by Aiden Bates
I groaned—just like any other dealing with Duncan, I’d managed to open a can of worms here. But evading his line of questioning, I knew, would just dig me into an even deeper hole.
Turning to my computer, I pulled up Heaven’s Ballroom’s Facebook page. Whoever was running the place’s social media was a genius—there was Damon, flexing and winking at the camera that had taken the picture for the page’s header.
“There,” I said, pointing him out for Duncan.
Duncan whistled. “Holy fuck, Garnet.”
I leaned back in my chair, taking a deep breath and nodding in agreement. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“Well, now that I know you’ve got such a gorgeous Omega on the line…”
I saw Duncan’s fingers twitch for his own phone in his pocket and was quick to swat his hand. Bad Duncan. Scram!
“Ouch!” he yelped, pulling his hand away.
“I want to hear these words out of your mouth,” I told him sternly. “Repeat after me: I, Duncan Rourke…”
Duncan sighed. “I, Duncan Rourke…”
“Will not, under any circumstances, bother Nathan’s gorgeous Omega friend.”
“Will not, under any circumstances…” Duncan’s face contorted in a pout. “Seriously, man? Not even after you’re done with him?”
“Say the words, Dunk.”
He sighed again. “I will not, under any circumstances, bother your gorgeous Omega friend.”
“Good.” I nodded, then shooed him back to his cubicle. “Now get lost. I’m trying to set up drinks with him for tonight.”
“Should send him a dick pic,” Duncan suggested in a teasing little sing-song voice. “Omegas love dick pics.”
Cue eye roll on my part. “Dunk, even if you had a cock half as gorgeous as mine—and I know from last year’s office Christmas party that you don’t—”
“Oh, Jesus. A man slaps his junk on the copier one time…”
“A gentleman only sends dick pics when asked,” I finished, feeling particularly proud of myself. I might have had just as much of a storied past with Omegas as Duncan did, but at least I had some fucking manners about it.
“If he’s really special, you know, you oughta skip the drinks and take him to Central Park,” Duncan suggested—possibly the first helpful suggestion of his life. “Some off-Broadway company has been doing Drunk Shakespeare out there every night for the past week or so. They’ll have both of you in stitches. More creative than going to some overrated martini bar.”
“Hmm.” I reached for my phone, typing in the suggestion for Damon’s approval.
Forget the drinks. Drunk Shakespeare in Central Park Wednesday night?
He replied right away, like he’d been waiting by his phone and holding his breath all this time.
Sounds perfect. Pick me up at eight?
Shoot me your address and you’ve got it. I typed the message with a smile.
He sent it over promptly—a place up in the Bronx. Rough neighborhood, which surprised me. After all that talk we’d had the other night about the likelihood that I was a serial killer, he was probably in more danger getting picked off on his way home by some random drive-by. It worried me a little to know that Damon was living in a place that the people at Sterling Financial wouldn’t even set foot in after dark, but I’d deal with that later.
For the moment, I owed Duncan an apology—or at the very least, my appreciation.
“Thanks for the tip, man,” I said, shooting him a thumbs-up.
“Don’t sweat it. Just remember me later when you’re slipping Prettyboy your tip…”
“Dunk, the only time I think about you while I’m getting laid is when I’m trying to last longer.”
He grinned. “But you do think of me. Warms my cold little heart.” He patted me on the shoulder before finally wandering back to his desk—to flip through Grindr on his phone trying to find a Damon Bishop of his own to harass, I had no doubt.
Duncan’s teasing aside, I had to admit that this was a step in the right direction for Damon and I. It had taken me nearly twenty-four hours longer than normal to win him over—a new record, but not an unwelcome one. I was changing my game for Damon. Hell, I wasn’t playing a game at all anymore.
As I closed out of Facebook on my browser and turned back to my real work, I had to admit…
I was looking forward to seeing him again.
Not playing at all was turning out to be kind of nice.
