declan asks, curiosity thick in his voice as he takes in my disheveled appearance.
I run a hand through my hair, suddenly aware that I probably look like I’ve been through a war. “You could say that.”
Griffin gestures toward the bar cart with his glass. “Join us. You look like you need it.”
I pour myself three fingers of Jameson, downing half of it in one burning gulp before settling into the armchair across from them. The whiskey burns but does nothing to ease the tension coiled tight in my chest.
“So,” I start, then stop. How do you tell your pack brothers that you just made your employee come through her clothes in your car? That she tasted like heaven and responded like she was made for your touch? That her scent is doing things to your alpha instincts that shouldn’t be possible?
But before I can figure out how to explain the clusterfuck that was my evening, Griffin speaks up.
“Kit and I kissed.”
The words hang in the air like a bomb waiting to explode. Declan chokes on his whiskey, coughing as he stares at Griffin in shock.
“You what?” Declan sputters.
Griffin’s expression is carefully controlled, but I catch the flash of something possessive in his eyes. “In my office. Earlier today. She kissed me.”
A strange relief floods through me. At least I’m not the only one who’s completely gone for her.
“Well,” I say, taking another sip of whiskey, “that makes two of us.”
Both of them turn to stare at me, and I find myself grinning despite everything. “Kit and I had our own moment tonight. In my car.”
“Jesus Christ,” Declan breathes, leaning back in his chair. “What the hell is happening to us?”
Griffin sets down his glass. “How far did it go?”
“Far enough,” I say, meeting his gaze steadily. “We kissed, and she...” I pause, running a hand through my hair. “She asked me to touch her. She was very... responsive.”
Griffin’s knuckles whiten where they grip his glass, but his voice remains level. “And then?”
“And then she ran.” I drain the rest of my whiskey, feeling the burn all the way down. “Bolted from the car like I was about to hurt her.”
“She did the same thing after we kissed,” Griffin admits quietly. “Panic. Pure, absolute panic.”
Declan looks between us with growing concern. “Someone hurt her. Badly. You can see it in the way she moves, the way she flinches sometimes.”
“An alpha,” Griffin says with certainty. “Someone taught her to expect violence from our kind.”
The thought makes my hands clench into fists. The idea that someone put that fear in Kit’s storm eyes, that some bastard alpha made her believe she deserved pain instead of pleasure, makes me want to hunt them down and tear them apart with my bare hands.
“We need to be careful,” Griffin continues. “Patient. She’s skittish as a wild animal, and if we push too hard—”
“We’ll lose her completely,” I finish. “I know. But Christ, Griffin, the way she responded tonight... it was like she’s been starving and didn’t even know it.”
“What’s her scent like up close?” Declan asks, leaning forward with interest. “I’ve only caught hints from a distance.”
Griffin and I exchange a look. How do we explain that our beta employee smells like vanilla and promises? That her scent makes every alpha instinct we possess roar to life?
“Chamomile,” Griffin says carefully. “But there’s something else underneath. Something that shouldn’t be there.”
“Vanilla,” I add, watching Declan’s expression change. “Warm, sweet vanilla that gets stronger when she’s aroused.”
Declan goes very still. “Betas don’t smell like vanilla.”
“No,” Griffin agrees quietly. “They don’t.”
The implications hang heavy in the air between us. We’re all thinking the same thing, but none of us wants to be the first to say it out loud. That maybe Kit Ellis isn’t what she seems. That maybe there’s more to our quiet cleaning lady than meets the eye.
“Whatever she is,” I say finally, “she’s ours to protect now.”
“Ours?” Griffin repeats, as if testing how the word feels.
I meet his gaze steadily. “You felt it too. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t. That pull, that need to keep her safe, to make her ours. It’s not just attraction, Griffin. It’s something deeper.”
Griffin is quiet for a long moment, swirling the whiskey in his glass. “I know,” he says finally.
“There’s something about her,” Declan admits. “When I’m around her, I feel this weird protectiveness... Like I just want to make sure she’s safe. Which makes no sense, because she’s a beta, right?”
Griffin and I exchange a long look. The weight of unspoken suspicions hangs between us.
“What if she’s not?” Griffin says quietly.
“Not what?” Declan asks, though I can see understanding already dawning in his eyes.
“Not a beta,” I say. “Think about it, Dec. The vanilla scent that shouldn’t be there. The way we all react to her. The protective instincts she triggers.”
Declan leans back in his chair, processing. “It would explain a lot of things.”
A quiet calm settles over the room, like pieces of a puzzle finally clicking into place. For the first time since Kit walked into our lives, everything makes sense. The inexplicable pull we all feel toward her, the way our pack dynamics shift when she’s around, the fierce need to protect and claim her.
“So what do we do?” I ask. “Because pretending this isn’t happening isn’t working for any of us.”
Griffin leans forward, his expression serious. “We take it slow. One step at a time. We show her that not all alphas are monsters, that we can be trusted. We protect her, but we don’t crowd her.”
“And if she runs again?” Declan asks.
“Then we give her space to come back on her own terms,” Griffin replies. “She’s not a possession to be claimed. She’s a woman who’s been hurt, and she deserves to choose what happens next.”
I nod, even though every alpha instinct I have is screaming at me to hunt her down and convince her that she’s safe with us. That we’d never hurt her, never make her afraid, never be anything but grateful for whatever pieces of herself she’s willing to share.
“One step at a time,” I agree.
“One step at a time,” Declan echoes.
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts about the woman who’s somehow managed to turn our carefully ordered lives upside down. Not one of us mentions how insane this is—that three alphas have somehow zeroed in on an employee, something we vowed we’d never do, a line we’d never crossed. But also someone who has secrets, someone who flinches at sudden movements and runs when we get too close.
