by Kathryn Moon
Had I molested him? Maybe a little, but he looked pretty happy about it.
Back on your bullshit again, Lola.
I fumbled for my phone where it was buried under a pillow, sliding off Caleb’s lap. His hand stroked my thigh as I shifted, and I bit back the soft moan in my throat, remembering the perfect heat of him as he’d purred me straight to orgasm.
Caleb, for all his quiet conversation and awkward hesitance, was no less deadly than Matthieu. It just snuck up on me in the form of drowsy cuddles.
Baby’s name glowed on the phone screen and I swiped, eyes widening, and mouth open to tell her what had happened.
“Where are you? Are you all right? I need you to come to the Plaza!” Baby said in a breathless rush.
“Indy’s in town,” I said just as fast.
Baby sucked in a breath. “Fuck. I was hoping I could break it to you. We just heard from the police.”
“He broke into my apartment,” I explained.
“What?! Are you okay? Where are you? Lola, you gotta—”
“I’m at Rake and Leo’s. I’m okay. Leo and I were in Malta when it happened, and I got home and…” I puffed out a breath. “Anyway, I’m staying here until…well, for a while.”
Baby was quiet and Caleb sat up on the daybed, holding an open invitation for me to cuddle into his side, his arm raised and waiting. Resistance is futile, I thought, and I sank in, leaning my folded legs against him and resting my head on his shoulder.
“Did you just say you were in Malta?” Baby squawked in my ear. “Who the hell’s gonna take me to Malta?”
I heard a chorus of voices in the background of the call, mostly affirmative offers and one “What state is it in?”
“So you’re good?” Baby asked.
I looked down to where Caleb was threading his fingers in with mine and smiled. “I’m definitely good. Spooked, but I’m safe here.”
“And the alphas?”
I hummed. There was no way Caleb hadn’t heard the question, considering his head was right over mine, and I wasn’t sure it was totally appropriate to give Baby the rundown on…well, everything. The heat. Matthieu. And now Caleb, too.
“We should really catch up soon,” I said instead, and Caleb chuckled against me.
“Ooo, I just heard a yummy manly sound,” Baby said.
Leo burst into the room in the next moment, chest sagging as if he’d thought I’d gone missing in the house, and he rushed to the daybed.
“Hey, Leo just got home. We haven’t had a chance to talk today and—”
“No, I get it. I’m just glad to know you’re safe. We do need to catch up though. But it can wait. Love you, Lo.”
Leo was on the daybed, kneeling next to our legs, and he bent and pressed a long kiss to the top of my bare knee.
“Love you, babe,” I answered, hanging up.
I sat up and Leo dragged me into his chest.
“I’m fine,” I reassured him, rubbing over his back. He looked rough, dark circles under his eyes and stress binding his shoulders up tight. He relaxed as I held him, and Caleb shifted so that Leo fit between us. “All I did was sleep all day,” I said, combing my fingers through Leo’s hair. Sleep all day and hump your alpha. What was the delicate way of putting that? Either way, it would probably brighten Leo’s mood.
“Mmm, you two smell like the best cuddle ever,” Leo rasped, nuzzling my throat.
Probably better to just…have out with it.
“I may have molested Caleb a little,” I said.
Caleb gasped as Leo laughed. “You did no such thing. Not any more than I did to you.”
“A little bit more,” I whispered to Leo.
He rolled, leaning into Caleb, and revealed his dimples in a giddy smile. “Any chance I can ask for a repeat performance?”
Caleb purred and I laughed as the door to the room swung open again and Matthieu entered. He had a low sound in his throat, midway between growl and purr, and I stiffened as he headed directly for me. He didn’t look much better than Leo, hair at odd angles like he’d been driving his fingers through it all day, and his carefully tailored suit was half-disassembled. He dove onto the daybed at my back. Caleb and Leo exchanged one look, Leo’s smile falling to a frown as they started to move away.
“Stay,” Matthieu muttered into my hair, his hand clutching at Leo’s side. “I’m not trying to kick you out, I just need to be here right now.”