10
Damon
Nathan threw his head back as he laughed, the roar of it bouncing off the leaves of the trees overhead and scaring the birds that had been roosting there off into the night.
“God—and when the Puck actor forgot his lines, started doing the Hamlet monologue instead?” He threw his arm around me, tucking me safely beneath it as he pulled me close. “I haven’t seen an ass that drunk since my fraternity brothers tried to master the butt chug sophomore year.”
“Ew,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes as I massaged my aching cheeks. “You can’t be serious, Nate.”
“Wish I wasn’t.” He shook his head mournfully. “For a bunch of Alphas, they sure were eager to stick the tube of that beer bong up their butts.”
“Please tell me you didn’t partake,” I said with a little giggle. Nathan obviously had a wild past, but I was having a hard time imagining him trying to drink beer in such an…inventive manner.
“Nah. But I like to call them up around election season and remind them of that particular evening.”
“Election season?”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of big political aspirations in that circle.” He smirked. “I like to think it keeps them humble. Reminds them what it feels like to take it up the ass, lest they forget how the working class feels.”
“Noble of you.” I cuddled a little deeper into Nathan’s chest as we strolled through the park. The conversation was warm, but he was warmer. Like a walking, talking space heater there by my side, guarding me against the chill of the night.
“What about you? NYU has some fraternities. You ever join up?”
“Nah, never. The whole scene…not really my style. Besides, I’m too old for those shenanigans anyway. I got kind of a…late start to my college career, you could say.”
“Yeah? How come?”
“Not everyone has trust funds waiting for them when they turn eighteen, Mr. Garnet,” I reminded him.
Nathan had never said explicitly that his family came from money, but he’d never really had to. If his casual mention of nannies and etiquette tutors hadn’t revealed it, the way he carried himself was a dead giveaway. He acted like money was no object at all—something I was reminded of once again as he pulled out his wallet for a homeless woman huddled on a park bench and handed her two crisp hundreds from the folds of the leather like it was nothing at all.
“Get yourself a room for the night,” he told her gently before we moved on. “You know, Mr. Bishop, having a trust fund doesn’t get you everywhere in life.”
I laughed. “God, surely you’re not one of those money doesn’t buy happiness people.”
“On the contrary, I think money buys a lot. But it leaves a lot to be desired, too. To quote the esteemed Notorious B.I.G.— ‘Mo money, mo problems’.”
“Just not problems like, I don’t know. Keeping a roof over your head. Affording an education.”
“Your parents never helped you out at all with college?”
I shrugged. “They would’ve if they’d been able to. But no—my grandfathers lived pretty comfortably on coal miners’ salaries, but my Alpha dad got laid off not long after my youngest sister was born. He never realized he’d have to get an education beyond what they taught him in the mines, and before he lost his job, my Omega dad hadn’t needed to work at all.”
“Christ. That’s rough.”
“We did okay,” I assured him, although that wasn’t totally true. It had been a struggle, I knew. Making ends meet wasn’t the easiest thing to do with such a short r
ope. So many frayed ends from severed ties. “When I saw my chance to get my scholarship at NYU, I knew I had to jump on it, though. I’d been out of high school for long enough that it wasn’t easy, but the promise of a good job when I graduate means that I’ll be able to help out my family a lot.”
“Noble of you.”
“It’s not noble. It’s family.”
Nathan stopped abruptly, turning me to face him beneath the glow of the street light.
“Learn to take a compliment, Mr. Bishop,” he said softly, tugging my coat a little tighter around me. “You love your family enough to work your ass off for them. That’s one of the most admirable things a person can do.”
Blood raced to my cheeks, flushing them red. The green of Nathan’s eyes was glittering over me, but I found it hard to meet them.
“Your parents must’ve worked hard for you too,” I countered.
He laughed. “My parents worked hard to impress all the other rich bastards in this city. I was more of an afterthought.”
Slowly, I raised my gaze to his. There was the slightest hint of sadness in those glimmering greens of his.
