I made a face telling him I didn’t believe it even for a second. “Take a shower with me? I still have you all over me. And dirt.”

“If we have to.” His purr got louder as he grinned. “Can’t say I mind you being covered in my scent.”

Rolling my eyes, I headed to his bathroom. “Given we’re having dinner with my mom tonight, maybe I shouldn’t smell this intense.”

“Fair point.”

Kade took care of turning on the water, and I looked at myself in the mirror. He wasn’t wrong. There were darkening bruises on my arms and stomach. There was even one on my neck, likely from his hands. He turned me to see my back, where there was a black and blue splotch growing. “Okay,” I admitted. “I see why you were worried. But I promise I’m good. I like my battle scars.”

He dropped a kiss on my shoulder and wrapped his arms around me, sneaking his fingers between my legs. “And here?”

I gasped, going up on my toes. “Funnily enough, it’s one of the few places not sore. Ass, too.”

Fucking Omega biology. Even when we weren’t in heat our bodies were ready to go, prepared to take knots and all. Rut was a part of life as much as heat. If rutting behavior harmed the Omega, it would be monumentally shitty.

“I’m glad,” Kade said.

Stepping under the spray of water, I let him take care of me. He washed my hair and body, and I didn’t interrupt him, because I knew he needed it. But when he was finished, I kissed him. “Thank you for chasing me.”

“I’ll chase you anytime, baby. I loved every fucking second. Just seeing you banged up is harder than I expected.”

After he washed himself, we stood under the water until it started to go cold. And then he carried me up to my bedroom where there were clean sheets so we could sleep some more before we had to face the collective horror which was dinner with my mother.

* * *

I found a shirt that covered almost all the bruises. If I was going to do this, I wasn’t going to have my mom wondering why I was covered in them, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell her it was because I got ruthlessly fucked in the woods.

The one visible bruise was on my wrist, and I could say I got it because I fell down while running.

Which wasn’t exactly a lie.

I was keeping it casual, but all the guys looked nice. Not suits, but button-downs or henleys, almost all of them wearing dark jeans. They weren’t a tuxedo wearing pack, and we weren’t going to pretend they were simply for my mother.