His Unwanted His Beloved His Omega

Eliza fell back onto the mattress, her body slick with perspiration and limp with pleasure. Spasms of her powerful release still violently racked her slender frame.

Her husband, Romano, had disentangled, detached, and distanced himself from her within seconds of their mutual orgasm and lay on his back beside him, his breathing heavy and ragged.

Eliza turned on her side to lovingly trace Romano's profile with her eyes, yearning to touch and caress the smooth and slightly tanned skin, but she knew her touch would be rebuked.

Romano's words, the ones he always said after his climax, still hovered in the air between them and still, after all these months, it hurt more than they should have.

"Give me a son, Eliza..."

With those five words, he killed the afterglow, destroyed the intimacy of the moment, and relegated the act into nothing more than a biological act for an heir.

After eighteen months of the same things, same words, Eliza had finally accepted that it would never change. It wasn't an abrupt realization. No, it was one that had been growing steadily since the very first time he'd said them.

But Eliza had her own five words. They were words that had been on the tip of her tongue for months and should have been spoken long before now. They were words that she could no longer swallow; no matter how much it hurt her to say them.

She sat up, naked, her body still trembling, and drew her knees to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs, pressed her cheek to her knees, and watched as Romano's breathing steadied and her own shaking subsided.

He lay spread-eagled, magnificently nude, his eyes shut, but she knew that he wasn't asleep. As usual he would take a few moments to compose himself before heading for the shower, where she always imagined him frantically scrubbing her scent and touch from his bronzed skin.

Eliza could no longer contain the words, and they spilled from her lips in desperate earnestness.

"I want a divorce, Romano."

Romano tensed. Every single muscle in his body went as tight as a coiled spring before he turned his head to meet his stare. His eyes were hooded, and his upper lip curled mockingly.

"But I thought you loved me, Eliza," he taunted with exquisite cruelty, and Eliza closed her eyes, trying to mask the pain that his words caused her. When she was sure she had her emotions under control, she opened her eyes.

"Not anymore." She hoped the lie sounded convincing.

"Hmmm..." Romano purred. "What happened to 'I'll love you forever, Alpha'?"

"Things change," he whispered.

"What things?" Romano rolled onto his side and propped himself up onto his elbow, resting his head on his hand. He looked so much like a spartan gladiator in repose that her throat went dry with desire.

Eliza swallowed painfully.