Page 143 of The Price of Ice

Chapter 45

It’d been the best heat of his life even before they’d stumbled into what seemed like magic out of a fairytale. And the next morning, Levy had ordered them breakfast and fed him little bits of fruit while Kallen rested his head on his lap. At least until he had woken up enough to sit up and start eating on his own, too hungry to wait.

Levy had laughed at him, then stolen his hand to lick at his fingers, so naturally they’d made a right mess of the sheets and ended up having to do laundry because the rental didn’t have a spare set.

Later, squished up together on a sofa way too small for two men of their size, their conversation somehow devolved into trying to calculate how sex marathons compared to a workout session in terms of keeping them in shape.

“Well, it’s keeping me fit forpurpose, isn’t it?” Levy asked with a grin that was dirty as hell, and Kallen could either laugh or throw a pillow at him for being so cheesy. He went with laughter, it was an easy choice.

“So you never dated anyone before?”

Levy’s expression grew more serious. “No, I did. In secondary school, I used to go out with this girl, Anita. She was a beta, but I liked her a lot and if it’d lasted.... But well, it couldn’t last because it wasn’t my priority.”

“A beta?” Kallen asked in surprise. “And her parents were okay with that?”

It was technically possible for alphas and betas to have long-term relationships, but it wasn’t normal. Alphas didn’t need omegas, but they were naturally primed to want them.

“I think they figured I was less likely to get her in trouble?” He shrugged, chin buried into one of the floral decorative cushions. “And we weren’t allowed to be alone anywhere anyway.”

That at least made sense. Kallen’s own experience of sex was exceptional amongst teenager in general, not just omegas. From what he’d absorbed from popular culture and others’ stories, adults tended to want to restrict teenagers’ sexual activity. He’d never felt like he could say anything about it, though back with Robert he’d felt pretty lucky that he was allowed to do what he felt he needed.

Except that no one had taught him how sex really worked, or that it went well beyond touch. Before Levy, he’d seen it as little more than another tough workout. Sure, he got an adrenaline spike when he did it, but he wasn’t doing itfor fun.

A sharp toe digging into his thigh made him startle. “Where did you go?”

“Um.” He cleared his throat. “I... I never— I mean, back with the first alpha I ever slept with, I thought it meant something more. Or not thought, really, because Iknewit didn’t because he was my captain and we had a contract, right? But once we started, it felt like it did, you know?”

Levy made an affirmative sound.

Kallen’s face was hot, and he was tugging too hard at the sleeve of his hoodie, but he couldn’t stop. He wanted to be happy. Hell, he wanted to fall to his knees and give thanks. For the very fact that he could kneel, for Fair Sport and Analisa and Brad and his parents and of course the man entangled with him, patiently listening as he freaked out about being happy. “This is new.” He shrugged a little.

“Okay, is it good?” Levy asked him, easy and direct.

“Yeah,” he said immediately, unthinking. He snorted. “So good I am half expecting to wake up from it any minute.”

Levy’s smile had an edge of sadness to it. “Well, you could, I guess. But in the meantime, you might as well enjoy it, right?”

It was a very good point, of course. And maybe if it wasn’t a dream then it would eventually become believable. The cottage’s toilet needed someone to go and reseal the fixtures, for one thing. That was unlikely to be a subconscious fantasy of his.

ANALISA WAS GOING TOthe Fair Sport party, and Kallen had offered to drive her over there when he and Levy made an appearance. His boyfriend had been visibly nervous when he’d asked, but to his credit, he’d agreed right away.

Like the gentleman he was, Levy had insisted she take the co-pilot seat, which meant she was half-twisted around to talk to him. Kallen had made sure to mention Levy had read through his contract to help him, and they’d somehow got to the topic of the current legislation as it pertained to omegas in sports.

Mostly Analisa was catching them up on the very fucked up fine print. She’d already decided she’d keep volunteering with Fair Sport when she went back north to university.

“Because I needed more extracurricular reading,” she commented sarcastically, though as far as Kallen could judge she knew the topic backwards and forwards already.

“How come nothing’s changed in so long?” Levy asked her.

“No, no, it has,” she insisted. “But it’s like a chess game, really; we make a move to improve things, they take their own to still be able to do whatever they were doing through some loophole. It’s better, really, because the more we manage to alter the legislation, the better protected most omegas are. But so far, we haven’t been able to get a decisive ban on sexual favoursbetween co-workers, and that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to end it all.”

Levy hummed thoughtfully. “Is there something I could do?”

The silence made Kallen steal a glance at his mirror, but from her profile, all he could tell was that Analisa was looking at his boyfriend.

“Sure,” she said at last. “You could do a lot. But how much are you willing to stick your neck out?”

“Hey!” Kallen intervened. “Don’t give him crazy ideas!”

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