Page 65 of Ruffled Feathers

I curled my lip. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.” I raised an eyebrow. “I hope your parents aren’t too disappointed. I watched your case in there, and it was lacking at best, and grounds for a professional misconduct case at worst. I hope your client appeals, because he’s going to get thirty years due to your incompetence.”

I leaned down toward him. “I wouldn’teverblame my own failures on someone else’s designation. Strat Wilmington is a hundred times the lawyer you are, and I hope you go home, cry yourself to sleep, and pray you develop half of his talent. He didn’t win that case because he’s an Omega; he won it because he’s damn good. It didn’t help that you are dangerously useless.”

Stepping back, I looked at them like they were both worse than shit on my shoe. I moved around them and over to Strat, who was watching me with an amused expression. Placing a hand on his lower back, I escorted him out of the courthouse and to my car.

As soon as we were inside the vehicle, Strat leaned over and kissed me hard, the embrace filled with a fervent need until I was panting and my cock was straining. When he pulled away, I felt drunk with lust.

He grabbed the front of my shirt. “That wasn’t necessary, but you defending me was hot as fuck. Thank you, Truett.”

I shrugged like it was nothing, which it was. It was the bare minimum I should do as a human being, let alone his Alpha. “All I told them was the truth.”

He flopped back into his own seat, his cheeks a shade of pink that made me want to take him back to my apartment and strip him down. Shaking his head, he gave me a resigned expression. “Their words don’t affect me, Truett. I’ve heard hundreds of versions of the same speech since I was a freshman in college, from my peers, judges, clients. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

I hated that. I hated that he just had to grin and bear the disrespect. “I never thought you were using your Omega-ness to win during college. You were fucking good—anyone with half a brain could see that.” I started the car. “You kicked my ass fair and square more than half the time.”

Pulling out into the traffic, I drove us to the restaurant. It was a little hole-in-the-wall Turkish place that was a hidden gem. The chef was a seventy-year-old Turkish matriarch, who ran that kitchen like a drill sergeant. It helped that most of the other chefs were her sons and grandchildren.

Laughing, Strat put his hand on my thigh. “That’s why I had the hugest crush on you. I jerked off to the thought of you more times than was probably healthy. Every time my heat came around, I thought about asking you to see me through it. But you were one of the few who saw me as just another student and not an Omega. I wasn’t about to change that just because of my heat.”

The idea of anyone else seeing Strat through his heat made my stomach curdle with jealousy.Never again. Just me and my Pack from now on.

How different would life have turned out if we’d taken Strat as an Omega back then? “I would’ve been honored. It wouldn’t have altered my respect for you.” I laid my hand over his where it rested on my thigh, entwining our fingers. “I can’t help butfeel like everything worked out how it was supposed to, though. I would’ve been a shitty Alpha back then, too filled with cocky bravado and absolutely zero skill,” I teased. “Now, you can have everything your heart desires, Strat Wilmington, and I’ll be right there in the wings, giving you what I can and supporting you to achieve what I can’t.”

He squeezed my thigh as I pulled up to the parking space out the front of the restaurant. “Everyone says Sonny’s the sweet one, but I think deep down, you’re a bit of a marshmallow, Truett Heathstone.” He lifted my hand to his lips, kissing and then scent marking it. “I can’t wait to be your Omega.”

We made it to the club before Sonny and OJ, and we were led straight to our table. I was so full from dinner that you wouldn’t know I had abs underneath the food baby straining against my shirt buttons. Strat had lost his suit jacket and tie, and had unbuttoned the top three buttons of his dress shirt. How he’d gone from highly paid lawyer to wet dream in the space of a car ride was nothing short of a miracle.

As we walked through the club, people eyed him like they wanted to mount him right there, Alphas and Betas alike, and I had to swallow down my growls. But I did put a possessive arm around his waist.

I was tempted to drag him to the bathrooms, to show him just how much I wanted him, to prove to him that he was mine, to cover him in my scent. We could maybe pretend we’d just arrived once the others got here.

Strat raised an eyebrow. “Stop looking at me like you want to fuck me on this table, or I might take you up on it.”

Growling, I lunged across the booth. I’d claim him here, in this writhing mass of people, for everyone to see.My Omega.Hewas laughing, but when I reached over and grabbed his cock, it turned into a moan. Let him see I was serious.

The scent of orange blossoms and gardenias suddenly washed over me. “Stop groping my Omega,” OJ whispered in my ear from behind me, saving me from claiming Strat right here in the club. Strat was now looking wide-eyed, his lips parted. Looking over my shoulder to see why, I sucked in a breath.

She looked fuckingbeautiful.She was in a dress I’d certainly never seen before, and if I’d seen her in it before leaving the house, it would have been straight on my bedroom floor. It was a short black bodycon dress that clung to her curves, with long sleeves and a high, straight neckline that brushed her collarbone. It had mesh cutouts, hinting at the curve of her breasts. Her hair was up, so you could see the long curve of her throat.

Glancing down, I realized she was wearing sparkling black Converse, and I smiled. She’d never mastered stilettos. God, I loved her. As she leaned in to kiss me softly, I put my hand on her waist and realized that the dress had absolutely no back.

Just acres of exposed skin.

God, I was going to murder someone tonight. At least her claiming marks were visible, sitting above her shoulder blades like tiny wings.

As she leaned across me to kiss Strat, Sonny slipped in behind her, so she didn’t flash the whole damn club her underwear. I gave him awhat the fuck were you thinking?look.

Years of friendship and a Packbond let me interpret his return expression asshe looked so beautiful, I couldn’t say no.

That was fair. There was very little I’d deny OJ. But man, tonight was going to give me a heart attack. We should have brought Lance. He could have put some Alphas into a sleeper hold or something.

Strat had tugged her over my lap and was nuzzling his face into her neck. Scent marking her, I realized.Man, why didn’t I think of that?

“Otillie-James, you take my breath away,” he growled, his hands running up and down her spine. “I vote we grab a bottle of something top shelf and just go back to my apartment.”

She threw her head back with a laugh. “No way. I got all dressed up and did my makeup and everything. We’re going to dance.”

As Sonny slipped in on the other side of the booth, I groaned. “We’re going to need alcohol, and a lot of it.” I signaled the bottle girl, who quickly returned with a bottle of tequila and an assortment of mixers. Sonny poured a couple of fingers of straight tequila into our glasses, and I raised mine in toast. “To our brilliant and talented Packmate on winning his case.”

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