Heated Manipulations

by Aiden Bates

  I wanted it so bad in that moment, I couldn’t figure out if he really meant it, or if it was just dirty talk—but in that moment, it didn’t matter.

  “It should’ve been you,” I gasped back at him, feeling my ass clenching around his cock with growing strength as another orgasm started building within me—this time, one of a different kind. “It should’ve been you.”

  Another growl left Harper’s throat, even louder than the first. He rocked against me, jackhammering up into my ass with his thick, throbbing cock, his hips unyielding as they gained speed. My own body moved against him just as fast, with just as much need. We were an echo chamber of pleasure, moving as one with only one goal in mind.

  My orgasm broke first, shattering my brain into a million perfect, shimmering bits of glitter. My entire body felt like it was glowing. I could even see it when I closed my eyes, fireworks of excitement exploding across the darkness, each one bigger and louder than the last as I called out his name.

  “Harper! God, yes! Harper!”

  Harper roared, my orgasm pushing him over the edge into his own. I could feel him unleashing inside me, sending burst after burst of thick, creamy cum flooding into my ass, filling me until I could feel it gushing out of me, coating Harper’s balls as they slapped against my upper thighs.

  Eventually, his thrusts slowed, then stilled. By that time, I felt like I could barely catch my breath.

  With a relaxed sigh, Harper folded himself over me, pumping into me a few more times like he was trying to ensure that every drop of his cum had been milked up from his balls and pumped inside my ass. I arched against him, facilitating those thrusts with a few backwards motions of my own.

  “Christ, you’re good, Nick,” he panted, lapping at a stray bead of sweat rolling down the side of my neck then kissing up the path it had made. His lips lingered at my earlobe, teeth nipping at it gently. “If you had any idea how good you really were…”

  I laughed, raising my shoulders up to massage them against the comforting warmth of his chest. “Then what? I’d let you talk me into going to Miami with you?”

  Harper echoed the laugh—and maybe I was crazy, but I felt like I could almost detect a hint of wistfulness in the sound. “If only. But…nah. Just figure if you had any idea what a perfect piece of ass you were—”

  “Is that all I am now?” I teased. “A piece of ass?”

  Harper growled, bringing his hand down firmly on my ass. “A piece of ass and then some, sweetheart. Will you let me finish?”

  “Thought you already did.”

  Another growl, then Harper withdrew from me, turning me around to face him and taking my jaw between his rough, callused palms. The look in his eyes was suddenly serious all over again. “Christ, you’re gorgeous. You… You deserve better than me, Nick Paulson.”

  “I…”

  My words failed me. I don’t think I want anything other than you, I wanted to tell him. I only want you. I don’t know if I’ll want anything else as much or as badly ever again.

  But those words failed for a reason. I had feelings for Harper. If what he’d just said was as real as it felt, he had feelings for me, too. But we weren’t just any Alpha and Omega free to do what we wanted with our livelihoods. With our lives. I had a baby on the way to think about—a baby, and all the work and worry that came along with it. None of which Harper needed on his plate. And Harper…he’d just lost his brother. Had yet to discover who’d taken Josh away from us—or how—or exactly why. It was selfish, I knew, to have the please stay with me, I might love you, you idiot talk right now. In the middle of all of this, I couldn’t even figure out what the right time might have been.

  If there even was one at all.

  “I hope you find the answers you need tomorrow,” I finally told him. “Maybe I don’t exactly want you to…”

  Harper nodded. “Because that means I might have to go.”

  “And I don’t want you to go. I know that’s selfish, though.” I closed my eyes and curled my lips between my teeth before I said any more, then wound my arms around Harper’s neck and pulled myself a little closer. “I’m just…glad that I’ve gotten to have you here for as long as I have already. Glad for whatever time we’ve got left. This is…well, it’s been nice.”

