Heated Manipulations

by Aiden Bates

  “Honey, I’m home,” I deadpanned as I strolled through Nick Paulson’s front door. He’d been leaving the chain lock off while I was out and about, letting me borrow his extra key so he wasn’t always having to let me in. Wasn’t the happiest about that, but Nick had insisted. Didn’t want to inconvenience me.

  He was sweet like that. Sweet in a lot of other ways, too. For far from the first time, I wondered why Josh hadn’t made a move on Nick—but I suppose if there’d been anything between them, Nick would have bothered to mention it by now.

  “Harper! Come in here, will you?” I heard Nick’s voice call out from his office down the hall. “Literally just found something—might be worth your time.”

  “Yeah?” I kicked off my boots at the door and stuck my head into the office. “What’s the damage?”

  “No damage. Just a lead—or half of one. Maybe.”

  I entered, leaning over Nick’s computer chair and catching a whiff of his shampoo as I read over his head. Mint and sage. Herby in all of the best ways.

  Nick highlighted the text for me with his cursor. Thanks for this, it read. You’re the only person I trust right now.

  “From Josh’s sent folder. Sent from about a week before…”

  “You’re the only person I trust right now,” I read out loud, feeling a little sting of shame. He’d been my brother. Nick had been his partner in his investigation. But apparently, neither of us had made the cut. “Well, ain’t that a bite in the ass, then.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  Nick moved his cursor over, highlighting the recipient’s email address. Just a string of random numbers in front of a Gmail account. A burner if I’d ever seen one. “Someone who didn’t want to be found out, looks like.”

  “Let’s see if they’ll bite, then.” I pulled out my phone, setting my VPN to Charlotte and logging into my own burner account.

  “What’re you saying?”

  “Trying to finish the work. Can you help?” I read aloud as I typed the words in.

  I pressed send and sensed Nick holding his breath along with me. No immediate response, though. Not unusual, but still—annoying. Disappointing, too.

  “Think we’ll actually hear back?”

  There was hope shining in Nick’s eyes. I only wished I could mirror it.

  “Hard to say.” I pocketed my phone again and shrugged. “Now, we wait.”

  “Yet another similarity between being a PI and a journalist, I guess.” Nick turned his computer chair around to face me properly. “I know it’s probably stupid, but…”

  “Go on.”

  “Is it weird that I’m kind of…excited by all of this? I know why we’re doing it and all, and obviously it’s terrible, but…”

  I smirked. “Certain thrill to it, isn’t there?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Some idea,” I corrected him. “I know the feeling. I’m feeling it too.” My smile faded. “So did Josh. Kid was always keeping his eyes peeled and his ear to the ground.”

  “Good way to give yourself a migraine.”

  “But a great way to keep chasing this intangible high. Little shit always loved a good mystery. Loved hunting down clues.”

  Nick laughed. “He ever go off on you about the Kennedy assassination?”

  I nodded. “And the MLK one. Abe Lincoln, Princess Diana…” I chuckled. “Even reckoned the Canadian PM might be Fidel Castro’s secret lovechild. Any place where coincidences lined up with facts just right, Josh was there.”

  “But he knew this was dangerous, too.” Nick inclined his head back toward the email on his monitor. “He was being careful.”

  “Had to be. But even if he’d known from the start it’d probably get him killed…” I sighed. “He still would’ve hounded the story down. Runs in the family, I s’pose. Generations of us King boys, and every one of us has turned out to be some kind of adrenaline junkie. Soldiers, bodyguards, cops, PIs… Even the nerds like Josh had it in them. We see something that gets our blood pumping, and it’s like we can’t…” I blinked, catching a strange look in Nick’s eyes. Admiration, maybe, but it was tinged with something beyond that. Something more keyed up. Intense. “Can’t help ourselves.”

  Nick stared at me for a moment longer before he finally spoke. “Pretty hot, though.”

  I raised an eyebrow, breathing in a slow, shallow breath. Nick might’ve been pregnant, but that didn’t change basic biology. He was attractive. Exactly my type and then some. And his scent…Christ. There was something there beyond the nice smell of whatever shampoo he was using.

