Under Siege: A Contemporary Mpreg Romance Bundle (Omega's Under Siege)

by Aiden Bates

  “Is that what you’re doing? Relaxing me? That’d explain why you’re moving slower than, oh, how would you say it? ‘Slower than molasses in January?’” he asked, doing what I’d never admit was a pretty good impression of my twanging accent.

  I snapped my hips forward again with a little more force and tried to angle myself better so I could press closer and closer to his sweet spot. Teddy rewarded me with a loud moan.

  “If you’re able to talk that much, I’m not doing my job,” I muttered between thrusts.

  I gave in to what Teddy was urging me on for, and fucked into him in longer, deeper strokes. He’d long since hardened again as I pounded against his prostate.

  “Oh god, oh god. Roman.” He kept chanting my name over and over again, until finally, I felt him clamp down around me like a vice, and I watched as he came all over himself, streaks coating his stomach and all the way up to his chest. Just that sight alone was enough to make me come, and it only took a few more strokes before I was pouring everything I had into him.

  I resisted the urge to collapse on top of him, terrified to do anything that put weight on his stomach now I knew what it held. I moved over to his side and wrapped him up in my arms, both of us still trembling from our orgasms.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Mmm. Better.”

  I must have fallen asleep after that because the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off. I was on my back and Teddy was curled up next to me, his head resting on my shoulder. Carefully, I pulled myself away and shut the alarm off so I didn’t wake him. Regardless of everything that had happened, work waited for nobody.

  I was at the office and setting all my stuff down when Master Sergeant O’Rourke came into the room.

  For all the years he must have done this himself, Sarge was not a morning person. I spied the coffee in his hand and figured he needed to get through that before I asked him any questions about the paperwork I’d finished on Friday.

  “Morning, Carpenter,” he grunted.

  “Morning, sir,” I said while pulling the binders out of my bag.

  “Have a good weekend?” he asked between long sips from his cup.

  I froze for half-a-second at the question.

  “That bad?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I mean, no. No, it was great.” I hoped he didn’t cotton on to my panic. It was great. I knocked your son up. You know? The one you told me not to look at or breathe next to or anything? Yeah, that one. Hope that’s okay, Grandpa. Grandpa. That was a weird role to imagine Logan O’Rourke occupying.

  O’Rourke chuckled. “Sounds like you need some of this,” he said, tilting his cup in my direction.

  “You’re not wrong, sir” I agreed. And he wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to tell him I spent half the night making love to Teddy.

  “Well, if you’re not too tired, you should come to my place tonight. Eight o’clock.”

  I must have looked at him in confusion.

  “You haven’t screwed up anything too bad here. I’m impressed. I think it’s time I got to know you better.”

  I knew if Master Sarge said it, he meant it. He wasn’t the type to say anything he didn’t mean.

  “Oh. Okay. Yeah, sure, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll be there, sir.”

  O’Rourke nodded. “Alright, son. I’ll see you then. And, Roman?”

  “Y-yes, sir?”

  “Get some of that coffee. I’m not kidding.”

  With that, he was out of the room, and I stared after him before trudging to the breakroom and dutifully filling my travel mug. Jesus, this was going to be a really, really long day.

  16

  Teddy

  I was ready to explode. Literally.

  Well, not literally, obviously. Physically, I felt like I was going to burst at any moment. Mentally I wasn’t much better.

  When I woke up in Roman’s bed this morning, my first reaction was to miss him, wish he was still beside me. Not just his body, but his attitude about the baby. I’d been surprised by how elated he’d seemed, but when I thought about it, Roman had assumed he couldn’t have kids, and I suppose being told he couldn’t have something would only make him want it more. Like he wanted me.

  When we were teenagers I’d resisted him, mainly because I knew my dad would have a fit if he found out I was dating a guy like Roman, but after Silas’s birthday party when I had a real chance to get to know Roman, to see the person beneath his cocky attitude, I honestly didn’t care what my dad thought. However, it still took me a few weeks to scrounge up the courage to send Roman a message to meet me. And I suppose during that time Roman thought I wasn’t interested. So, he wanted what he thought he wasn’t going to get.

