The Alpha’s Omega

Chapter Seventeen : The pull between us

Fernanda had barely slept.

She could still feel the ghost of Ace’s teeth against her skin, a phantom heat that made her restless all night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his eyes—stormy, hungry, unyielding.

The next morning, she tried to distract herself with work. The camera felt heavier in her hands, and every sound in her studio seemed amplified. But it was pointless—her mind kept drifting to him. To the way his thigh had pressed between hers, to the sound of his low growl when he’d told her she was his.

She was halfway through editing when she heard it—heavy footsteps outside her studio door. Her pulse spiked.

The door opened, and there he was. Ace.

He filled the doorway like he owned it, tall, broad-shouldered, and exuding that dangerous Alpha energy that seemed to bend the air around him. His eyes locked on hers, and she swore she felt the earth tilt.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said simply, his tone calm, but threaded with that quiet dominance that made her toes curl in her shoes.

She swallowed. “I’ve been busy.”

A slow smile tugged at his mouth, but it wasn’t amused—it was knowing. “You’ve been hiding. You think if you put enough space between us, you’ll stop feeling this pull.”

Fernanda’s fingers tightened on her camera. “Maybe I will.”

Ace stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with deliberate slowness. “No, Omega. That’s not how this works.”

She hated the way her body reacted—how her pulse leapt, how her skin tingled, how her scent spiked in the air. The bond between them wasn’t subtle; it was alive, thrumming, pulling her toward him like a tide she couldn’t fight.

“You’re dangerous,” she whispered, as though naming it would lessen it.

He closed the distance between them in two long strides, his scent enveloping her—dark pine, smoke, and something uniquely Ace. “And you like it.”

She inhaled sharply when his hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing along her jaw. “You’re trembling,” he murmured. “Not from fear.”

Her voice was a fragile thing. “You think you know me?”

“I feel you,” he countered, his voice dropping lower. “Every heartbeat. Every shiver. Every time your scent changes when I’m close.”

The truth was, he was right. She couldn’t hide it—her body betrayed her every second they were together. The pull between them was maddening, raw, and unrelenting.

“Ace…” she started, but the rest of her protest dissolved when he tilted her chin up and kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle this time—it was hungry, almost desperate. His mouth moved over hers with command, like he’d been holding back for far too long. His other hand slid around her waist, pulling her flush against him, and the heat that surged between them was enough to make her knees weak.

She should have pushed him away. She should have told him this was wrong. Instead, she clung to him, answering his kiss with equal hunger, feeling the deep rumble in his chest as their bodies aligned.

When he finally broke the kiss, his lips hovered over hers, his breath hot. “You’re mine, Fernanda. I’m done pretending otherwise.”

Her chest rose and fell quickly, her Omega instincts roaring in agreement even as her mind tried to argue. “You don’t get to decide that.”

His smirk was dark, his eyes locked on hers like she was the only thing that mattered. “I don’t have to decide it. The bond already has.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but then his hand slid lower, over the curve of her hip, anchoring her against him. She could feel the hard line of his body, the unmistakable need there, and it sent a shiver racing down her spine.

“This thing between us,” he said, voice gravelly, “you can fight it all you want. But it’s only going to get stronger. Every time you breathe, every time I look at you, every time you smell like that—” his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply at her neck— “it pulls me closer.”

She swallowed hard, her pulse in her throat. “And if I keep fighting?”

He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. “Then I’ll just pull harder.”

A shudder went through her, and she hated how much she wanted him to make good on that promise.

The air between them was molten now, thick with the mingling of their scents. Ace’s gaze flickered to her lips again, but instead of kissing her, he stepped back a fraction, as though testing how far the pull would stretch before snapping.

And it did snap—she found herself moving toward him without thinking, her hand reaching for his chest.

His smile turned slow and dangerous. “That’s it, Omega. Don’t think. Just… feel.”

And she did. The war in her mind went silent, replaced by the heat pounding in her veins. The pull between them was no longer a quiet tug—it was a fierce, magnetic force, inevitable and unbreakable.

Somewhere deep down, Fernanda knew she wasn’t walking away from this man. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Fernanda’s hand stayed pressed against his chest, feeling the steady, powerful beat of his heart under her palm. It was like touching a live wire—every nerve in her hand woke up, her whole body buzzing with the contact.

Ace’s gaze dropped briefly to where she touched him, then lifted back to her face, slow and deliberate. “You feel that?” he asked, his voice low, intimate. “That’s not just a heartbeat. That’s your name in my blood.”

Her breath hitched. “Ace…”

He stepped in again, closing the small space he’d left, until his thigh brushed hers, his scent wrapping around her like a dark, velvet rope. “You think this is some game, Omega?” His voice was husky now, threaded with the dangerous patience of a predator who could pounce at any second. “You think you can pull away, ignore me, and this… thing… between us will go away?”

She tried to form words, but his hand slid to the back of her neck, his thumb stroking lightly against the sensitive skin there. Her knees almost buckled.

“I feel you everywhere,” he murmured, leaning so close she could feel the warmth of his lips without them touching. “When I close my eyes, when I breathe, when I sleep—hell, even when I fight—I feel you pulling me back. And every second you’re not in my arms, it’s like something in me is… wrong.”

Her pulse hammered. The raw truth in his tone was more dangerous than any threat.

“Ace, if we—” she started, but he cut her off with a sharp, searing kiss, one hand gripping her hip and dragging her flush against him.

It wasn’t slow this time—it was a claiming, a reminder of every primal right he believed he had over her. She gasped against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, deepening the kiss until her thoughts blurred into nothing but heat and need.

When he broke away, his lips lingered on hers, his voice a whisper of gravel. “You’re not getting away from me, Fernanda. Not today, not ever.”

And she didn’t know which was more terrifying—how certain he sounded, or how much her body wanted him to be right.