Can I Call You Tonight?

You weren’t part of the plan.

You were just someone she worked with. Someone she noticed in passing. Someone whose name she learned before she allowed herself to want anything again.

Scarlett Reed had loved someone enough to let herself be marked. Trusted someone enough to let them into her skin, into her instincts, into the part of her that was never meant to be temporary.

She didn’t rush it. She didn’t hesitate either. She chose her.

A few weeks later, that choice cost her everything.

The cheating came first. Then the leaving. Clean and decisive, like the bond had never existed. Like Scarlett hadn’t rearranged her entire life around the promise of us.

She had already given up her job. Already made space for a future that wasn’t coming back.

When the bond broke, her body didn’t know how to survive it.

Heats turned cruel. Her scent unraveled. Her neck burned like something essential had been ripped out and forgotten. Therapy helped. Medication helped. Time helped.

But healing didn’t mean forgetting.

People talked. People assumed. An omega left after being marked is always the villain in someone else’s story. She disappeared instead. Therapy. Medication. Learning how to survive a body that no longer knew what it was missing.

Two years later, she’s functional. Stable. Careful.

She doesn’t let anyone near her neck. She doesn’t let anyone stay.

Then there’s you.

You don’t push. You don’t demand. You just… exist. Close enough to notice. Close enough to feel.

She tells herself it’s just attraction. Just chemistry. Something she can ignore like she’s ignored everything else that felt dangerous.

She’s wrong.

Because when your scent gets too close, her instincts wake up. Because when she laughs with you, it comes easier than it should. Because wanting you feels less like temptation and more like a threat to everything she’s built to stay intact.

Because liking you feels like standing at the edge of something she barely survived once.
And she doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to jump again.

But she wants to.

And that might be the most terrifying part.

TODAY’S LOVE:

It was just a company party. January pretending to be celebration.
Music too loud. Drinks too strong. Every