Page 162 of Labor of Love

My orgasm barrels into me, and I come untouched, my cock twitching against the soaked sheets until the spurts of cum become pathetic dribbles. Slumping forward, I try to bury my face in the pillows, but Gideon wraps his arms around me and flips us so that he’s lying in the mess on his back. With barely a pause, he fucks up into me, cock driving me wild with every pass.

“I can’t?—”

“You can, baby. Look how well you’re doing.” His praise sends a shiver through me. I want to be good for him, to keep going. But I don’t know how many times I’ve come already and I need him to knot me. It’s all I can think about as I beg and plead.

“We have all night, love and we’re only just getting started,” he promises, grabbing my ass and using me like a fleshlight. It’sfilthy and messy, and so perfectly perfect that I wonder if this is even real.

Almost four hours later, he finally gives me what I want. As we lay in the darkness, exhausted, with his knot lodged firmly inside me, I try to chase away the whisky tendrils of regret I can feel pressing at the edges of my mind, looking for a way in. My body is sore and rung out, my skin tender and sensitive, but the unrelenting need for him has quietened.

Gideon’s warm body wraps around me, and I melt into him.Safe. Home. Mine.Just as we’re falling asleep, I think I hear him whisper, the words cool against my neck.

“Please don’t regret this.”

1

ROWAN

“Do you hear what I’m saying, Rowan?” Zion’s gentle caramel-colored eyes burn into me as my brain continues to whirr away at the speed of light.

I’d been feeling sick for weeks. Nausea, stomach cramps, unable to eat—the whole shebang. Writing it off as a bug, or bizarre sickness, I’d tried to carry on like normal. It was my boss who’d finally made me book an appointment with Zion.

I’d also briefly flirted with the idea that it might have been sympathy symptoms, since my cousin Bell was expecting their first child. I hadn’t for a moment thought that the pregnancy test might actually be positive.

“No, I hear you. I just don’t understand. I wasn’t in heat. My heat had ended. Finito. Finished. There was no heat to be had.” I’d always kept track of my heat and carried suppressants—I was the poster child for sexual responsibility, except for that one night. One night and now everything was about to change.

“Row, you’re a male omega…” Zion scrubs his face, clearly a little exasperated with me. I wasn’t an idiot, just in denial.

“Yes, thank you for stating the obvious.” I give him a droll look, straightening my bow tie and pushing my glasses up mynose. I needed to return to the office after this. How on earth was I supposed to face Gideon, my boss, now?

Zion continues, “You don’t technically need a full heat to get pregnant. That is just your most fertile time. There have been cases of omegas becoming pregnant just before the onset of their heat, or in the aftermath. And looking at the tracker in your phone, you were likely still experiencing heat after effects.”

Heat after effects…Was that why, after two years of pining after Gideon, I finally crossed that line? I never would have dreamed of spending the night with him normally. I knew my place was by his side, but as his Executive Assistant only.

Gideon Carrington was a business tycoon, ruthless in the boardroom. He was also one of the richest men in Crest Haven, who was famed for having a new, beautiful omega on his arm at every social event or function. With his thick dark hair, sharp jawline and piercing blue eyes, it was no surprise he was a playboy. He was every omega’s wet dream. In all honesty, I was surprised we hadn’t run out of eligible omegas in the city by now.

That night was a fluke. We’d both had too much to drink because rich, handsome alphas don’t look at omegas like me. I don’t even know why I drank so much. I rarely touch alcohol when I attend work functions. Gideon had been dancing with Amara Eldar, a gorgeous omega actress with the prettiest silver hair I’d ever seen and I’d been at the bar, five whiskies deep before I knew it. How I’d ended up in Gideon’s hotel room is still a bit of a blur, a hazy memory I’m not willing to poke at.

“You had unprotected sex, that was always going to put you at risk, whether pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.” Zion leans back in his chair, crossing his hands in his lap and when his mouth drops open again, I know he was preparing a lecture.

Lifting my hand, I silence him. Unlike my cousin and their friend, Shiloh, who also used Zion as their doctor, I wasn’t somenaive, fresh-faced twenty-something. I was thirty-four, and well aware of the consequences of my own stupid actions.

“Keep your judgement to yourself, Zion. Bell and Shiloh may be perfectly happy with you adding your opinion into their appointments but I am not.” Sometimes my age was a boon. I have a quiet confidence I never did ten years ago.

Sighing, Zion’s features soften. “Apologies, I’m not trying to make you feel like I’m judging you. I just want you to be aware that there are always repercussions and consequences.”

I glance at the blood test results on the screen. Lowering my voice, I mutter, “You’re telling me.”

A baby.

Not a bug. Not some strange illness. A living creature I was responsible for growing inside me.

“What about the other parent? Is that someone who will support you if you go ahead with the pregnancy?” Zion’s question makes me swallow a bitter chuckle.

Gideon was one of Crest Haven’s most eligible bachelors. A baby wasn’t on his radar. I wasn’t even on his radar.

After that night, I’d snuck out of the hotel and grabbed a cab back to my apartment. Crying in the shower over the mess I’d made, I gave myself fifteen minutes to get over it. My crush on Gideon had leaked out, and had the potential to ruin everything. I refused to let that happen.

When I climbed out and toweled myself off, I’d managed to pull myself together. My feelings were packed away into a box and pushed aside. It was a mistake. We both knew it. So, when Monday rolled around, and I sat next to Gideon in the back of his town car, I pretended like it had never happened.

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