#whathappensinNOLA
New Orleans. I was in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Kiss that one, Chad. No one could accuse me of being boring anymore.
Sure, it was my mom’s fiancé’s idea and his birthday gift to me. He wanted me to get to know his son while “living it up.” Which made sense, the son part, since technically we were going to be step siblings soon.
My only regret was missing my cousin’s surprise wedding. Not a surprise to him, but to his mate, Reid. I knew they would both understand, and given that the only guests were my mom and her soon-to-be hubby, I figured maybe it was just how it should be. Or at least that was my rationalization to my guilt-ridden self.
It turned out that Henry’s son, Jaxon, was in town only long enough to give me the keys to his place. He had an “emergency” come up, one I was pretty sure was less of an emergency and more of weekend with a hottie he met on the Internet, but who was I to judge?
I was here celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday with a bunch of strangers who, from what I could tell, only liked my future stepbrother for his money. In hindsight, maybe that was why he left town. He didn’t seem to have an issue with them using his place, but they were pretty freaking annoying. Or, more accurately, drunk and high, which tended to annoy me more than a bad personality.
“Come on, you know you wanna.” Larry, one of the “friends” in question held out a little white pill—again. He’d been hitting on me since he walked in with his band of cohorts. I immediately snapped a pic and sent it to Jaxon to make sure they were legit, and he sent back a thumbs-up with the hashtag #mydoorisalwaysopen. Did he have no love of his belongings?
“I’m good. I think I will throw some beads.” Which was the last thing I wanted to do, but every time I thought about heading out to find anywhere else to be, he was close on my trail, offering to give me a tour. I decided it was best to stay put just in case he was following for bad reasons. He seemed harmless enough, but the last thing I needed was an angry drunk high person when the non-angry version was annoying enough.
The balcony was packed, and half the people were smoking, which had me wanting to hightail it back inside when I heard, “Throw me something, mister,” and saw him. There was something about him. He wasn’t part of the drunk hoard and almost looked out of place on the street below, calling for beads.
Before I could even think through my actions, I found myself hollering back, “Show me something.” It was beyond unlike me, but so was all of this: the beads, the party, the being in NOLA.
“Come on down here and I’ll show you whatever you want,” he replied, and he didn’t have to ask twice. I wasn’t even sure if he meant it. I didn’t care. I needed to see him up close, to chat up this out-of-place bead beggar.
“Where you going? Want company?” Larry called as I all but flew out the door.
I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d almost forgotten about him.
“Naw. I just saw a friend. I’m heading down to meet him. Nice meeting you.” He nodded in understanding and immediately made his way to another omega, grabbing his ass. Thank freaking goodness I’d been replaced.
I ran down the stairs, not wanting to have my mystery man disappear before I got there. It made no sense to be so attracted to someone, maybe even an alpha, who I’d yet to meet, much less scented. I flung the door open and stumbled out of it like a complete drunk
“Hey.” A hand came out to help me right myself, the scent of amber and lavender filling my senses. “I’ve got you.”
“Ummm, thanks.” I stood up, finding myself face-to-face with the man from below. “I was—I tripped. Hi.” I was so freaking eloquent.
“Jay.” He chuckled, his rich voice intoxicating, which fit the atmosphere.
“Thanks, Jay.” I brushed off my pants, not that there was anything on them, but I needed something to occupy my hands so I didn’t reach out like a freak and touch him.
“And your name?” His smile nearly brought me to my knees.
“Oh yeah, right. I’m Brent.” I held my hand out, which he held in his instead of shaking it.
I was okay with that. I knew it was just flirting or foreplay or whatever they called it in this town. Things seemed to move at a much faster clip here. But I still allowed myself to enjoy it.
“So I figured I would show you something.” He tilted his head in the direction of that tall church, whatever it was called.
“I was hoping.” I snapped my mouth shut. Why was I being so forward and weird. But then he intertwined his fingers with mine, and my mouth popped back open again. “I thought maybe you’d be gone when I got down. I wasn’t sure how all this insanity worked.”
“And yet you managed a balcony?” He glanced up to where I came from, the crew throwing beads and pulling out body bits left and right.
“My almost stepbrother owns the place. I just met him on this trip, and he kind of left right away.” I officially sounded as pathetically boring as I was.
“He invited you and then left?” Interestingly enough, he sounded more mad than disbelieving, and while I tried not to make too much of that, the omega in me wanted to draw the conclusion that his alpha instincts were shining through and not that he was just making idle chitchat.
“Yeah, and he didn’t explain, but like I said, I just met him so—?” I shrugged. I had no excuse for him. I didn’t need one. This was a vacation, nothing more.
And that made me a little sad because as much as I knew Mardi Gras hookups were just that, the thought of this man showing up at my door with flowers, ready to take me on a real date, gave me the best kind of butterflies in my stomach.
“So what do you have to show me?” I tried to infuse sexy into my voice, but it fell flat. I very much sucked at this.
“And now that I know it is your first time in NOLA, that something has morphed into a plethora of somethings.”
And that was when he led me by the hand down the street on a night that would change my life forever.