  “It is nice,” Harper agreed. “But…hell. Don’t have to explain it to you. You’re just as close to this investigation as I am now. For Josh…for you…” His fingertips brushed against my stomach. “For the baby. I have to find out what happened. Set things right. Keep you safe. Won’t be good for anything else until I know that’s all squared away.”

  “And after?” I asked, unable to help myself.

  There was pain in Harper’s eyes as he met mine. Pain that he let flow away like water down the drain. “S’pose…s’pose we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  And for the night, in all its ups and downs, that was the only answer I’d need.

  For the night. For now.

  17

  Harper

  The next morning, I lowered my binoculars with a heavy sigh.

  Adrian Wells’ house obviously wasn’t going to up and move anywhere anytime soon—and if the rest of my morning was any indicator, neither was anyone who might’ve been inside it. But no matter how hard I tried to focus on any other work I needed to do towards casing the place, my mind always wandered back to the same place in the end.

  Nick. The way his body had felt beneath mine last night, the scent of the dinner he’d made disappearing into the lemon of his dish soap. The taste of his lips on my tongue, all spicy pepper, warm ginger, sweet coconut milk. I’d taken quite the liking to Nick since I first showed up on his doorstep—and if I was being honest with myself, it was more than a liking at this point.

  Going to the OB with him had been an experience. One that I hadn’t expected a man like me to ever be a part of. Couldn’t have been—I was a man who stood by condom usage as a part of my creed. Long-term relationships for me meant a few months at most—if that. If Nick hadn’t already been knocked up himself, I would’ve insisted. If the Alpha who’d put him in that situation had ever showed up to take his part in it, I would’ve left Nick to his exciting new life. Instead, I’d been given a little glimpse into the life only fatherhood would’ve ever left me privy to.

  To my amazement, I’d kind of even liked it. Kind of might’ve even been an understatement at this point. Having a pregnant Omega like Nick on my arm and every nurse, doctor, patient and otherwise looking at me like I was the bastard lucky enough to have made him that way… It’d stirred something in me. I knew it as much as Nick must have already realized. Christ—I’d damn near asked him to come back to Miami with me. Nearly asked him to pull up his entire life and that of his child as well just so I could keep being a part of it.

  Was I falling for him? Couldn’t exactly rule it out now. Talk about bad timing, though. Murderer on the loose, Nick’s baby on the way, and my dumb ass was already trying to figure out how to weasel my way into the life of a family man. The kind of life I’d never even thought about before Nick came around.

  That was the kicker, though. Nick—did he feel the same? I was good at reading people. Bad at reading lovers. On one hand, he wasn’t exactly offering to drive me to the airport and pushing me onto a plane, but on the other…

  Hell. We both knew what was at stake here. Was it even fair to Nick, trying to wedge myself into the position that his Alpha should have held when these botched pills had already turned his life upside down? And with Josh’s body still barely cold in the ground…was it fair to him that I was getting distracted from my investigation by the prospect of love on the horizon?

  Nick had gotten to me, whether he’d meant to or not. And now, I was so head underwater in wanting it all that I couldn’t even focus on doing my job right.

  A flash of sunlight in my rearview tossed me out of my reverie just in time to catch sight of a beat-up old sedan tearing down the street behind me. As luck would have it, i
t pulled up into Adrian Wells’ driveway. I watched the way Wells glanced around wildly as he scurried for his front door, a bag of groceries in each hand and a pack of toilet paper tucked beneath one arm.

  Bingo. Shut-in or not, eventually everyone needed supplies. The fact that Wells hadn’t sent someone else out to get them for him boded well for me.

  He was scared shitless, sure, but he was also alone. And even if he didn’t want to answer my questions, doing so was the only way he was going to get any justice for Josh—or any peace of mind for himself.

  I hauled myself up out of the Mustang’s front seat, locking the doors behind me before shutting it. Not an ideal situation, if things went sideways—but I’d gamble the time it would take to unlock my doors as long as it meant that no armed assassins would be lurking in my backseat when I was ready to bolt.

