“Shit,” Rhys said when he realised, clicking the button on the remote to kill the feed. “How are you feeling, omega?”
Well, wasn’t that the million-dollar question? He wasn’t asking Cyn because Cyn wasn’t here right now, man. I was all omega. Instincts I didn’t understand and impulses I was afraid to indulge battered me like gale force winds, and nothing I did seemed to settle them. I felt that itch, deep down inside, something that would grow and grow if I let it. A match lit, dropped into dry tinder, ready to explode.
“Come here,” he said, his command gentle but to be obeyed nonetheless, and he picked me up, wrapping my body around itself before he did the same around me. “You’re safe, you’re OK, you’re…”
Loved? That seemed to be the only reasonable way to end that sentence, but he couldn’t say the words and I couldn’t hear them. So I just buried my face in his neck, breathing in his minty pine scent, and tried to find myself again in all the crazy.
Rampant and rut, frenzy and heat, they were all part of the courtship of alphas and omegas. I’d read a million books and watched countless shows where the little omega finds his or her alpha. That self-same formula, of scenting their mate, of feeling the first magnetic pull of omega to alpha, of the increasing rise in tension spilling over into the state of being rampant or frenzied, depending on whether the person was male or female.
Logically, I knew it was a period of heightened arousal, of biology going hello, mating time is a coming, pushing past objections and prejudices and bringing the pair together. If you were rampant, your cock was always hard, it was difficult to get it to go down. You dripped cum, your balls aching for release. And if you were female? I’d read it, heard it, seen it described a million different ways, but nothing compared to this. I needed, that was all I could say, in ways I’d never known or understood before.
“You smell like you’re still receptive, so you’re probably still in frenzy,” Rhys said as he held me still. “I won’t command you, but it’d put my mind at ease if you stayed here. Any alpha that gets a whiff of you is going to smell that scent and want to do bad, bad things. This place is like Fort Knox. No one’s getting to you unless you want them to.”
I pulled back, studying those pale blue eyes for a second before saying, “Including you?”
“Especially me. We’ll put you up in one of the guest rooms if that’s what you want, give you all the keys for it. Whatever it takes.”
“And why would you bother?” I asked, biting off the words. The nagging need inside me, commanding me to reach out and touch him, twisted into a low hiss when I wouldn’t let myself. I was a cat with my fur fluffed up, cornered and hissing. “Because you want to get me out from under your skin.”
I pulled back, looking down at those brief shorts, seeing the hard line there.
“You’re rampant, all of you. Well, maybe not Marcus. I’ve infected you with my omega cooties.” I wiggled my fingers for emphasis. “But it’ll go away
. It’s just alpha and omega bullshit.”
I went to clamber off him, but his hands locked down on my thighs. Of course, that was when my phone rang. He relented when I looked at him pointedly, leaning over and fishing it out of my bag.
“Sweets, are we on for tonight?” George asked. “We haven’t had a chance to discuss, and your mother’s starting to get fractious, BTW. Better call her before she sends out a search party. You’ve had like a million invitations and I won’t bore you with the details, but I was thinking an opening at the Delozian gallery could be a winner. All very elite, invite only, and you’ll never guess who the artist being exhibited is.”
“Who?” I asked with a slight frown, feeling the weight of Rhys’ hand rubbing up and down my thigh.
“James Chadwick. I know you’re a massive fan and—”
“We’re going. I freaking love his work. Those illustrations he did—”
“I know, sweets, you spent most of the Omega Ball rhapsodising about his work the year you turned nineteen. If you’re still feeling energised, there’s a cocktail party with the artist and some friends being hosted by the Lasseters. I know the family, old money but lots of noblesse oblige going on there. Two of the sons are looking for mates…”
“If they’re not dickheads, count me in. What time is pickup, and I assume a cocktail dress for the Lasseters will pass muster at the Delozian?”
“Yes, and seven-thirty sharp. I’ll be waiting out front with my driver.”
“You got it, and, George…” I took a deep breath. “Thanks for this. You could have taken me to some stuffy alpha club where dudes paid you for the privilege. I know how it works with some of the other professional chaperones.”
“Not with you, my love. I save such underhanded tactics for the nasty little slappers who like to make bitchy comments about my past life.”
I cracked up at that and he laughed with me, and for a minute, everything was all right.
“Well, kisses and all that, and call your damn mother. I can only cover for so much,” he said as a sign off.
“Will do, and I’ll call her right now. See you at seven-thirty.”
For a second, I just stared at the phone, feeling like my brain was kicking into gear for the first time all day. I didn’t know much about frenzy other than what I’d read, but I was already calmer, more centred.
And sitting on an alpha’s massive hard-on.
I slid off Rhys’ lap, his hands going to stop me, but I wriggled free. I stood up and paced as I rang Mum’s number.
“Cyn, thank goodness. Where did you get to? It’s been hours since you left, and I was beginning to worry.”