  Which is why I knew how much he wanted this baby, and I had to keep that in my mind even as I was rejecting everything in my stomach.

  I’d made it home, dressed, and tried to eat. That was a mistake. Within minutes I was bringing it all back up. After that I simply dry heaved, trying to bring up something that just wasn’t there. And if that wasn’t bad enough, on top of the big what-ifs, the doubts, the questions, I felt a deep sense of inner turmoil at not only having to face the fears every prospective parent likely faces, but having to face them alone.

  I wished I could tell someone. But I was lonely and frantic, not stupid. As much as Silas and Bennet were my friends, I was under no illusion that a secret of this magnitude would stay under wraps for very long. Nothing travels faster than gossip around a small town, and Fort Greene was as small a town as they came. And if my dad found out he’d kill me. No. Worse, he’d be disappointed in me.

  As the minutes ticked by while I sat huddled in front of the toilet bowl, I contemplated not going into work, but if the few days I’d taken off for my heat had been such an insurmountable issue, taking time off again—no matter how nauseated I felt—was out of the question. And at least work would be a distraction. I could always dive into a project and forget everything else. User interface was still bullshit, but by god, if it meant I would stop throwing up, I was going to design a user interface the likes of which SynergyNow had never conceived.

  I gave everyone a wide berth as I headed to the basement, purposefully avoiding the foul breakroom and the disgusting smell of bacon grease that radiated from it. When I got to my desk I delved straight into the daily grind, banging out meaningless stuff in an effort to keep my mind off my stomach and the life growing inside me.

  When Edgar popped his head over his side of the cubicle to investigate the source of the furious tap-tapping emanating from my keyboard, I simply smiled and gave him a small wave before putting my head down again. If Edgar thought I was being rude, I thought that was better than me trying to say something and end up spewing everywhere, and I definitely didn’t want to have to explain why I had refused to call out when I was so clearly ill.

  For the next few hours I pushed myself to remain laser-focused on work until I heard the sound of Naomi’s heels clicking across the floor.

  “Hey, stranger,” Naomi said cheerfully as she walked back to her cubicle. She carried an armful of notepads, thermoses and writing supplies as she passed me, and I remembered she had some sort of cross-departmental meeting in which she’d been representing us.

  “Hey,” I called softly, hoping that would be enough, but I should have known my subdued response was never going to make Naomi keep her distance.

  “How are you?” she asked as she entered what I supposed counted as my office and leaned against my desk.

  “I’m okay!”

  “Um. Really? Any new developments with the whole…you know…”

  Oh god. Talking about Roman now was the last thing I wanted to do. I glanced over to where Edgar sat, and Naomi followed the direction of my gaze. She straightened her back and stretched her neck as much as possible to peer over the cubicle wall to check that Edgar wasn’t listening in. Once she’d verified it, she nodded very seriously at me.

  I wasn’t sure Edgar heard that well in the first place, but at
least Naomi understood I was reluctant to talk right now. She held up her hand and rubbed the pads of her thumb and index finger to make the universal gesture for money and shrugged questioningly.

  The Piggy Bank. Drinks after work.

  I caught the instinctive impulse to say no and tried to tamp down my reaction before Naomi guessed how little I wanted to be where there was food and where I couldn’t park myself in the nearest bathroom for hours on end if I absolutely had to.

  But drinks had become such a regular thing between us that to try to bow out wouldn’t make Naomi stop asking questions, it would make her ask all the more. I did want to be able to tell someone, and it wasn’t as if Naomi didn’t already know about Roman. Besides, I wasn’t in the habit of lying, either intentionally or by omission, and certainly not to the people who surrounded me; and keeping a secret like this was more than I could bear.