His arms circled my waist, his front plastered to my back, but he left room for Leo to hold onto me as well, and Caleb’s hand returned to my hips.
“Five minutes,” Matthieu said, his purr softening. “Maybe ten.”
“Ten,” Leo confirmed, kissing my forehead.
“Fuck,” Matthieu groaned against my shoulder, hips rocking against my ass, cock pumping slow and steady inside of me. I clutched at the bedspread beneath me and stared into the glass wall where I could see a blurry echo of us reflected from the bricks, just enough to keep me grounded to who I was with.
One of his hands burrowed beneath my hips at the edge of the mattress, my toes curling in his dense carpet as I arched to take him deeper. Not that he could get any deeper like this, not unless I decided to try and take his knot.
“Oh, god, Matthieu!” I cried out as he rubbed over my swollen clit and precious spikes of giddy warmth rushed through me.
I’d been undressing for a bath, stacking my borrowed clothes carefully to come back to, when Matthieu had dropped to his knees behind me and started feasting on me, clit to ass. One pleading orgasm later, and I was face down on the bed with Matt’s arms cradling me and his cock thrusting. There was a little old anxiety creeping in at first when I couldn’t really see him from behind, but soon I was soothed by his scent and his voice in my ear, praising me and apologizing for rushing and pleading for release.
“That’s it, Lolotte, come for me now,” Matthieu growled, coaxing the orgasm with his fingers pinching carefully on my clit.
I shattered as his thrusts turned urgent, burying my shout into the bed. I moaned as his release flooded my core, his body growing heavy on my back. Before the aftershocks were over, I was lifted up, pussy aching at the sudden hollow sensation.
“Apologies,” Matthieu murmured, carrying me bridal style into his vast black tiled bathroom towards a golden tub. It looked like the kind of thing that belonged in a palace, but I suppose that’s sort of what this house was in terms of metropolitan real estate.
“Fuck apologies,” I said, sex drunk and limp in his arms.
Matthieu laughed, stepping into the tub and lowering me down with him. We both hissed at the hot water, but I leaned into his chest, legs tangling with his. The tub was the perfect size, wide and long enough for the two of us but no more than that. Even though the room was spacious, with Matthieu I felt safe and cozy.
“I was a wreck today,” Matthieu said, sighing. “I meant to be very gentle with you this evening, and instead I jumped on you when I was trying to be tender.”
“Two orgasms is a good substitute to coddling,” I said. He smirked a little at that, so I decided to throw him off a bit. “Next time just pull my hair too, like you usually do.”
Matthieu growled and his head ducked, mouth taking me in a forceful kiss that still tasted of my own release. He clasped me tight against his chest, arms alternating in long strokes over my back that brought warm water over my skin with every pass.
“Now neither of us is quite so tense,” Matthieu said as he eased the kiss into brief nibbles. “Ah, merde. What did I say?”
“No, it’s not—I just—” I fumbled and tried to wiggle away, but Matthieu held me fast.
“I only get a little time with you alone. Understandable, but I want to make the most of it,” Matthieu said, kissing my forehead. “Let me hold you while you tell me what I did wrong.”
“Nothing. You did nothing wrong, I just—” I swallowed and blurted the words out. “Something happened earlier with Caleb.”
“Something…o
bjectionable?” Matthieu asked.
I swallowed and grimaced, and this time when I moved to sit up he let me go, although he pulled me to sitting over his lap so we could face one another.
“I don’t know. Not to—not to me, but...” Matthieu’s eyebrow raised, and I pushed on. “We kissed and, I don’t know, he was purring and I just kind of…got off on it. Him. I came.”
I was bright fucking red. I knew because the blush was traveling all the way down to my breasts, and Matthieu seemed to be watching the shift of color with appreciative amusement.
“Is that—are you mad?” I asked. He didn’t look mad.
Matthieu’s eyebrows jumped. “God no, why—No, I suppose I can understand why you might worry, but please don’t. If you are happy, and you are here with me, then I’m also happy,” he said with a shrug.