  I’d seen the look in Nick’s eyes in the eyes of other Omegas before him. Wanting. Needing. Longing. It was the kind of look that I usually sank my teeth into and ran with. Took advantage of.

  But Nick was pregnant, and I didn’t do long-term. If I wasn’t willing to go the distance, I needed to keep any thoughts about what I might do with a look like the one he was giving me to myself. Exclusively. Besides—with this whole birth control thing and the case of the missing baby daddy still hanging over his head, I figured he’d already been taken advantage of enough for one lifetime anyway. Didn’t need me barreling in and knocking his feet out from under him all over again.

  Nick, however, seemed to have other plans.

  He rose from his chair slowly, staring at me like I might burn him if he let himself touch. Touched me anyway—first, just a brush of his fingers against my chest, then he pressed his entire palm down on me, palming my pectoral through my shirt.

  I clenched my jaw hard, fingers aching to touch him back even though I knew better than to so much as move. My lack of response didn’t stop Nick, though. He drew closer still, until I could feel his breath on my neck. His lips turned up toward mine, and then…

  For a kiss, it was a one-sided affair. Had to be. I couldn’t even let myself inhale in response. I knew if I did, the wild thing in my chest that was always desperate to be brought to life would awaken. Roar to life and seek out even more. Chase down the exact same surge of adrenaline that I’d just been warning Nick about. Damn near killed me not to. Nick’s lips were warm like an apple turnover fresh out of the oven. His tongue slid across my lips, teasing me sensually. Urging me wordlessly to respond. I felt my will buckle and begin to crumble with every passing second, to the point that I was pretty sure if I didn’t kiss him back soon, my eardrums were going to burst.

  Before I could, though, Nick drew back, cheeks flushed. First with wanting, then with embarrassment.

  “Sorry,” he breathed. “Um. The pregnancy…it’s messing with my libido a little bit. I’m constantly aching for it right now, and I know I’m a pretty complicated package to begin with, but…”

  “The pregnancy,” I grunted, nodding while I tried to stop myself from imagining what Nick would look like if all his clothes had magically been moved to the floor instead. Tried, and failed. “Right.”

  A flash of understanding lit up in Josh’s eyes, and the flush shifted from his cheeks again.

  “Stress, though…it’s bad for the baby, you know,” he said, a coy little smile tugging at one corner of his thick, all-too-kissable lips. “Bad for private investigators too, come to think.”

  “You, ah…” I clenched my jaw again, closing my eyes and relishing the feeling of his fingers smoothing down my shirt over my chest. “You might be onto something there.”

  “Maybe it’d be good for both of us to, ah…relax for a little while?” he teased, blue-gray eyes glinting deviously.

  Just like that, whatever was left of my willpower collapsed in on itself like jet fuel melting steel beams. I let it happen with a laugh.

  “Never argue with a pregnant Omega, my father always told me.”

  “Your father was right.” Josh beamed up at me, knowing damn well that I’d been caught in his snare. “Bedroom?”

  I wrapped my hand around his fingers on my chest and nodded. “Bedroom. Definitely.”

  12
>
  Nick

  We rushed to my bedroom hand in hand, feeling more like two horny teenagers taking advantage of the fact that our fathers weren’t home than two adult men about to make love. Maybe because there was an energy to it that I hadn’t felt since I was a college freshman myself. Even before I got pregnant, my days were spent turning data into graphs and burning out my retinas on computer screens. But with Harper’s fingers intertwined with mine and a giddy laugh bubbling up over my tongue, there was a playfulness to the tension between us that hadn’t been in my life in a long time.

  “You’re sure about this?” Harper said, pausing at the doorway and pulling me back from it.

  I used the momentum to let myself tumble toward his chest, allowing my body to come up flush against his as he caught me in his arms.

  “Never been more sure about anything in my life,” I assured him, taking his jaw in my hands and pulling him down into a kiss.

