"Night, Reese."
I watch her walk toward her dorm, then ride slowly back to the team house, her lip prints a distraction on my helmet. My room is dark, quiet, but I don't feel like sleeping. Instead, I sit by the window, thinking about moonlight on water and the taste of Reese's lips on mine.
Tomorrow, she'll probably go back to being careful, keeping her distance, pretending. But tonight, for a few minutes, she was just Reese. No walls, no masks, no fear.
Tonight, just for a moment, she was mine.
chapter TWELVE
Reese
Ican still tasteCameron on my lips.
My hair drips lake water onto my dorm room floor as I stand frozen, staring at the note taped to my door. Three scrawled words that turn my stomach to ice:
I KNOW YOUR SECRET.
No signature. No explanation. Just black ink on white paper, the handwriting unfamiliar but deliberately harsh, each letter pressed deep enough to nearly tear through.
With trembling fingers, I peel it from the door and slip inside my room, engaging both the deadbolt and chain lock behind me. I lean against the door, heart hammering so hard I swear it will crack my ribs.
Who left this? What exactly do they know? And why leave an anonymous threat instead of confronting me directly?
I flip the note over, searching for more clues. Nothing. The paper is standard college-ruled, torn from a notebook. The ink looks like a regular black ballpoint. Nothing distinctive that would identify the sender.
It could be about anything, I tell myself. My designation. My suppressants running low. The fact that I just kissed Cameron Blake in the middle of a lake at midnight.
Cameron.
Despite my panic, warmth floods my chest at the memory. I didn't plan to kiss him. Didn't even plan to get on his motorcycle when he pulled up beside me. But something about him, the quiet intensity, the way he seemed to see right through my carefully constructed walls, made me reckless.
I press my fingers to my lips, remembering the moment. The cold water around us. The warmth of his skin beneath my hands. The surprising softness of his mouth against mine. The scars that mapped his torso, telling stories he keeps silent.
I'd never seen him without a shirt before. He's always the last one changed, the first one dressed after practice. Now I understand why. The marks crisscrossing his body, some thin and precise, others jagged and angry, spoke of pain beyond typical sports injuries. Pain deliberately inflicted.
He never offered explanations. I didn't ask. Something about the understanding in his eyes when he said"I know you're hiding"told me he carries secrets as heavy as mine.
I shake my head, forcing my thoughts back to the immediate problem. This note. This threat.
Four people definitely know my secret: Eli, Jackson, Tyler, and now Cameron. Possibly Gray, depending on whether he saw thecalendar in my notebook. None of them seems the anonymous note type. If they wanted to confront me, they would do it directly.
Which means someone else has figured it out. Or suspects.
I push away from the door and head to the shower, desperate to wash away the lake water and clear my head. Under the hot spray, I try to think logically, the way my father taught me.Assess the situation. Calculate the risks. Determine the logical response.
The situation: I'm an Omega passing as a Beta on an all-Alpha rowing team where I'm already the first female coxswain in the program's history. My suppressants are running critically low. At least four teammates know my secret. Someone else, someone outside the team, has discovered it and left a threatening note.
The risks: Expulsion under University policy. Loss of my position. Damage to my athletic career. Disappointment from my family, who expect me to keep my "unfortunate designation" private. And now, potentially, exposure by someone who wishes me harm.
The optimal response: I have no fucking clue.
I rest my forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall, letting water burn over my shoulders. What would Father say if he could see me now? His Omega daughter kissing an Alpha she barely knows, hiding her designation, failing at every turn to meet the Callahan standard of perfection.
"Callahans don't fail,"his voice echoes in my memory."They find solutions."
Solutions. Right now, the only solution my brain can focus on is the memory of Cameron's hands on my waist, the intensity in his usually unreadable eyes when I pulled away from the kiss.
"Because you kissed me. And I liked it."