I sighed and nodded, my fingers trailing through the milky water. Matthieu had put some kind of magical concoction in for the bath, and already my skin felt like silk.
“Your head is still spinning,” he noted, tapping my forehead with a dripping finger.
“I feel like I’m back to nasty old habits,” I said, staring back at him.
I didn’t know why it was so easy to spill these secrets to Matthieu. I didn’t want to confess to Rake how much I’d resented omegas and the devotion they garnered from alphas before I’d met him. And how could I look at Leo and explain the unshakeable sense that I would never be worth as much as an omega, when Leo had such an incredible bond with his own alpha? Still, I never would’ve guessed it’d be easier to cover these topics with Matthieu, an alpha and twice my age to boot.
“Like, I’m here just sniffing around for alphas, the way I—” I grimaced and tried to turn away, but Matthieu’s hand caught my chin, forcing me to hold his stare.
“You are not sniffing around. I’ve seen how Caleb has looked at you these past few weeks. How we all have,” Matthieu said. He pulled lightly, and I followed the urge, floating lightly in the water, my back exposed and my breasts brushing against his chest. “What is it that attracts you to me?”
I blushed at the question, but Matthieu looked so mild as if he was only faintly interested. He wasn’t digging for compliments, he was trying to guide me through the problem.
“You are…you’re so careful with me,” I said, studying him with equal interest, staring at the brush of silver in his hair and the bob of his Adam’s apple. “You study me and then you respond to my needs, even when I can’t bring myself to voice them. And outside of that you…you don’t try to present yourself in any certain way. You’re the CEO of one of the most influential companies in the world, but you don’t even try and prove to anyone that you’re powerful. You used to be the lead singer of a punk band, but you don’t stand around flipping off the world, either.”
I smiled as I caught him blushing, and Matthieu cleared his throat. “I wasn’t expecting any of that. I thought you’d say I was protective or sexy.”
I grinned. “You are very sexy and protective.” Although he was protective in a different way than Wes. Matthieu’s protection was physical and close, while Wes turned his eye on the entire world around me, searching for threats.
“Well. Are any of those things you described the reasons you sought attention from alphas before?” Matthieu asked.
I sighed and shook my head, relaxing against him. “No. They aren’t.”
“Then this doesn’t sound like an old habit. Caleb wants desperately to see you comfortable and happy. At first, it was for Rake and Leo’s sake, and now it’s for your own. Do you regret what happened?” he asked, brow furrowing.
“Nope,” I said, smiling and resting my chin on his chest, water lapping at my jaw. “You’ve talked me down.”
“Good,” he said, smiling. “Now tell me again how powerful I am. You’re very good for an old man’s ego.”
I laughed and floated closer, hovering my face just out of kissing range, his cock nudging against my hips. “Not too old. You’re getting hard again.”
Matthieu’s cheeks went pink again, but he grinned back. “Can’t be helped with a beautiful woman rubbing up against me in the tub.”
“Hmm. We should go down to dinner soon,” I mused, floating forwards and backward and watching Matthieu’s eyes grow hooded with every shift of my body against him.
“And here I thought you were about to proposition me.”
“Oh, I am propositioning you. But I think we should move to the shower first, to save time.”
Matthieu growled and just like that, I went squealing up into his arms, giggling as he braced me against his shoulder. He narrowly avoided slipping on the way to the shower, his hand squeezing hard on my ass.
“Don’t throw your back out,” I teased, and then let out a guttural, sharp moan as his hand cracked lightly on my wet skin, a playful spank.
“Naughty, Lolotte,” Matthieu purred, pushing me up to the tile and letting me slide down until I was perfectly poised above his cock. He swiped at the shower handle without looking, and warm water came spraying down from the ceiling with his first thrust inside of me.
“Fucking beautiful,” Matthieu said in my ear as I cried out, arching in his arms. His hand dug into my hair, fisting it gently, and I beamed at him.
“Oh good, you take direction,” I said, and then knotted my ankles behind his back and moaned as he started to fuck me.
