Page 49 of Packing for Vacation

I nod slowly. “We’ll tell her tomorrow. After we get back from the Christmas market. She’s been looking forward to it all week, I don’t wanna ruin it for her.”

She sighs in her sleep, and I pull her towards me, wrapping my arms around her. I’m still processing everything that she said about her old pack. I was joking when I said I’d get on a flight to Canada just to track them down, but…

“They stole her dog,” Matiu growls, his voice low and menacing. “Who steals a dog from an omega?”

“I know.” It all makes sense now. The way Lizzie is often self-conscious about her body. The sadness I’ve occasionally caught in her eyes when I call Barry my best mate. The way she front-footed the no kids conversation with both Matiu and I. “It’s a good thing they’re halfway across the world, or I have a feeling we’d be risking our practising certificates right now.”

“Yeah,” Matiu agrees.

I’m furious at her old pack. I want to punch those dickheads in their smarmy faces, not that I know what their faces look like, but in my mind they’re all smarmy, entitled pieces of shit. And yet…

We can hate her old pack all we want, but it doesn’t absolve us from the fact that we’ve also been stupid. We should have told her about Elaine by now. There’s been at least half a dozen chances when the conversation has been right there.

I stare up at the patterns in the wood above our heads and silently rehearse what I’m going to tell her, a sick feeling curling in my gut.

Chapter Eighteen

Matiu

Lizzie’s face is lit by the soft glow of her kindle when I wake in the night. Scott lies on her other side, his forearm slung over his eyes, and for the briefest moment I’m back in our old flat, in a different nest made by a different omega, staring at a younger version of Scott sleeping in exactly the same way.

It’s different this time. It’s taken me a while to recognise that fact. Back then I was certain that Scott was pack, and I was right. I know that now. He’s my pack mate, he always was, he always will be.

Elaine had been our scent match, but I can’t recall a single instance where things felt right between the three of us. Scott and I were too young and naïve to understand the fact that a scent match guarantees nothing. After all, most people go their whole life without meeting a scent match and they still have relationships, still fall in love, still form packs.

I grin when Lizzie finally notices that I’m watching her.

“How long have you been awake for?”

“A while,” I admit. I pull her flush against me, spooning her, running my hand over the curve of her hip and down to the softness of her belly, gripping her flesh there. “I love your body,” I murmur in her ear.

I can tell by the way that she stiffens in shock that she’s misheard me, my guess being that only one particular keyword actually filtered through her brain. Her quiet “What?” accompanied by a nervous tilt of her head to look me in the eye confirming it.

I’m not bothered by the mistake. “I love you,” I tell her, my hand trailing up to trace the underside of her breasts. “You don’t have to say it back. I just want you to know.”

Her smile is a shy one that grows until the dimple on her cheek appears, and even in this dim light I can make out the flush that creeps up her pale neck and onto her cheeks. “I love you too,” she whispers, blinking back unshed tears.

It’s impossible not to kiss her in this moment. She tastes as sweet as ever, her berry scent a happy cloud around us as she sighs against my mouth, giving her ass a little wiggle backwards against my erection.

“Sorry, I can’t help it. I promise I’m not trying to fuck you right now. You should sleep.”

She hums happily, settling back against me. “I will. I just woke and thought I’d read a chapter.”

“And how many chapters ago was that?”

“Two…welve…” she admits sheepishly with a small laugh.

“I think it’s time for bed.”

“Let me just finish this one, it’s almost done.”

“Hmm. What are they up to, now?” I ask, nodding at the screen. I see the words knife and bed and raise a brow.

“She just fucked her stalker.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“In this book, yes. He's a nice stalker.”