Chapter 23: Necessary conversation.

Matteo sits down on his bed adjusting himself facing the young woman and leans between his knees and turns seriously to Oliva.

"What about that thing you told me?" Matteo stifles his teasing and teasing and tries to understand what happened earlier.

"Oh, that..." Oliva clears her throat and faces him. Matteo affirms with his head helping her to get the courage to finish speaking and trust him, and she does, "It's still true.

I've never spent a rut with an alpha, never let anyone get close enough to say. You and my father kind of forced me with a contract not to use inhibitors that 'nuptial' year"—She reinforces the quotation marks on her hands. "I'm just tired of running, hiding mostly from people who want to take advantage of me for being who I am." She blurts out.

She had spent so much time locked in the same environment with Matteo that her brain related him as a friend. Actually, he was a good friend, always had been, but with this mess of a husband she wanted to make clear her position against the idea that they were not going to be a happy couple. But maybe she could recover that essence of having a friend around in difficult situations. Like now.

"I'm going through some things that even I don't know how to explain, and to be clear, not even very drunk would I kiss you like that." Oliva crosses her arms and tries to soften the elephant in the room and smiles sarcastically.

"I can't say the same... Oliva, I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been trying to get closer to you since the day of our..." Oliva cuts him off.

"From our wedding. From our sham wedding! Yeah, I get it!" She says with her mouth twisted.

"Argh, have patience." He frowns. "I did you a favor, ungrateful." Matteo lets it slip and rolls his eyes and sighs heavily.

"Seeing me naked was a favor for whom? Pervert!" Oliva asks sarcastically and altered, pointing her finger at him.

Matteo's reaction is to laugh heartily. She was thinking about the most recent situation, and he was not going to contradict her. It was better that she didn't understand.

"You grabbed me. Who's really the pervert now?"

"I told you, I don't know what got into me, to do that shit." Faces meet, she inhales the woody essence exhaling through her pores. "I-I really regret it... Oh, do I regret it."

"Do you really regret it, Oliva?" Matteo asks, staring at her intensely, her eyes never leaving his. "I don't think you regret it no... And if I kiss you now, you will reciprocate."

"Don't you dare!" She points a finger at him.

Matteo raises his hands in the air, surrendering. The laughter ceases and silence dominates the room. Oliva lets out a heavy, tired sigh and then she continues.

"Many alphas came at me only to brand me because of my name. I spent years hating myself, hating my gene and even my family's position, Matteo." Oliva collapses and feels a huge weight come off her back. "It didn't matter where I was in, this happened in high school, in college in Madrid, in Japan when I went on business and even when I went to spend time in France... I was never important to a man as a woman, but rather as an Omega. The Omega Moore."

"Is that why you got involved with my brother?" Matteo asks stunned. Lian had painted himself as a good Samaritan to everyone around him, but he knew him too well.

"Yes." Oliva grabs Matteo's bottle again and realizes it is already half gone and grimaces in displeasure. "We've known each other since we were kids and even the silly pranks and challenges you guys used to do involving me are all behind us. He is good to me and mostly he loves me for who I am, not because I am unmanageable. He doesn't want to hand me out like a trophy around." She sighs heavily. It was good to say what had been plaguing her for days and years of her life. "Nobody ever took my stupid feelings into account but Lian..." She raises her gaze to the alpha. "Matteo, promise me you won't say any of this to anyone. And not even about my attack or my slightly out of-control, let alone my hormonal problems!"

The boy's throat closes abruptly, and he swallows dryly, he was surprised and stunned.

Oliva notices the blatant doubt in Matteo's countenance and frowns angrily.

"Come on, I'm standing here all mushy, talking about feelings and all that nonsense, and you're looking at me with that pouty face?" The young woman raises her voice and half-closes her eyes. "Come on, I'm asking for a simple truce." She confidently extends her hand to Matteo.

The alpha bites down so hard on the inside of his mouth that he felt the metallic blood taste mingling with the alcoholic content circulating in his gustatory pupils. He had already gotten himself into this, he couldn't weaken for a pair of light brown eyes that sometimes turned a pure intense blue to collapse his plans. He squeezes Oliva's hand firmly.

His conscience would kill him, but he could work it out later.

"I promise I won't say anything to my idiot brother." He suppresses a grimace at mentioning him. He wouldn't stoop so low and play with anyone's emotional fragility like that,

Lian didn't deserve even a third of the affection Oliva spoke of him and it made his blood boil in hatred. He wasn't deserving of Oliva's sweet love.