Chapter Three
Joaquim
#Glasses&Beard
Bourbon Street had a roar of its own. As soon as you turned the corner onto it, your ears were filled with a plethora of music and squeals and some noises that were simply unidentifiable.
“I know a place. You drink?”
That sounded like I was some kind of alcoholic hustler, which I wasn’t.
“Every once in a while. Just casually.”
“Here,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze, I led us away from the mayhem. We went only a couple of blocks down to where the neon-lighted strip joints and volatile tourists no longer existed. I turned back once to see him under the yellow light of a gas lantern above us, his blush in full force. “Just a little further, Brent.”
I pulled him to the left into an alleyway that was dark, on purpose. Most tourists and even most of the locals knew better than to go into a dark alley in the Quarter at night.
“Um, this…”
“Just one second.” I felt around the wall to our right until I found the cool metal of the secret door One tap, three knocks, and a kick to the bottom of the door would tell Derek inside that a friendly was on the outside.
“Yo, Jay, my man. Come on in, hermano.” Derek was a big guy, picked for the job for a reason. Not even a voodoo queen would come up against him.
“Derek, thanks. I’ve got a plus one tonight. That cool?”
“Of course.” He looked around me and winked at Brent who still seemed uneasy about the place I’d brought him. I could almost smell the fear over his scent of amber.
We walked up the narrow cypress steps to a place that looked to be right out of the 1920s. Ella owned it. I’d met her in the emergency room one night when she cut herself with a knife slicing lemons for drinks.
I nodded in Ella’s direction as we sat at a round table in a quiet back corner. I needed to be able to talk to him.
“What’ll it be?” Ella approached. “And who is this fine sp
ecimen?”
I grinned. “This is Brent. Brent, this is Ella, the owner of this place. And I’ll have a Four Roses, neat.”
“A what?” Brent said.
“Bourbon. What do you drink?”
“Oh, I’ll have what he’s having.”
“Two of my best bourbons. Coming up.” Ella sauntered away and looked over her shoulder to wink at me. An approval if there ever was one.
Brent unbuttoned his sweater and waved it a little.
“Warm?” I asked.
“Yeah, all of a sudden. So, do you always pick up guys on balconies?”
“First time.” I didn’t even look at Ella when she delivered our drinks. I said thank you, but kept my eyes targeted on Brent. My attraction to him throbbed in my body. Never before had I had an instant reaction to someone like this. “I couldn’t help myself. I saw you and…lost my breath.”
“Do live here?” loved that he was pumping me for information when I had intended to do the same to him.
“Temporarily. I travel for my job.”
His eyebrows went up.
“Nurse,” I answered his unasked question.
“Like scrubs and sponge baths? Very nice.”
“And you? Wait, let me guess...librarian?”
He huffed out a laugh and took a tiny sip of bourbon while I was already nodding for Ella to bring me another one.
“Not librarian. Grad student and manager of a planetarium.”
I chuckled low and deep. “Well, if that doesn’t define smoking-hot nerd, I don’t know what does.”
“Really?” He leaned back in his chair. His shirt rose to reveal a little of that coveted vee and a hint of a tight stomach. I shifted in my chair and had to adjust my cock straining against my zipper.
“Really. But I’ve heard that scrubs do it for some people, too. Would that be you?”
Brent took the rest of his drink in one gulp. “That would be me. More than I thought, apparently.”
We were in the darkest corner of the bar, so when I rested my palm on his thigh, and he moved it higher, no one noticed. And when Brent slid his hand under the back of my shirt and rubbed circles there, no one was the wiser.
“Look,” I said, squeezing his thigh once to make sure he was paying attention. “I’m not usually this fast, but you’re driving me to insanity. Can we...do you want to get out of here?”
“Yes, please. Your place? Mine is kind of occupied.”
“Of course. Come on.” I Ubered a ride to my hotel, and we stayed silent the whole time but gave each other some seriously sexy side-eye.
This wasn’t just lust. Something about this male nailed me to the wall and left me breathless.
Maybe it was his scent or his voice or the way he softly tilted the glass of Bourbon to his lips, making me think about what else he could do with them.
“Here we are,” I said, pointing to the mundane-looking hotel.
“You sure about this?” he asked, not sounding so sure himself.
“I am.”
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter Four
Brent
#walkofnoshame
We barely made it into his room before I found myself against the wall, Jay’s lips devouring mine in a hard, heated kiss. His body pressed into mine, his reaction to our insta-lust as evident against my middle as mine was against his. I opened my mouth to him, needing more. Needing to taste him, to explore every millimeter of his mouth, to explore all that was Jay.
I found myself moving against his body, wanting more friction, wanting to touch more of him, wanting everything.
“Patience.” His lips broke from mine only long enough to mutter those words.
Patience wasn’t going to happen.
I fumbled with the hem of his shirt. It had to go. But even as he slid back to allow me to complete my task, I regretted it—missing the warmth of his body against mine, a whimper escaping my lips.
His smirk told me he knew exactly how I was feeling, and the tightness of his pants told me he felt the same.
I took off my shirt, hating to lose sight of his lean muscles long enough to get it over my head. Before I could reach for the button on his jeans, he had me back against the wall, this time without the barrier of our shirts.