  It was fine. I’d go, even if it was just to take myself out of my head, and surely I could cope with a glass of water, right?

  “Okay,” I said, which was about as much as I could manage. Naomi brightened and gave me a wink before sashaying back to her desk. As soon as she was out of sight I forced down a few sips of water, made sure I was going to be able to keep even that much down, and then gratefully got back to work.

  After what seemed like ages, five o’ clock mercifully rolled around. Naomi and I said our goodbyes to Edgar for the day and followed the after-work routine we’d developed. We walked down to the parking lot together with the unspoken understanding that all our workday details and anecdotes were to be traded upon our arrival at the Piggy Bank.

  I figured she’d also expect my relationship with Roman to be on the menu, but as I got into my car and drove the twenty minutes or so to the bar I worried about actually revealing anything about the baby. I wasn’t really sure if I should say anything because though I believed Naomi was firmly on my side when it came to company hierarchy and dynamics, if something got out, even inadvertently, my chances of regaining my previous position would be practically nil and void, and there was a seriously good chance I’d end up on the unemployment line. Maybe I could just give her what she wanted about Roman but leave the rest a secret.

  God, I was getting sick of keeping secrets.

  Naomi was waiting for me when I arrived, and we both headed inside the Piggy Bank. Miss Penny—after taking one long, up-and-down look at me while arching her eyebrow suspiciously—said nothing more to us beyond a cursory greeting as we sidled up to the bar at our usual spots and sat down. Naomi didn’t seem to notice as she put in the drink order that had also become customary.

  “Two Adioses, please!”

  “And a water!” I added quickly.

  To this, Miss Penny made a strange expression that involved pursing her mouth at us—at me, actually—but got us our drinks and my water and then flitted away to attend a couple who seemed engrossed in their conversation at the opposite end of the bar.

  As soon as the water was put in front of me, I grabbed for it and took the smallest of sips just to make sure I was going to be okay throughout the conversation. My stomach didn’t immediately seize or roil at this, so I sipped a little more and then started nodding along to Naomi’s tale of arrogant ‘alphasplaining’ and other examples of egregious alpha behavior during the course of the meeting.

  “You didn’t say that to Sweeney!” I said, wide-eyed as she finished recounting her story.

  “I did,” she answered, in a joking sort of defiance. “And, if Wilcox wants to see me about it, I’ll be happy to explain the entire situation. I have a chip on my shoulder where he’s concerned anyway, but after he got to lead the project you were taken off of? My blood boils every time I have to look at him. He’d better watch himself or there’s going to be an HR incident in the parking lot and it’s going to involve Sweeney, me, and my fist, just you watch.”

  She laughed and sipped her drink as I launched into that long ooh sound that schoolchildren make when someone’s going to get in trouble.

  “Enough about that though. What I’m really here to find out about is you. How’s your Roman situation?”

  “Well, you know, it’s fine,” I said as noncommittally as I could without sounding too standoffish. “He’s at his brother’s old apartment for the time being, which just happens to be at King’s Place, same as me, so, you know, it’s been easy to coordinate hanging out most nights.”

  “Most nights, huh?” Naomi made increasingly less and less of an effort to hide the broad smile spreading over her lips. “Well, spill the ’deets,’ then! Enough with all this coy shit. What are these hang-out nights like? What is he like? Tell me everything!”

  I made a big show of rolling my eyes at her, but ultimately gave in to her good-natured teasing. I wasn’t trying to share too much obscene detail or anything close to my big secret, but this was a good solution to what I’d been missing—someone to just get things off my chest with.

  From the sheer, almost mischievous stuff Roman and I got up to when we hung out on movie night or game night or whatever our excuse to hang out was, I sort of inadvertently transitioned into telling Naomi some of the genuinely sweeter stuff that had happened between us. I talked about his putting his hand in my pocket at the park, and about how he’d obviously gotten help dressing before we went to Five Star. Cute little details like that.