  During our first kiss, he’d been stony. Immovable. It’d felt more like kissing a Greek statue than a man made of flesh and bone. But this time, Harper kissed me back. His tongue probed between my lips, clipping mine then tangling with it. He tasted bitter like black coffee, sweet like more Sunoco donuts—giving me a guess at what he’d had for lunch.

  I’d have to break him of that habit later, I decided. In the moment, all I could do was enjoy the warmth of his mouth as it moved against mine and the strength of his arms as he held me tight.

  Then, reaching behind me, I turned the knob on my bedroom door, sending both of us stumbling backwards as our kiss deepened into something more intense. More visceral. Less playful and more…

  More real.

  I let myself melt into the kiss, relishing every taste of him and losing myself in the comfort of his touch. My breath came out in a whimper, then a pleased sigh as Harper’s hand stroked down my spine, groping my ass with a firm squeeze then settling beneath it to cup the curve of its cheek.

  “Feel good?” Harper asked, grinning against my lips in a way that told me he didn’t need an answer.

  “Better than good,” I told him anyway. His kisses were sweet enough, I decided he deserved a little praise as a reward. “God, I’ve needed this. Needed you.”

  “Me in particular, or would any old Alpha have done just as well?”

  My eyes narrowed, glittering with amusement as I drew away from him. “You in particular, idiot. You make me feel safe.”

  “Safe, huh?” Harper quirked an eyebrow, raking me up and down with his gaze like he was already undressing me in his mind. “Safe is good. I can work with safe.”

  I guided him to the bed with a squeeze of his hand in mine, letting myself fall back on the mattress and pulling him down on top of me.

  “I haven’t been with anyone since…well.” I smiled as I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling my cock throb as it hardened to full mast beneath my sweatpants. Normally, they wouldn’t have been the sexiest clothes to make out in—they were just the default comfy outfit that I’d started wearing once I’d gotten used to the idea of working at home. But as Harper pressed his hips down against mine, pinning me to the mattress while his own hardness throbbed against mine, suddenly I couldn’t have imagined anything sexier. I could actually feel him stiffening against me through the thinness of the fabric. Could get a real sense of how big he was—and how he wanted me just as badly as I wanted him.

  “Suppose you haven’t really wanted to.” Harper braced himself on one elbow, using his free hand to caress my cheek. “That bad pill…”

  I worked my cheek against his hand, nuzzling him and moaning softly at his touch. “It feels so good to have your hands on me,” I admitted. “No one’s held me since I got knocked up, either.”

  Harper growled in dismay. “Well, that’s just a tragedy, then. An Omega like you…”

  He wound his arm around me, pushing me back nearly a foot further onto the mattress with a buck of his hips. His hand on my cheek, so gentle at first, shifted to my jaw as his touch became a little harder. More firm.

  “What about an Omega like me?” I breathed, staring up at him in awe.

  Harper let out a short, sharp laugh, staring down at me like I’d personally made the sun rise that morning. “You were made to be touched, Nick. And if no one else is going to do the job…”

  Another kiss, this one more passionate than any of the rest. Maybe more passionate, even, than anything else I’d ever felt. The night I’d gotten pregnant, there had been kisses, sure. Plenty of them. But they’d been ravenous. Hasty. All snarling lips and crashing teeth and too much tongue. They’d been sloppy kisses, too hungry for elegance or tenderness or anything other than desperate need.

  Harper kissed like he meant it. Every movement of his lips against mine felt utterly natural, but carefully calculated to maximize pleasure at the same time. Slow, deep and intense one moment. Hard, fast and ravenous the next. He took his time with me, rocking his hips against mine in tandem with every clash of tongues. It was all too easy to imagine the way his cock would move inside me as our bodies pressed against each other’s, his tongue mimicking perfectly sensual thrusts like a promise.

  One he seemed intent on making good on at that.

  “Let me undress you,” he panted, breaking the kiss for just long enough to grab the edge of my t-shirt so he could pull it up over my head.

