Page 50 of Act Like You Don't Care
“Panic button?” Tam said softly behind me.
I crooked a finger at him and showed him the panel, just barely visible behind a tall pedestal table with a fat display of silk flowers on it. “Not likely, but on the off chance that something goes down and we get separated, hit this button. Jim and whoever came up with him can be here in less than a minute. And in the meantime,” I took him around behind that wall, into the single bedroom on the first floor, “You come in here, close and lock the door, and hit this button.” I showed him another on the wall behind that door. “Press that and it pops open a door behind this bookcase. There’s a panic room behind it. It’s not big, but once you get in and lock that door, it’ll take the army to get you out of there.”
I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, but he was Tam and I wasn’t surprised at all to see his face settle in determined lines. “How do I let you in once I’m in there?”
“You don’t.” I watched the dawning realization in his eyes. “No, really. It’s okay. I can look after myself, and I’m much better at it if I know I don’t need to worry about you. This is just worst-case scenario—it’s more likely I’ll be in there with you while we wait for Jim to storm the ramparts.” In an attempt to lighten the mood, I added, as offhandedly as I could, “We should probably stick some books in there. Waiting on Jim, we could be a while.”
It didn’t get the chuckle I’d hoped for, but it did put an end to the train his thoughts were taking. He paid close attention to what I was doing as we paced through the house, upstairs and down, checking the rest of the windows and showing him the upstairs panic buttons. I walked him through the access to the attic, where he could go out a hatch at the far end and get down to the ground from the back of the roof. “Follow the lights down the hill to the cabin,” I said, pointing them out from the master bedroom window. He nodded attentively, hot on my heels as I went back to the kitchen to set the alarm.
“Alarm code,” I said and showed him. “Anyone coming through a window or a door now is going to be pretty unhappy about twenty seconds later.”
“Twenty seconds? Your brother won’t set it off coming through in the morning?”
“It’s enough time for him to get inside and put the code in. If you can’t get to the panic room, opening one of the windows while the alarm is on will also set it off, so do that, even if you’re upstairs.”
He raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “Is that where we’re sleeping?”
Awkward. And then, not awkward as he leaned into me again, mouth gentle against mine. Almost as if he were the alpha, trying to seduce me, the omega.
I shivered, then pulled him against me. “You’re sure you want to do this?” I whispered as I nosed along the corner of his jaw, breathing his scent deep into my lungs. At least some part of me was trying to be professional. Unfortunately for it, the rest of me didn’t give a fuck. I wanted him, both for myself and for the chance to give him whatever it was that he needed from me tonight. Maybe even more than that someday, I decided, but he had barriers and defenses that were going to take a lot of work to get past. In the meantime, I gave up thoughts of the future in favor of watching his expressive face.
Tam squinted at me in disbelief. “Shut up, Miles. We just barely escaped being gassed and there’s a lunatic out there who wants to brutalize me back into being a proper omega.” A flash of uncertainty crossed his face, gone almost before it was there. “I swear, I won’t say a word, I won’t have any expectations, and I won’t hold it against you. But right now, I want to fuck you so bad I might explode.”
Miles
The next kiss was slow again. Another seduction, tasting of orange and alcohol. Tam melted into my arms like the omega he tried so hard not to be, his body molding to mine. I slid my hands down Tam's back until they rested in the hollow of his waist, hesitating over the temptation of the smooth skin only a layer of cloth away.
"Oh, good idea," Tam breathed against my mouth. He took a half a step back and stripped his scrub top off, tossing it out of the way. "You too." He closed the already short distance between us, near enough that I could smell the orange juice still on his breath, mixed with his own sweet, musky scent. His hands slipped underneath the edges of my jacket to rest flat against my chest, then he pushed it off over my shoulders, chasing it down my arms until it fell on the floor behind me. “Arms up,” he quipped, wrapping his fingers around the hem of my t-shirt. Like Pavlov’s alpha, I lifted my arms automatically and he pulled the shirt off over my head to toss it on the floor to keep my jacket company. “That’s better,” he whispered and stroked my chest. His palms were hot, almost burning, and my breath shook as I inhaled. His eyes met mine, the ceiling lamp throwing his face into shadow. “Come here.” He shuffled backward, pulling me toward the first-floor bedroom until, with a twist of his body that caught my hormone-enslaved reflexes off guard, he tumbled me onto the bed.
“I’ll have to learn how you do that,” I told him in between kisses.
He laughed. “And lose my advantage over you? Not a chance.” He bit at my jaw, then slithered off the edge of the bed and stood up, his hands going to the waistband of his scrub pants. “I like you this way.” He tilted his head to one side, his gaze making a leisurely trek down my body that I could almost physically feel. “Actually, let’s start with you.” He moved his hands from his own waist to mine and popped the button on my jeans.
“You know I’m a big boy,” I reminded him, moving to do it myself.
“Yes, indeed, you are,” he muttered and chuckled deep in his chest. “All right, if you want to take your own clothes off for me, I’m not going to stop you.” Tam took a step away from the bed and spun his index finger in a ‘go-ahead’ sort of movement, grinning broadly. He looked entirely delighted with the situation.
I refused to break eye contact with him. My zipper went down with painful slowness and I felt my own sadistic chuckle building in my chest as the flush in his cheeks spread down over his chest. His hand twitched toward the erection his scrubs were useless at hiding, but he clenched it into a fist and refused to admit the effect my little show was having on him.
Just as slowly, I peeled the front of my jeans away from my hips, inching them down as far as they’d go with my weight on them. It felt like the entirety of my soul had centered itself around my cock, that part of my body feeling as heavy as sin while the rest of me floated almost weightless, waiting on the omega in front of me. He wasn’t going to do anything until I was naked, despite how badly he wanted to—he had his pride and his reputation and he’d already decided that he was the one in charge here tonight. That spine of steel he’d developed would hold him to that. I wasn’t going to fight him on it—no one would win then. And above all else, I wanted him to win. Here. With me. I could give him that, to start the process of patching the damage the stalker had done to his sense of self.
Tam’s eyes flickered away from mine, just for an instant, when I hooked my thumbs over the waistband of my jeans and slid them back to lever the cloth down over my hips. I braced one foot on the side rail of the bed to take some of the weight off that hip and started a slow shimmy that gradually exposed everything from my hips down to my thighs.
Tam exhaled harshly through his nose and he licked his lips. “Need a hand?” he asked hoarsely.
“I never turn down help,” I said simply.
He nodded and tugged on the legs of my pants, went down on one knee to pull off my sneakers, then tossed the entire bundle across the room with a triumphant, “Ha!”
I laughed and held out a hand for him. “Come join me.”
He shook his head, golden hair a halo around his face. “Move up here.” He patted the pillow with one hand and pushed at me with the other.
I did as he asked and rolled over onto my side to watch as he climbed onto the bed to lie down beside me. “You know,” I said casually and stroked the backs my first two fingers down over his nipple. “I think, when they give you this new role, you’re going to get that Oscar you’ve been after.”
Tam draped his leg over mine. “You do know how to sweet talk a fellow,” he whispered through a smile and bent his head to capture my mouth in a kiss that scorched me right down to the soles of my feet.
We stopped talking then, more interested in what mouths and tongues could do against skin. I nibbled my way down the side of Tam's neck, which made the omega sigh and tilt his head to the side, his eyes closed in ecstasy. He smelled amazing and I wanted to just roll in that scent, wrap it around me as I explored the rest of Tam's body.
