Reborn Omega; I Refuse To Be Your Substitute

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Nora's POV

For a second I genuinely forgot how to do anything.

Not just breathe. Everything. Think, blink, move, exist. All of it just stopped, I couldn't explain how.

His tongue traced the seam of my lips, soft but sure, and I opened for him before my brain could even catch up. The kiss got deeper right away—warm and a little messy. A rush of heat flooded my chest and spilled down my spine, making my knees feel weirdly unsteady.

I stood there staring at him, and he stood there looking back at me while kissing me. The room was completely silent, and my brain was offering me absolutely nothing useful.

Then everything came back at once.

My eyes went wide and I pushed against his chest and took two steps back so fast I nearly lost my balance.

"What the hell?!"

My voice came out louder than I meant it to. Cael didn't flinch, didn't move, didn't even look particularly surprised, which somehow made everything worse.

I pointed at him.

"You—"

Nothing came out.

I tried again.

"You—"

Still nothing. My entire vocabulary had apparently left the building.

His eyebrows lifted slightly while his tongue came out to lick his lower lip.

"Interesting."

"Interesting?!" I stared at him. "Did you hit your head this morning???"

"No."

"Are you sick?"

"No."

"Do you have a fever?"

"Nora."

"Then explain to me," I said, pointing between us, "why you just did that."

He looked at me for a moment, and I could see him considering the question like it deserved genuine thought, which was not the response I needed right now.

"Because I wanted to," he said.

I stared at him.

"THAT is not an explanation."

"It is."

"No, it absolutely is not."

He leaned back slightly against the edge of his desk, arms folding across his chest, looking completely unbothered in a way that made me want to throw something at him. I looked around the room briefly, genuinely considering my options.

I pointed at myself instead.

"I work for you."

"I'm aware."

"So you understand why this is a problem."

"Is it?"

"Yes!"

He tilted his head slightly, and I caught it, just at the corner of his mouth, the smallest twitch.

"You're enjoying this," I said, fing internally.

"I'm not."

"You are literally almost smiling right now."

"I'm not smiling."

The twitch deepened slightly, which proved my point entirely, and I turned away from him because looking at his face was not helping me think straight. I crossed my arms and stared at the window for a second, trying to get my brain to organize itself into something useful.

It didn't cooperate.

I turned back.

"Cael. Christ, What is happening right now?"

He straightened up from the desk, and just that small movement made the room feel different. He wasn't doing anything dramatic, wasn't crowding me, wasn't performing anything, he just moved and somehow the air shifted anyway.

I stayed exactly where I was.

"You asked me a question last night," he said.

I blinked.

"Outside your building," he continued. "You asked what we were."

My stomach dropped slightly.

"I.... I remember," I said, keeping my voice level.

"I didn't answer you properly."

I scoffed internally even though my heart was beating fast. "You didn't answer me at all."

"No," he said. "I didn't."

He looked at me steadily, and something about his expression had changed. The calm was still there but underneath it was something else, something that looked almost careful, like he was moving through this particular conversation with more attention than usual.

I didn't know what to do with that.

"So what....." I said carefully, "is this? You're answering now?"

"Yes."

I waited.

He didn't rush it, didn't fill the silence with something unnecessary, just took one step toward me, slow enough that I could have moved back if I wanted to. I didn't. Mostly because my feet had decided to stop listening to me entirely.

His hand came to my waist, light, not holding me in place, not pulling, just resting there, and the warmth of it went straight through the fabric of my clothes and landed somewhere in my chest.

Wait......

I looked down at his hand. Then up at him. Then back down at his hand.

"Cael...." I said, very quietly.

"I've spent days trying not to say this," he said.

My heart did something I was going to have words with it about later.

"Say what?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.

He looked at me, and I mean really looked, not the teasing version, not the CEO version, just him, steady and direct and more honest than I was prepared for.

For a moment he didn't say anything, his eyes staying on mine, and then his hand shifted slightly at my waist, barely moving.

"I can't stop thinking about you."

Everything went still. The room, the air, the small sounds from outside the office door, all of it just seemed to fade somewhere into the background.

I stared at him, no expression, no movement, nothing, just standing there like my face had forgotten how to do anything else.

Because that somehow felt worse. Much worse.

Love was big and dramatic and impossible. This felt real. Too real.

Because men like Cael Draven were supposed to dodge things, deflect them, give irritating non-answers and smirk while doing it. Not stand there looking at me like that. Not say something quietly like it had been sitting in his chest for a while.

"...What?"

His eyes didn't leave mine.

"I said I can't stop thinking about you."

His voice stayed calm, too calm, like saying it out loud hadn't cost him anything. But something in his face said otherwise.

Something happened in my chest then, not a nice something, a strange something, a sudden pressure that came from nowhere and rose too fast, spreading outward in a way I didn't recognize immediately.

I pressed a hand flat against my stomach.

Wait.

I blinked.

Wait.

Cael's expression shifted, the certainty still there but something else coming in beside it now. Concern.

"....Nora?"

I looked at him and then away and then back at him again, and the pressure got worse, twisting upward in a way that had nothing to do with emotions and everything to do with the fact that I hadn't eaten anything this morning and had spent last night barely sleeping, and my body had chosen this exact moment to make that known.

Oh no.

"Nora, what's wrong?"

Oh no, no, no. Not here, not right now, not in front of him, not after he just said that, not in his office where people outside could see through the glass, not like this.

"Move," I managed to say.

He frowned.

"What?"

"Move," I said again, more urgently.

"Nora—"

"Cael, move."

I pushed past him before he could say anything else, yanking the office door open, and the sound of the main floor rushed in around me, phones and keyboards and low voices, and I was already moving before any of it fully registered.

"Nora."

His voice behind me. Close.

I didn't stop. I couldn't explain it, couldn't turn around and give him a normal response, couldn't do anything except keep moving down the hallway with my hand pressed against my stomach and my face doing whatever it was doing.

"Nora!"

Closer now, still following.

I pushed through the door to the corridor without looking back, and the only thought in my head, repeated and useless and completely unhelpful, was....

oh God, oh God, oh God!

Because somewhere between the kiss, the quiet office, his hand on my waist, and words I had not been remotely prepared for, my body had apparently decided it had reached its absolute limit for the day.