“I want you,” I moaned as Jay kissed a path down my face before nuzzling into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.
“So much,” he mumbled back before nibbling on my shoulder.
Jay inched back, and I wrapped my arms around him tighter wanting not even a millimeter between us.
“I can’t give you my knot with your pants on, my sexy omega,” he whispered in my ear. My arms plummeted to my sides.
“Knot, please.” Because rational thoughts and complete sentences weren’t happening.
“Good omega.” He kissed the side of my head before dropping to his knees and fumbling with the four bazillion buttons on my jeans. Why had I chosen button-fly?
“Knot,” I groaned. As much as the image of him wrapping his talented lips around my cock held its own kind of magic, I needed to feel his knot.
“Will require you to be naked,” Jay sassed back with logic as he popped the last button free. Pushing my jeans and underwear to the floor, he tapped my left foot then my right to help me step out of them, leaving me blissfully naked and Jay far too dressed.
His hand grazed my painfully hard cock on its way underneath and to where I wanted him most. His finger swirled around my hole before entering me just enough to tease and nowhere near enough to satisfy. He was going to be the death of me, but what an amazing way to go.
“Look at you all ready for me.” His eyes met mine briefly, darkened by lust. Never in my life had I seen a sexier sight. “I need a taste.”
My head fell back at his proclamation, hitting the wall with a thud just as his tongue teased the tip of my cock.
“Mmmm, a taste just isn’t going to do.”
Before I could process what he was saying, he took me in his mouth, sucking hard as he pulled his head back and repeating it a second time before popping off with an audible sound. How I hadn’t already come was beyond me.
Jay began his descent again, and I reached down, running my fingers through his hair, knowing if I so much as glanced at him and saw his swollen lips wrapped around me that it would be over long before I wanted.
When he began to tease my entrance, his tongue swirling around my lips, I began to quake in the very best of ways.
“You need to stop.” It pained me to speak the words. If this weren’t vacation, and it wasn’t a one night only, I’d have been all about watching him swallow my offerings. But we only had tonight.
He instantly pulled away, sitting back on his heels. “Sorry. I thought you—”
“I want you. If you had kept going, I was going to explode.” It was still touch-and-go, and the only thing touching me was his breath.
“Which was kind of the idea.” He winked before getting to his feet.
“I need to feel you inside me.”
He was already removing his pants. “That can be arranged.” He held his hand out to me and led me to the bed. “Condom?” he asked as I crawled across the bed.
Having no shame, I wriggled my ass at him as I did so. “Always.” Not that I had needed it for a freaking longer time than I cared to admit, but I’d never had sex with anyone but my palm without one.
“Me, too, but I meant do you have one?” He chuckled.
I turned around and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Ummm, yeah in my wallet—I think.” I hoped. Kayson always insisted I carry one. He considered me his little brother, which was usually annoying, but having that condom pretty much made it worth it about then.
My wallet landed on the bed beside me, and I fished out the condom. The corners were bent and faded. How long had I even had it?
“I see you’re all about the Mardi Gras hookup,” Jay sassed as I
handed him my pathetic offering.
“Says the man who has no condom.” Honestly, having him need mine was weirdly reassuring. It wasn’t as if he was busy trying to convince me to go bare. For all I knew, it was because he’d used his mega pack up the day before, but I chose to believe it was because he wasn’t that kind of alpha. He was a good one, like my cousin.
“True enough.” He ripped the package, and I watched as he ever so slowly rolled it onto his cock before crawling over to me, “Now, where were we?”
Jay’s lips crashed into mine, and I fell back on the bed, loving his body’s weight on me. My hips kept bucking, forcing our cocks to rub together, and before long I was back in the same condition as earlier, when he’d had his lips wrapped around me. I was ready to blow.
As if sensing my dilemma, Jay broke our kiss before lining his cock up with my entrance. “Is this okay, facing each other?”
I pushed my hips into him in reply. I’d never wanted anything more.
He entered me slowly, too slowly, filling me completely before beginning to pump into me, gently at first , increasing his speed as I met him movement for movement. When his body pressed against mine so he could kiss me soundly, I didn’t even mind the rhythm of his movements. It was perfect. Him, here with me, kissing me, filling me, setting me ablaze. I built up to an orgasm faster than I would’ve imagined possible without a hand or mouth on my cock.
“I’m going to come,” I mumbled when we broke apart for air and he began to pump more quickly, his hand finding my cock and wrapping around it. I reached my peak, cum shooting up my chest as he grunted and stilled, filling the condom and his knot grew inside me.
We collapsed on the bed, connected by his knot, breathing heavily. I wanted to stay awake and talk about all things. My body had other ideas, and I fell asleep in his arms.
It was official.
Mardi Gras was the best festival ever.
Chapter Five
Joaquim
#AlarmsareAlarming
A blaring sound burst my bubble of sleep and jolted me to a sitting position. Naked and tangled in white sheets, I managed to slap the damned alarm off. I squeezed my eyes shut and then blinked several times trying to make the red numbers actually look like numbers.
Mardi Gras with His Omega Page 2