“I can’t imagine someone like you being anything other than the center of attention.” Now it was my turn to grab Nathan’s lapels—but instead of pulling them tighter across his chest, I used them to pull him closer to me.
“Because of my sparkling wit or my irresistible charms?” he asked.
I smiled. “A little of column A, a little of column B.”
It wasn’t like Nathan to show his vulnerable side like this. It was so unlike him, in fact, that before tonight I hadn’t believed he’d had one at all. But seeing him like this now—that taste of heartache pulling the corners of his lips tight, the dash of hurt in his smile—drew me to him like metal to a magnet.
“So you admit that I’m charming.” He was so close now, I could feel his breath against my lips.
“Mr. Garnet,” I purred, moving in. “Learn to take a compliment.”
His lips brushed against mine, light as fingernails running down a shivering spine. They were electric. Static cling, pulling me closer to him still. The first kiss was barely a kiss at all. The promise of a promise. The slightest offer of something more.
But the second kiss, a moment later—to call it a kiss at all felt like a disservice. I crushed my lips to his, my mouth moving with a hunger I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe not ever. I breathed him in, my tongue flicking between his lips as he exhaled. He smelled like the first rain of spring after a long winter, the kind that melted away all the snow and sent it rivering down the city street. Warm and wild.
That kiss took me in. Pulled me under. I lost myself in how fucking good it felt—a touch of innocence that was quickly washed away by burning desire. Heat flooded into my chest and sank into my bones, pooled in my hips and pressed my body against his with a need so deep and dark and essential that it made my eyelashes flutter when I finally breathed out again.
“Mr. Bishop.” He rested his forehead against mine, his nose tracing the curve of my cheekbone as our lips finally parted. “How forward of you.”
“The fairies must have slipped me a little of their magic potion while we were watching the play,” I said with a little laugh.
“The only magic potions those fairies were dealing in tonight were rum and cheap wine.”
“Mm. Maybe I’m just warming up to those irresistible charms of yours, then.” I nuzzled him back, caressing the tip of his nose with mine. “Do you want to go back to your place, Mr. Garnet?”
“Mm,” he echoed. “Mr. Bishop, I thought you’d never ask.”
When we picked up our steps again, it felt like we had both quickened our pace. Nathan’s apartment was only a few blocks away, but the time that it took to get there stretched out to feel like hours. My fingers curled around his, squeezing between his joints and brushing the back of his palm with nervous energy. My heart was at a gallop, making every breath I took feel short and sharp.
I wanted him. I wanted him and he knew it. Every part of me that had been fighting that wanting—a wanting that I’d felt from the start, been unable to shake no matter how hard I’d tried to rationalize my way out of it—was left there beneath the trees of Central Park.
It was all I could do not to pull him against me again there in the street outside his building. We made it to the elevator. That was as much as I could take before I thrust my lips against his again.
“Shh. Slower, cowboy,” he said with a laugh, pulling away after I sank my teeth into his lower lip and tugged it toward me.
My fingertips were at his belt, teasing the leather. “I didn’t think you did slow.”
“Normally, I don’t.” He laughed again, tension stiffening his shoulders and a raw look of barely contained desire bristling in his gaze. “But for you…I’ve been trying.”
“Yeah, well…” The elevator dinged, doors sliding open behind us. I tugged him through by the loops of his slacks. “Stop trying. I can’t wait anymore.”
“You’ve been waiting for me, Mr. Bishop?”
He stuffed his hand into his pocket, keys jingling as he used his hips to press me against his apartment door.
“Something like that,” I admitted, stealing another wet kiss.
“Mm.” His grin turned animalistic as his key clicked in the lock. “Then I won’t hold back anymore.”
We stumbled into his apartment, stripping off our coats as our lips moved against each other’s in perfect time. I couldn’t keep my hands off him—he was big and strong and powerful, and I had been waiting for him, I realized as he took my hand and pulled me toward his bedroom door. Not for him in particular, maybe—I couldn’t have known that someone like Nathan would have ever come into my life. But someone like him. Someone confident, a little arrogant, someone who didn’t mind breaking down my walls. Who could recognize that there were reasons I put up such a fight.