  Wells’ house was the big, old kind. Had probably cost a small fortune to buy, which meant he’d either inherited it, or he’d been pulling a pretty nice salary before he’d gone into hiding. A glance at the family name etched into the archway overhead told me it was probably the latter. Ramsay—not Wells. Hadn’t even bothered to hire someone to scrape the family crest off the door knocker yet.

  A high-roller, then. Someone with enough money to throw around to buy an old family manor like this—maybe quickly, too—but with enough sense not to drive around in a big, flashy car that broadcast the heft of his bank account to the rest of the world while he was at it.

  I took the golden ring from the lion’s mouth of the door knocker in my fist and rapped it against metal twice. Smart, sharp, casual—and most importantly, nonthreatening enough that it was more likely the mailman with a package than it was a no-necked thug who’d arrived to shoot up the place.

  There was only a flutter of the curtains to my left in response. A flutter of curtains—then nothing. No movement from inside. No reply.

  I gave the knocker two more of the same, then stepped back and ran my fingers through my hair. My aw, shucks small-town country boy schtick would have stuck out like a Garth Brooks song on a club night when it came to the slick cultural elite of Miami, but here in Fort Greene, I knew it’d do me just fine. I craned my neck, moving slow but eager as I glanced into the window, then rapped twice again.

  “Hey, Mister…” I shouted through the door, raising my voice enough that I knew he’d hear it. Knew it would bother him even more, having some loudmouthed hick shouting on his doorstep to boot. “I don’t mean to go botherin’ you or nothin’, but I live just down the street here and I reckon I got some of your mail by mistake. You mind comin’ out and having a look for me? Name on the envelope says Wells, but I don’t—”

  Abruptly, the door opened a crack, jarring to a halt as the chain lock stopped it in its place.

  “Don’t know your name yet,” I finished, giving him my best apologetic smile. “Which is my own fault, really. Not neighborly of me—hell, Mama would’ve tanned my hide if she knew I hadn’t come ‘round yet to introduce myself.”

  “It’s not mine,” a voice hissed through the gap in the door. “No introductions necessary.”

  “You sure?” I pantomimed having a look at an envelope just out of eyesight of the crack in the door. “Says here, Adrian Wells, and, well, I figured there’s not anyone else on this street by that name, so…”

  There was a long, cool silence that only seemed to sharpen and thin with every passing moment.

  I knew what he must have been thinking. No one was supposed to know that he was even here. So a letter addressed to his house by name could only mean one thing: he’d been tracked down. To be fair, he had—just not by the people he’d been expecting. What I was waiting for was for his curiosity to overtake his own fear.

  Finally, the scales tipped in my favor.

  “Fine,” Wells grunted, shoving his hand through the door. “Give it here, then.”

  I saw my moment and jumped on it, taking Wells’ hand firmly in my own. A facsimile of a handshake. But as Wells yelped, trying to yank himself back through the door, I held firm, leveling his last email on my phone up to the crack on the door so he could see for himself who I really was—and why I was really there.

  “I just wanna talk,” I told him.

  “Shit!” Wells yelped simultaneously, his palm growing just sweaty enough to slip out of my grasp.

  He slammed the door—but not fast enough. It stuck on my boot as he fled his foyer. I could hear his footfalls echoing throughout the big, empty house as he made his getaway.

  Hell, no—not on my watch.

  Grunting, I curled my fingers around the door and pulled it hard enough, the chain lock ripped from the doorframe. It clanked uselessly against the wood of the door as I shoved it open the rest of the way, shouldering through it to give chase.

  I had to give it to Wells. Those skinny legs of his carried him pretty fast. But I moved faster, tearing through a sitting room into the kitchen and grabbing him by the scruff of his neck just before he could slip out the back.

  “Mama would’ve tanned your hide too, you know,” I informed him as he wriggled beneath my grip. “The way you’re acting right now, Mr. Wells—not very neighborly at all.”