Matteo felt like breaking his brother's face again. The broken arm and leg were not enough, he deserved so much more.

"I still don't know what I've lost for you guys to hate each other so much now." She says amused, surely, she thought it was just jokes and teasing. "I remember you two used to get together to make mischief with me."

Oliva's entire body vibrates at the suggestive speech and the fragments of that damned dream take hold of her mind again. With heat in sight, her body would beg for what she was unwilling to give. Two hot men eating her like that would only be in a dream, especially since they were brothers.

Oliva had to stress to herself all the time to remind herself that she was in a bitch of a jam.

"Ah, don't worry about it. Lian just likes to take things from me." Matteo says and shrugs his shoulders. "And now I decided I wasn't going to let him do that anymore." He grabs the bottle of wine from the girl's hand again and realizes that it is almost empty. "Man, how do you drink so much?" He asks incredulously, this was already the second bottle she had drunk practically by herself, and it was still in a considerable state.

"It's a gift." She says simplistically.

"You are definitely a weird Omega" he says amused and lies down again with his arms propped up over his head.

"Unfortunately, I'm strong with drink...so I need another one!" She says and gets up reaching for the mini fridge in the room that was next to the television. She opened it choosing what she wanted. "Do you want beer or Vodka?" She asks Matteo.

"Do you really want to mix booze like that?" he asks exasperated. How could she digest all that alcohol without getting sick? "Give me a beer." He asks and she throws the can through the air, and he reaches for it without difficulty.

"Honestly? Don't try to understand." She says and opens the can of booze and lets her body plop down on the bed amidst the pillows.

It was comfortable. She couldn't take the alpha as an enemy for long, he was annoying, irritating and ridiculously handsome. Oliva raises her left hand and stares at the white gold ring that once belonged to her mother in pure melancholy. His plans never involved marriage; he always thought this ring would belong to a future sister-in-law.

"You know the symptoms will only get worse, right?" Matteo states. "You won't be able to hide the heat from Lian. What are you considering doing?"

"I haven't thought about it yet..." Oliva mutters.

"I can help..."

"Sure, you'd love it." She rolls her eyes. "I still don't know what yours is. Why did you accept all this nonsense? Do you want to use me as a trophy out there, too?"

"No." The alpha says seriously. "I've always found you interesting. And I'm serious, I can help. The hard-on, the out-of-control and especially the cold will come back, each day more intense than before." Oliva feels a deep chill at hearing those harsh words. He would never understand how nature despised his race. It was a curse.

"I may be everything bad, but I am honest and fair. I can't ask you to cover for me while I take inhibitor serum, that would be dishonest with me." She drinks some more and feels the torridness consume her insides. Oliva had clear principles, she was incapable of lying for her own benefits, she hated and loathed the kind of person who took advantage of others to achieve their goals, she could never be the one she despised the most.

"If you have never been through a rut, you will die if you don't have a mate." He says slyly and thankfully that she brought it up herself. "Lian would probably get mad and break up whatever you guys have, right when he finds out you're going through a rut and can't be with him." Matteo snaps his mouth shut.

"And you suggest that I fuck you, so I don't break up with your brother?" she asks wryly.

"I don't want you to get more complicated. And mostly I don't want you to die." Matteo stands up in an impulse and sits down next to the young woman, causing her to step back and straighten her posture pretending to be unfazed by the alpha's sudden approach. "Did you even notice why your body is not used to this, or why you are drunk enough not to notice that your lips are purple and your face has poor blood circulation." Matteo lifts his hand and lightly runs it over the sweating face of the girl, who feels a smoky hot trail where the other's fingers trail a path.

From one second to the next, Oliva feels an icy blast take over her body again making her shiver from head to toe. She concentrates on the minimal touch that was her source of heat and bites her lips so hard she felt a ferrous taste invade the inside of her mouth and tries to keep her wild impulses in control.

The alpha's eyes meet hers and she is lost in the irises that sparked in flaming yellow. She didn't recognize herself, couldn't explain that devastating attraction that invaded her when Matteo approached. She couldn't tell if it was due to heat, after all would she feel this way about any disgusting alpha in the middle of a raid? Maybe, or maybe not.

Matteo was different, his inner self said so right.

She didn't want to think about such things.