Someone who felt so comfortable in his own skin, so undeniably perfect and unabashedly fucking into me, that somehow, he made me feel a little more comfortable in mine.
“Bed,” he commanded a moment before shoving me onto it. His mattress was plush and broad. Easy to sink into.
He poured himself on top of me, nipping at my neck and running his tongue along my collarbone. Fuck—before, he’d just been warm, but now he was burning hot. His hands tore away at my shirt and yanked at my belt, making quick work of my clothes like they were an inconvenience to him. Something annoying that was standing between him and something he wanted. I met that eagerness with a little of my own, ripping his shirt away and tossing it onto the floor.
His chest moved against mine, hot chiseled flesh against hot chiseled flesh. He was hairy compared to my smoothness, sinking his teeth into my neck like some kind of ferocious beast intent on devouring me—and god, I wanted to be eaten. Tasted. Relished. Enjoyed.
“Fuck,” he swore softly as I unclasped his belt. “Condom.”
I whimpered pathetically as he rolled off me and dove for his nightstand, ransacking its drawer.
“Problem?” I asked, feeling my cock throb beneath my boxers as I kicked off my shoes and the bundle of my slacks at my ankles.
“Could say that,” he grunted, slamming the drawer shut. “I’m fresh out.”
“Someone’s been busy,” I teased, pulling him back onto me. “Too many one-night stands of late, Mr. Garnet?”
“Busy trying to get you into this fucking bed.” His brow was lowered in a fierce scowl. “Christ, I’m an idiot, Damon. I should’ve thought…”
“No,” I said, pressing little kisses to the firmness of his jawline. “No, it’s all right.”
“I could always blow you…” he offered.
I shook my head, reaching down and freeing the button from his slacks.
“I’ll get the morning-after pill tomorrow.” I cooed against his neck. “I want you, Nathan. I want you tonight.”
He hovered over me, his lips pulled back in a snarl. “You sur
e about that, Damon?”
“I’m sure.” I grinned. “Take me, Mr. Garnet.”
He matched my grin, tugging his pants down to his thighs. “Well then—as the gentleman likes.”
11
Nathan
Fucking without a condom. When was the last time I’d done that?
Never, I realized as I trailed kisses down the warm, flat expanse of Damon’s abs. My Alpha father hadn’t been around enough to teach me much as I tore through my wild teenage years, but he’d taught me not to take an Omega without wrapping up first.
“Get him pregnant and he’ll take you for everything you’ve got,” he’d told me, making me wonder for far from the first time how he and my Omega father had ended up together. He’d teed off on the green that he’d had built on the Garnet estate’s grounds, sending a golf ball flying off into the early morning while I carried his clubs. “Get a disease and you’ll never trust another Omega ever again.”
I shoved the memory from my mind and distracted myself with Damon’s hips. Damon was young and strong, healthy and honest. The only thing I was going to catch from a body this perfect was a hard-on—mine was already throbbing almost painfully against my boxers. As for pregnancy—he’d said so himself. Morning-after pill at first light. I’d give him the money to cover it. Modern medicine had made pregnancy scares a thing of the past.
But then another thought hit me—would it be so bad, becoming a father? With an Omega like Damon, I thought maybe not. He was a sweetheart through and through. Clever and kind. He’d make a good dad—and dammit, if we were in that position, I’d sure as hell try to be a good father myself.
“God, that feels good,” Damon moaned as I traced the waistband of his boxers with my tongue. “Fuck—Nathan, fuck.”
With such dirty words coming from Damon’s mouth and all my blood flowing to the lower of my heads, it was hard to keep trying to rationalize what we were about to do. I wanted it. He wanted it. Morning-after pill first thing tomorrow.
The rest of my thoughts and worries slipped away as I tugged his boxers down with my teeth, revealing a hard, thick cock dripping with precum and ready for my mouth.
