“Right, so—”
“And is the fucking catering here yet? Has anyone done a taste test of their wares? We liked the samples but—”
“They have, and—”
“And what’s with this music?” I looked around me, hearing the dulcet tones of really bad muzak being piped through the speakers. “This isn’t what we agreed upon.”
“No, but—”
“Breathe.”
Max’s voice was a firm hand on the back of my neck, and as if aware of this, his actual hand followed suit. He rubbed the muscles there, both hands getting in on the job, working on the tight knots.
“How did you do that?” Joey asked. “Like seriously, how? She was talking so damn fast, like firing questions left and right, and I was struggling to even work out what she was saying, she was talking so fast. Like, have you seen those videos of Busta Rhymes, when he just raps so damn fast and there’s words, so many words, and you can’t work out which one is which, and you’re sure he needs to take a breath and he doesn’t and—”
“You need to breathe too, Joey.”
We both did, and Joey blinked, despite herself. As I did, I felt like my consciousness was coming back online. That was when I looked around me.
“You’re seeing it.” Max pulled away and moved to face me and then he glanced around the crowded convention centre. He smiled then, those blue eyes flashing with a light that was positively radiant. “You’re seeing what you’ve done.”
“We’ve done,” I said on reflex.
“And without you, where would we be?” He stepped in closer, brushing a little kiss across my lips. “Nowhere, baby, nowhere without you.”
Then he pulled me close, and I sank into his arms, feeling like all of the million thoughts teeming inside my head fell away as I just breathed him in, his scent, my mate’s scent.
“You found her.” I pulled back to see Beau had jogged up. “I’ve been looking bloody everywhere.” He scanned the two of us, that awareness of our mood that seemed to always be present in him clocking our position, our closeness. “Everything OK?”
“It will be,” I said with a smile. “Right after—”
“No time.” Lucien arrived and then grabbed my hand, yanking me after him.
“Lucien!?” I yelped, but we wove our way through the vendors and the stalls, walking and walking until we burst into a packed conference hall, people turning to look at us as we passed, but none more than Tobias.
He stood on stage, elegant in his suit and utterly contained, only the burn of his eyes letting us know how he felt.
“As CEO of Dacian Enterprises, I’d like to thank everyone for coming here andto acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land and pay my respects to the elders, both past and present. We’ve gathered here to try and find better ways to meet the challenges of our time, to share ideas and build solutions for the future, but I also need to acknowledge that none of this would be possible without the interventions of the director of Dacian, Sage Lockwood.”
I just stared at him then. We hadn’t talked about this, and he was just going to—?
I shot Tobias a dark look, but by the time I faced down the crowds and sucked in a breath, I realised what this was. They would push me, push me forward, push for greater recognition of what I’d done, and they wouldn’t bloody stop.
That was why I loved them.
“Thank you all for coming. So the idea for this symposium came from…”
I’d madeit clear I wasn’t into impact play. Turned out I just didn’t like it being directed at me. As soon as the day was over and we were back in our suite, I turned to them.
“Better tell me your safe words, boys,” I snarled as soon as the door was closed. “Because I’m about to kick your arse.”
KEEP SWIPING TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF FORBIDDEN FRUIT
What’s next?
A lot of people were asking about Forbidden Fruit, the stepbrother wolf omegaverse I had planned for this series and it’s finally starting to come together. Hoping to have it out early next year!
Chapter 1