Three
Wes
I startled in my chair as knuckles rapped lightly on my office door. Garrett stepped inside, smirking as if he knew exactly what I’d been up to—napping on the job.
“What’ve you got for me?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and glancing at my computer. I’d been midway through an email with a client when I’d closed my eyes to think and ended up nodding off. I minimized it for the moment. It could wait until tomorrow. I’d only been stalling at the office in the hopes that some news would come in about—
“Think I might’ve found a trail,” Garret said, bringing me a file. “Looks like there’s a new gang forming just outside of the city. Specifically, one that’s forming a nice little rap sheet of assaulting young women, all betas so far.”
“Names?” I asked, reaching for the file.
“They wear masks. Skull masks. And there’s enough variety in the descriptions that it took the cops a while to realize this wasn’t just confusion over one pervert.”
I flipped it open and frowned at the words. Fuck, I was probably too tired to make sense of this at the moment. “What made you think of our guy?”
“One girl saw a noose tattoo, and get this—” Garret said, trying to withhold a laugh and grimace at the same time. “It was around his fucking cock. Like, what’s the symbology behind that shit?”
I scowled at Garret, and he sobered. Garret was one of my best employees, and I appreciated that he did as good a job on his digital research as he did tracking it down on the ground and face-to-face with people. He was affable, handsome, and an alpha. And two of those traits were reasons why I hadn’t ever let him be on the rotation of guarding Rake and Lola during fashion week. I trusted him not to scare or hurt Lola, but I didn’t trust him not to try and flirt with her. And there was something about his whole 'silky long dark hair and tattooed arms' look that I was afraid might catch her eye. At least compared to me and my jawline like a brick.
It’ll be better now that she and Matthieu are together, I thought. Maybe it was a little antiquated of me, but Lola felt like a more permanent member of the pack now that one of our alphas was developing a bond with her.
“So he could have Hangmen ties,” I said, nodding. Lola hadn’t mentioned Indy having a noose tattoo on his dick, and it wasn’t in any of the police files, but it might’ve been new. And if it wasn’t Indy himself, it might be someone who could get a call to the guy.
“I’m getting a list together of all the Hangmen the police didn’t catch. It’s taking a little time 'cause even now that these guys have been gone for over a year, no one wants t
o accidentally piss them off,” Garret said.
“Sounds like proof that there’s still a few around then,” I said nodding. “Okay, keep doing what you’re doing. I appreciate the help.”
Garret shrugged. “I mean, yeah, happy to. But also, it’s my job.”
To be fair, Matthieu had put in a fair amount of money to help me cover the time my guys were giving to this investigation. Not that I needed the money, the firm had an over-generous amount of padding in our provisional savings, but I hadn’t expected to talk Matthieu out of the offer either.
“You should go home,” Garret said, wincing. His arms crossed over his chest, colorfully decorated biceps pulling at his stupidly small t-shirt. “You look like shit.”
I blew out a long breath and nodded. “I think I’m about there, yeah.”
“Go check on your pretty beta,” Garret said, winking and hurrying out of my office.
How the hell did he know—
“You don’t need to investigate her shit, Garret,” I barked out my door. I’d put money on him scoping out Lola’s social media just for curiosity’s sake. Dickhead.
I sighed and gathered my stuff up, adding the file Garret had brought to the others I had waiting in my laptop bag. We had everything saved digitally in a secure server, but I hated staring at screens when I didn’t have to and preferred to flip through information on paper when I was able.
My offices were downtown, not too far from the Stanmore in a more modest building. I saved our money to pay my employees what they deserved, rather than impressing anyone with a fancy high rise office. Our work came steadily by word of mouth, and we served our clients best by flying under the radar.
I drove home with Lola on the mind. Not that there’d been room for much else since she’d reappeared in my life. She was staying in the house now, and it was a genuine relief to have her close. I understood her desire for independence, and I understood why Leo let her come and go, but it had made me tense and restless every night she’d slept away from our pack.
