“Only fucking way I like it,” Marcus replied, all shit-eating grin, but that faded when more lube was spread on Brendan’s palm, their cocks pressed up hard against each other, his hand wrapped around them. “Don’t hold back. Don’t you fucking hold back, alpha.”
“You’re gonna make a mess of this fancy suit, and you’ve got that meeting with the gangs later,” Brendan ground out, followed by a deep growl. “Fucking hell! I want to knot you.”
“Not your fucking omega,” Marcus snapped, his eyes boring into Brendan’s. “Just me.”
“That’s all I need,” he replied, leaning in and nipping at Marcus’ mouth until he opened it, until they kissed like two cars crashing into each other at high speed. Orion watched on like they were the most perfect, most beautiful things in the whole world, all that cool façade destroyed by them
.
And Rhys? His focus was on me, and only me, with a disturbing intensity, like my reactions were writ large across my face and he would catch every one. A water bottle was produced and pushed into my hand. Self-care, always with the self-care, alphas. I heard the sounds of Brendan and Marcus reaching their climax as I twisted off the lid, sucking down water to rehydrate my bone-dry mouth, and then it was all over.
“Love you,” Brendan said with one last kiss, then pulled away. “Fuck, what a bloody mess! I’m using the executive shower and making myself decent.” But he moved slowly, making the smear of cum across his taut stomach and staining his shirt apparent. That and his massive cock. “And you’re still here.” His smile was loose and messy, a devil-may-care grin. “Looks like you were right, Orion. This is the first omega to pass the test.”
“I told you, she’s different.”
Oh, OK, we were back to the staring at the omega part of the evening. My eyes lowered on automatic, my hands clenching around the water bottle until it made a crunching sound, then Rhys pulled it from my fingers.
“Good girl…” he rasped, little more than a whisper.
“So you must be fucking fit to burst, Rhys,” Marcus said, “breathing in Cyn’s fucking scent. It’s been a long time since we’ve had an omega around. You must be damn close to rut. Come here.”
The command was definite, but when I looked up, Rhys just shook his head.
“Getting all protective already? Fuck, if you wanna play nursemaid rather than have our boy here wrap those cocksucking lips of his around your dick—”
“Shut up, Marcus,” Orion said, some of the softness that had risen between them being shoved away. He was up and out of his chair, then zipping himself up and putting his clothes to rights. “You always want to be a fucking cunt, but not here, not now. She’s no threat to us.”
“No, she’s fucking not,” Marcus growled up at him.
“She’s not coming between us. There’s been omegas that have come in this office before her, and there’ll be many more. This is a means to an end. If we find Cyn what she’s looking for, she’ll throw me over, leaving my father outraged and sympathetic in turns. It’ll buy us some time. That’s what we need—time.”
When Marcus’ gaze returned to me, it was as if everything I’d just seen was packed up nice and tight behind a calm mask, ready to be unleashed much, much later. When it was just him and his mates. When it was safe to do so. So he got to his feet, cleaned himself up, swapped his stained shirt out for another, and then came to stand before me.
“So what does our little omega want in a mate? Someone rich, influential, that goes without saying.” A hand on my jaw, but he didn’t tip it up, just let the thumb graze against my skin as I focussed on keeping my breaths even. “Someone dominant?” A hand went to the back of my neck, grabbing me there, the press studs of my top pushing in. “Yes, I think she wants that.”
“Every omega wants that,” Brendan said, obviously having rejoined the group.
“Someone cruel?” I winced when the fingers pinched my skin, but no sound escaped my lips.
“Not that,” Rhys insisted, shoving Marcus’ hand away and replacing it with his own, the palm moving up and down my neck, soothing the skin there. “Mating an omega binds her to him for life. You need someone who’s going to respect that bond.”
“Fuck, that disqualifies most of the people we know then,” Brendan replied.
“If this were an easy task, we wouldn’t want it,” Orion said, and I could see the shining black tips of his boots when he moved closer. “It’s not like we’re not asking the same of her. Being with us, covering for what we do, pretending to be exactly what my dad and all his cronies expect, what all our families expect, that’s a whole lotta hoops to jump through.”
“Well, aren’t we lucky that omegas are so obliging?” Marcus dropped down to meet my eyes, those hazel depths seeming to see straight through me. “You want that, to please me, don’t you?”
“Jesus, Marcus,” Orion hissed. “Don’t muddy shit up.”
“But that’s what I do, my love. There’s no boundary I won’t step over.”
I grit my teeth, let my eyes close for a moment as I breathed in their collective scent, feeling for the first fucking time the rush I was always supposed to feel in the presence of alphas I was compatible with.
“Just stay in the moment,” my therapist had said. “Omega or not, you don’t always have to be in a state of vigilance. If I thought it would help you anticipate everything that will happen to you, I’d teach you how to do it better, but it can’t. Not for you, not for any omega. Not for any person, irrespective of designation. You may be an omega, but that doesn’t make you powerless. You have a constitutionally protected right to find your own way to the alpha of your choice. Your choice.”
And that was what I had to focus on, not these wild boys and the way they clashed together. Love was a battlefield, but I was going into it with four heat-seeking missiles at my side. I pulled my head up and saw the slight rush of surprise on Marcus’ face when I met his eyes and held them. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
“I’m in,” I replied.