  “Let go of me, you numbskulled Alpha thug!”

  Determining that letting go of Wells wouldn’t be to my benefit—or, in fact, his own—I held steady, wheeling him around to get a better look at his face.

  To Wells’ credit, he’d ditched his mustache. Otherwise, he didn’t look all that different from his Myspace pictures. He was thin. Gawky. Dressed in an oversized gray sweatshirt that tried and failed to hide that fact. His sneakers were a dead giveaway that he had money—overpriced limited edition kicks hawked by some big time rapper with a clothing line, no doubt—but otherwise, he’d almost done his job at looking inconspicuous.

  Which hadn’t done him any good where I was concerned, obviously. Wouldn’t do him any good if he’d left whoever had killed Josh the same kind of digital trail of breadcrumbs that had led me to him in the first place, either.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I told him.

  Wells whimpered in response. “Like hell you’re not!”

  “Am I hurting you right now?”

  Wells flinched, raising his shoulders and looking exceptionally fragile. “Kind of.”

  Groaning, I released my hold on his neck and pushed him away from me slightly, backing him into a corner of the kitchen to keep him from running off again. “That better?”

  Wells glanced at his exits. I saw him making a set of calculations about his likelihood for escape—then saw his shoulders slump in defeat as he realized his odds. I was a tall, broad-shouldered Alpha. He was an Omega, a head shorter than me and without any of my training or musculature. If he wanted to bolt, he’d have to get through me first, and we both already knew how well that would go for him.

  “Are you going to kill me?” His voice was barely a squeak.

  I groaned again. “Wouldn’t that involve hurting you?”

  “Maybe if you did it quickly.”

  Cue eye roll. “I’m Joshua King’s brother. I just want to know what happened to him. Figure you’re my best lead at this point.”

  A fresh look of panic shot through Wells’ watery blue eyes. “I didn’t do it! I swear! I tried to look out for him as best I could, but—but—”

  “Right. Look. Just tell me what you know and I’ll take off. Even fix your door before I go—you trying to run the way I did, I had to, ah, muscle my way in.” Which wouldn’t have been possible to begin with if Wells would’ve just used better screws on his chain lock. One of the first things Dad had taught me about home security: never use the free screws that come in the package. Any idiot who can’t shoulder his way past an inch of metal in wood isn’t worth worrying about in the first place.

  Wells didn’t seem to appreciate the offer, though. “You have no idea what you’re up against here, do you? Fucking dumbass—you’ve kicked the wrong hornet’s nest here, bozo.”
r />   Bozo. It’d been a while since I’d heard that one.

  “Who’s hornet’s nest are we talking about here?”

  Wells laughed, high and reedy. “God. You don’t even know, do you? Shit like this is exactly what got your brother killed—and if an idiot like you can find me, so can the people who put an end to him.”

  “You know who did it, then.”

  Wells put his weight against the counter at his back, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I do. And now that you’re here, you’ve put us both on their list. You ask me, Josh got himself killed—and before long, you and I are gonna be dead too.”

  18

  Nick

  As soon as Harper left the house that morning, I slumped into my office and sat down at my computer, raising my fingers to touch the warm place on my lips where I could still feel his kiss goodbye. But no matter how hard I tried to focus on the metadata, follow-to-like conversions and trending hashtags that made up the bulk of my day job, all I could think of was him.

  Harper’s own job had turned him into a competent, capable man. The values and lessons that Reggie King had first instilled in Harper had obviously only flourished since he’d left KPS. He had the bullet holes and the switchblade scars on his body to prove it. There was no reason for me to be worried about him. Not really, anyway. I’d seen enough of the way Harper moved to feel certain that anyone he went up against, he could take down if it came to a fight.

  The idea of Harper duking it out with some big, burly brawler almost made me smile. Even just in the bedroom, I’d been given a good idea of how well Harper could dominate his opponents—horizontal or otherwise. But unfortunately, the smile faded from my lips before it could reach full fruition.