  He threw it across the room like it had done him some kind of wrong, laying a foundation of hot, needy kisses down my chest and stomach as he worked his way to the waistband of my sweatpants. Harper nipped at my hip with a gentle scrape of his teeth before he pulled the pants down off me, taking my boxers along with them until those too were abandoned across the room, hitting the wall hard and slumping down to the floor.

  Freed of the confines of my clothes, my cock sprang up with enthusiasm. And then, just like I’d imagined on that first morning after Harper had spent the night, he dropped to his knees, green eyes staring up at me with unabashed desire.

  “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.” He shook his head like he could hardly believe it, leaving a little laugh leaping up from my lips.

  “Could say the same about you,” I countered, watching precum pearl on the tip of my cock in the foreground as Harper’s eyes focused on the same thing from behind.

  “Yeah? Let’s hear it, then.” He smiled a wicked smile as he leveled his mouth to my tip. “I’d give you the same in return, but… I think my lips might be a little busy to speak for a while.”

  “Oh, fuck!” The swear came up out of my throat unexpectedly as Harper sucked my cockhead into his mouth, flicking out against the underside with his tongue. The pleasure of it crashed through me, leaving me too dazed for a moment to make any words at all.

  But he’d asked so nicely…

  I supposed I had to try.

  “You’re…you’re perfect,” I gasped, feeling Harper’s saliva pool around my tip as he sucked another inch of me onto his tongue. “Your hair is so…so perfectly thick…color of brown sugar and…”

  I ran my fingers through his soft brown waves, running the tips along his roots to massage his scalp as he swallowed another inch of me down. Every time he came up, he flicked his tongue against my glans, leaving me at a loss for words all over again. And every time he went down, he went a little further, his mouth just as greedy as it was clever.

  “And your eyes.” I fought to keep my own eyes open as another wave of pleasure wracked me so I could watch the way he stared up at me. Not just like I was the only thing of importance in the room, but like I was the only thing that mattered in the whole damn world. “Green like…like a fucking forest canopy. Little gold specks in them like…like sunshine…”

  “Mm.” Harper held me in his mouth for another second, letting the moan reverberate down my shaft, before coming up hard and fast. My cock popped out of his lips with a sound like a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne. “Didn’t take you for a poet, Nick.”

  “I’m…I’m not one,” I admitted with a li
ttle laugh as Harper stuck his tongue out, winding it round and round my tip teasingly. “But you, ah…you bring it out of me, I guess.”

  “Mm. Do I?” Harper’s fist captured my thickness, squeezing hard to stroke me up and down while his lips dipped down lower. “I bring it out of you. I like that.”

  “Just imagine what you could put in me at this rate,” I joked.

  His eyes glimmered deviously. “Oh, I know exactly what I’m gonna put in you, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about that.”

  A sharp, high gasp left my lips as Harper’s mouth dove beneath my balls, the fingers of his free hand rocking my hips back and spreading my ass cheeks apart while he worked my cock over in his hand. His tongue danced against the tight ring of my ass, the slippery heat of it mingling with my wetness, my own warmth. I’d been getting wetter than ever since I’d gotten pregnant—more hormones to thank for all the pleasure I was feeling under Harper’s expert care, I supposed. He moaned low and deep as he tongued the tight pucker of my hole, lapping up my honey then pressing into me. At first, he only used the tip of his tongue—but then he flattened it out, stretching me around him and leaving me whimpering for more.

  “Jesus, Harper.” My fists clenched in his hair, my fingers tangling up in his waves. “It’s like you’ve done this before or something.”

  “Mm. I’m no more virgin than you are, darlin’.” Harper pulled back to grin up at me, still pumping away at my shaft. His shoulders heaved with ragged breathlessness, the humidity of his panting pouring over me like the first day of summer’s warmth. “But if you don’t mind, I certainly don’t.”

  “Didn’t want you because you looked like a virgin, Harper King.” I used my hold on his hair to tug him back up toward me, sitting up to meet his lips as he settled his hips between my thighs once more.

  “No? Didn’t I look like the virginal type?”