  “Okay, well, that’s starting to sound different than the original plan, Teddy,” Naomi said quickly before sipping from her drink some more. She gasped a little at how strong her drink was, which turned my stomach just a bit.

  “Are you…” She narrowed her eyes at me playfully. “Are you growing feelings?”

  I curled my hand around the bright blue glass with the liquor before I reconsidered, went for the water, just to fill my mouth long enough to avoid answering the question.

  “You are!” she insisted. “You are developing feelings. Not to sound like a fifth grader, but—actually, you know, to sound exactly like a fifth grader—you’ve got a crush on Roman, don’t you?”

  “I mean…uh…”

  “You do! Don’t worry. I get it. Lucy was kind of a hippie in college. It was supposed to be a one-and-done thing with a pretty girl. Then, we hung out, became friends and… Well, you know…” Naomi explained, flashing her wedding ring at me. “Cheers to friends-with-benefits turning into friends with benefits! Like…the boring kinds of benefits. Dental insurance and all that.”

  I laughed earnestly at her turn of phrase and lifted my water glass to toast with the drink she held up. I didn’t think twice of how strange that must have been, but evidently attempting to toast with water caught her immediate attention and she withdrew her glass.

  “Dude, you haven’t even touched your…” Suddenly her eyelashes began batting together quickly.

  Oh no.

  “Listen, Naomi, I just don’t feel like—”

  “Oh god,” she said, as she looked at the glass of water, at me, then back at the glass of water, the bar counter, and then finally at me again, realization clearly taking form in her head.

  “Teddy!”

  “Shh, don’t say anything. Don’t freak out. Don’t be obvious. Just…yes, you’re right. Whatever you’re thinking is probably right, but just…be cool, okay?”

  “Of course I’m going to be cool, you’re a grown man, after all. This is good! It’s a good thing, right…” she declared uncertainly. “Is it a good thing?”

  “No? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know? Whatever it is, don’t say anything. You know, don’t say anything at work.”

  “No, of course not. That’s a good way to get transferred again. As in, transferred.”

  “Yeah, exactly.” I sipped more of my water, once again relieved she understood my position. “Transferred right out the front door. Exactly. So, you have to swear not to say anything to anyone.”

  “No, of course not. I get it,” Naomi said, casting a glance to her side to make sure we weren’t being overheard. We were, of course. Whe
n I mirrored her gesture, we both met eyes with Miss Penny who continued wearing a skeptical expression as she used the hose to refill my water before going to make another of Naomi’s Adioses.

  “But, aside from just work stuff, is it good news, Ted? Do you know?”

  I sighed heavily at her question, fair as it was. Since finding out last night, I’d tried not to dwell too much on the whole situation, simply because the future of both Roman’s and my career was at stake, and it was hard to see past that. But thinking about it now, if I won the lottery tomorrow and didn’t have to work at SynergyNow, how would I feel?

  “If nothing else, Roman and I seem to be…reconnecting. And in that regard it’s good. He’s been sweet and supportive. He’s happy. Me though? I just don’t know. It all feels like straying into that omega territory, you know? Kids, the house, the picket fence, the golden retriever.”

  Naomi sighed and nodded a little wearily. “I get that too. But honestly, it’s not so bad. Domesticity, I mean. And it’s not like you necessarily have to torpedo your dreams to have a home life. I know I’m always talking about Lovelace but being family-friendly is one of Lovelace’s primary selling points. I don’t even know if this is the right time to bring it up or anything, but I’ve been seriously thinking about it. They’re entertaining pitches, and I thought I might try to get a team together, maybe turn something in. Not something from user interface or anything. I don’t know what I’d turn in yet, but, you know, something in an attempt to be home with Lucy more often and to keep on programming.”

  Naomi blinked at me meaningfully, and I realized she was talking about including me in her team—if embarking on a very exciting venture with her was something I wanted to do. The answer to that was too easy, and if she was in the market for something that would wow a potential employer and wasn’t UI, I definitely had a project that could use additional manpower.