Page 8 of The Omega's Alpha
“I’ll let the office know to expect it.” They hung up, and Quin shook his head and checked the time. “Bax,” he yelled. “I think I’ll take you up on that meal.”
“I’ll let Holland know,” Bax called back, and seconds later, Quin heard the click of Bax’s phone being picked up.
Chapter Eight
Igotoff the phone with Bax and cursed. I was sure he was doing it on purpose, as if being happily mated meant he couldn’t imagine why someone else wouldn’t want to be. As if he thought that Mercy Hills was so special I’d find someone to make me a happily mated shifter again. As if that was even possible.
Only if he was six-foot-five with dark hair with a bit of a curl in it, and brown eyes.And if I wasn’t a disgraced omega.
Okay, the truth of it was, I was still kind of shaken from the episode in the laundromat. I’d gone back a bit later than I should have, nervous as a deer, to find someone angrily emptying my clothes into one of the dryers because all the rest of the washers were full. I’d apologized and taken the clothes home to hang out, intending to put the incident behind me and study my math while they dried. Except I couldn’t focus—my mind kept going back to the way the young shifters had spoken to me, instead of trying to figure out how to draw the graph of a parabola.
It wasn’t what they’d said so much as how they’d said it, the way their mouths had caressed my name like it was one step removed from my body. Like they had that right, and it was just my lot in life to expect to be an amusement to them.
It pissed me off.
Why should I have to change what I wanted, ignore my own desires, because of what other people thought of me or thought I was? And, for that matter, it looked like they’d already made up their minds about who I was anyway. Today’s incident was extreme, as Mercy Hills behavior went, but I got enough side-long glances from other packmembers to get the message.
Well, fuck them all.
No, not them. Quin.It occurred to me that, if the pack thought I was loose and easy to have, why was I fighting the reputation? It was like trying to push water uphill—you could make small inroads, but it all eventually ended up at the bottom again. If I was going to be a scandal, I might as well enjoy it.
Math was going nowhere, so I put my books away and checked the freezer to see if there was more ground beef or if I’d pulled the last of it out this morning to thaw for supper.No, no, no… yes!I filled the bottom of the sink with hot water and dropped the plastic bag in. By the time it was thawed, about an hour, I could have the rest of it seasoned and rolled into meatballs to simmer away in the sauce all afternoon. Maybe I’d even put some of the sauce into them, to add to the flavor.
I spent a busy hour mixing tomato sauce from last year’s batch of tomatoes, some spices, mushrooms, and a couple of handfuls of the baby tomatoes that Bax and I had planted around the house. We’d meant to use them for snacks for the pups, ripe and sweet and ready to burst, but they added a freshness to the sauce that I liked. Then I grated some summer squash and carrots into the pot, for flavor and bulk, and set the whole thing on the stove to simmer away for the afternoon. Meatballs were all different sizes—large ones for the big people, small ones for the littles. I made a few in the middle size for Fan, because he was in school and had decided he was too big now for little meatballs, which amused the hell out of me so I catered to him, but only a little.
Bax and I had a lot of the same ideas about child-raising and neither of us wanted to encourage the idea that being an alpha—or just being Fan, because the boy could totally go there—meant that he could do and demand whatever he wanted without any responsibility on his part. Abel deferred to Bax on most of the child-raising decisions, or they came to an agreement before they changed anything, and he spent as much time with the pups as Bax did. But I’d realized less than a month after moving to Mercy Hills that his idea of an alpha’s and an Alpha’s responsibilities in a pack were different from a lot of what I’d seen in others. And that included his conviction that the better part of the job of any alpha was to look after and protect the other pack members, and to hold themselves in check for the good of the rest of the pack. It still struck me as odd compared to how I’d been raised, but the strangeness of it was wearing off, and I supposed that eventually I’d be as odd as the Mercy Hills shifters too. At least, about that.
Maybe about this too. With the meatballs simmering away, I stole upstairs to pick out an outfit that wouldn’t look like I was trying to hard, but would also look really good. After going through every drawer, I settled on a sky-blue t-shirt in heavy cotton that hung like it was way more expensive than it actually had been, and an old pair of jeans, washed soft and nearly white. I trimmed a few threads away where the seam was trying to fray again and laid them out on the bed for later. Then I went to raid Bax’s library for reading material while I had a bath.
Baths had never been my thing. Nor had reading. But Bax, for all his sweetness, had a bit of the devil in him and he hid it so well I never even noticed him getting under my skin. Not until the day I picked up one of his books to fill a spare half hour, and later realized I hadn’t gotten any of the housework done and the breakfast dishes were still sitting in the sink, unwashed, as suppertime roared down on me.
The book was damn good though.
Since then, I’d tried to make a little time to read every day, just enough for a chapter or two. A lot of it happened in the bathtub after the pups were safely in bed and Bax and I had caught up on the thousand and one little chores that didn’t seem to get done during the day. And even though it was only the beginning of August, we’d already started knitting winter sweaters for the pups. Well, I was knitting—Bax was knit two, undo one, knit four, undo one. I could tell he hated it, but the pack had gotten a deal on wool and embroidery thread from a shop in the city that was going out of business, and he was determined to make use of the supply.
Didn’t matter. We’d started early enough that even if he never finished a thing, I could get them all done.
So, yeah, reading happened in the bath, and I finally understood what the attraction was.
What should I read?I knew he’d bought another book, sneaking it guiltily into the house, though I doubted Abel would have noticed if we’d waved it in front of his face wearing nothing but pompoms. Actually, I could guarantee he wouldn’t notice the book, because he’d have Bax on whatever horizontal or vertical surface was closest and Bax would be asking what took him so long, which would have been funny except for not needing to see my favorite cousin’s mate balls deep in said favorite cousin.
But truthfully, Abel was head over tail in love with Bax. I thought Bax was worried about money and pack credits, and just not used to having anything to spend. I also thought that Abel understood that, because his usual response when Bax awkwardly mentioned that the pups needed something or he needed something was, “Why not buy two, just in case?” Old habits died hard and it was hard to put yourself first after years of being last.
Me, I could easily get used to this life, if I ever found a well-to-do mate that didn’t mind used goods. In the meantime… “Ha! Found you!” There was a bookmark in between the pages, but that was okay. I wouldn’t lose his place. It was calledThe Sheik’s Secret Concubine.
Sounds promising.
Half an hour later, I’d skimmed the boring introductory parts and gotten to the meat—I giggled at that thought— of the story. This Sheik wanted a secretary who was familiar with Britain and could guide him through British society. And, evidently, one he could diddle on the side.
“I like blonds,” the Sheik told Edward, walking toward him like a cat stalked its prey. “You are a particularly fine specimen.”
“Your Majesty,” Edward stammered. “I’m not—” The Sheik’s hand touched his face, stroking down his neck to test the musculature hidden under Edward’s suitcoat. “Your Majesty!”
“Tell me,” the Sheik said, ignoring Edward’s protests. “I hear that young men from your country often shave their entire bodies. Are your balls as lovely and smooth as your face?” Without warning, he cupped his hand between Edward’s legs and rubbed. “Beautiful,” he whispered and pressed close. “You’ll come to my chambers tonight. I’ll send a servant for you. Be certain you wash well—I like my lovers clean. And if you haven’t shaved—” He gave Edward’s stiffening cock a last, loving stroke. “Do so.” Then he left, and Edward leaned against the wall, panting and painfully aroused.
He didn’t want to surrender to this man, this—arrogant prick who upended lives without thinking about it. But he needed this job.
And, God help him, he needed that man too.
