“Okay,” said Nicole, the HR rep, “but is it a date?”
“No,” said Thomas.
“Does Nora think it’s a date?” asked Nicole, doubtfully.
“No.”
“If I call her and ask, will she tell me she doesn’t think it’s a date?”
Thomas glared at her with all the alpha superiority he could muster. Nicole grinned at him.
“Back off, alpha, I’m teasing.”
It didn’t help; trying to tamper down alpha pride wasn’t exactly an easy task once it had wind of possible opposition. Thomas took a few breaths before continuing. “Enrique thought it would be a good idea to tell you, in case someone had the wrong idea.”
“Someone like Enrique, you mean?” said Nicole wryly. “Yeah, I got it. That man could spot a romantic relationship between a rock and a hard place. Your not-date with Nora is duly noted. If it ever becomes a not-not-date, though, let me know.”
“Fine,” said Thomas, and stalked back off to work.
The conversation didn’t do much to leave Thomas settled. Everyone had the idea that he and Nora were dating – not just Enrique, but every secretary smiled that secretive smile at him, asked him if he’d seen Nora, or if he wanted a message passed along. The other alphas in the office gave him sly looks and winks, along with shrugs of the shoulders as they said things like, Nicely done, she’s a looker for a beta!
It was bad even outside the office, where Thomas couldn’t help but see the men selling roses from plastic buckets on the street corners, and every song that played on the radio was a love song.
But the moment Thomas arrived home, the tension melted away, and he felt more at ease than he’d felt all day. Thomas told himself it had nothing to do with proximity to Kieran – and anyway, it wasn’t as if Kieran said more than a dozen words to him all evening. It almost didn’t matter that Kieran only spared him the barest of glances, as if he wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to even look at Thomas, let alone be in the same room with him.
Thomas let him have his space. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked to talk to Kieran – but he’d have his chance, after Jessie had gone to bed. He could wait for it.
There was something about the way the house felt, with Kieran in it. It wasn’t warmer. It wasn’t any more comfortable. It wasn’t that it smelled better, or that the lights shone brighter, or that Jessie or Connie greeted him with any more enthusiasm than they always had.
It was just… every time Thomas came home, he could feel the tension and anxiety and worry that he felt everywhere else in the world simply melt away as he stood in the dark laundry room, knowing that Kieran was on the other side of the door, smiling and laughing, as much a part of Thomas’s family as if he had always been there. If he took a few extra minutes to relish the satisfaction – well. No one actually would ever know.
The rain started just as Kieran took Jessie upstairs for her bath. By the time Thomas came back downstairs after Jessie’s lullaby, it was going full blast, wind rattling against the windows in giant gusts, and rain coming down so hard that it was nearly impossible to see across the street.
Kieran stood at the window in the kitchen, his jacket already zipped up halfway, staring into the dark. Thomas could see the worry in his reflection.
“You’re not going out in that,” said Thomas firmly, and realized after how it might sound. Corny porno line indeed.
But Kieran didn’t seem to take it that way. “It’ll let up after a few minutes,” he said, but Thomas snorted, because he doubted even Kieran believed it.
The rain was pelting down, furious and angry. Thomas moved without even thinking about it, into the room he’d avoided the previous week, until he was standing next to Kieran at the window, peering out.
Thomas couldn’t remember having stood this close to Kieran before, and the faint scent of him was stronger. There was a deep sweetness to Kieran, like slightly burnt caramel, overlaid with a sharp citrus that drew Thomas in, curling around his senses and holding him steady. Thomas couldn’t tell if he liked the flavor of it or not – but he did know he wanted to find out if Kieran tasted as good as Thomas imagined he might.
Kieran was taller than he’d thought; he looked so lithe and small near Jessie, but standing next to Thomas, Kieran came up to his shoulder. Thomas saw the smooth skin on Kieran’s neck, and his breath caught.
“It never rains this hard for very long,” said Kieran, eyes still on the street beyond the window.
“We’ll give you a ride home,” said Thomas, the words sounding foreign in his ears.
“No, it’s—” Kieran’s breath caught as he turned to Thomas. His eyes locked onto Thomas’s, wide and anxious and full of apprehensive tension and expectation.
Thomas couldn’t pull his gaze away. He could almost make out his reflection in Kieran’s deep green eyes. Kieran stared, unblinking, every breath barely perceptible in the rise and fall of his shoulders. His mouth was open, still midway through his word, but he didn’t make a sound.
Thomas’s fingers brushed his cheek before Thomas realized he’d reached out to touch him, and Kieran’s eyes closed, though he didn’t move otherwise.
There was a noise from the office – Connie, emerging from her cocoon. Thomas dropped his hand and stepped away from Kieran, breathing hard. He screwed his eyes closed tight, and tried to breathe normally.
“It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” said Connie, staring out at the storm. “Kieran, do you need a ride home?”
“No, it’s fine,” Kieran began, and Thomas’s eyes popped open.
“Don’t worry, Connie,” he said. His voice sounded perfectly normal, cool and collected. “I’ll take him.”
Connie glanced between Thomas and Kieran for a moment.
“I have to go out anyway,” added Thomas. “Forgot something at the office. I can drop Kieran off on the way.”
Connie nodded slowly as if she wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. “Well,” she said finally, “drive safe.”
Thomas didn’t wait. He nodded briskly and walked straight past Kieran into the laundry room, where he’d hung his coat and dropped his car keys.
He held his breath when he passed Kieran, all too aware of the scent that had already lodged itself in his brain, fearful that if he breathed it in too deep, too close to its source, he’d reach out and never let Kieran go at all.
“Time to go,” he said, without looking back, and went out into the garage, hoping that Kieran would follow.
Chapter Six
The rain was horrific.
Even with the windshield wipers going full-tilt, Thomas could barely see the road in front of him. Kieran had directed him onto one of the main roads, so at least it was well lit and well-traveled. The asphalt was still slick, however, and although traffic was moving much more slowly than normal, it felt almost too fast.
Kieran sat in the passenger seat, playing with his zip, glancing between the raindrops that glowed blue and red on the windows and Thomas, fingers clenched on the steering wheel.
“Thank you for the ride,” Kieran blurted out, and Thomas glanced at him, just in time to see him shrink down a bit more in his seat.
“I was going out anyway,” said Thomas, with a shrug, but Kieran was still looking at him, a fold of skin between his eyes, as if he didn’t believe him. “It’s not exactly in my best interests to let you catch your death of pneumonia in this rain, either. I’d have to find another nanny.”
Kieran snorted, a bit more at ease. “You could always hire another one of Cameron’s busboys.”
“Cameron,” repeated Thomas. “You mean the manager, who wears a nametag that says Gertrude? Did she ruin her first nametag in the wash, too?”
Kieran grinned. “You don’t want to know what happened to the first nametag - or the first Gertrude.”
Thomas let out a bark of laughter. “As if Cameron or Gertrude would let me in the door, after letting you catch pneumonia. I think it’s more likely that she’d poison
my coffee if I do you wrong.”
Kieran grinned. “You make it sound like a country-western song.”
“I wouldn’t know. Not my type of music.”
Kieran didn’t say anything for a moment. “What else isn’t your type?”
Thomas thought for a moment. “Tea. Baked things with nuts. I can’t stand beaches, too much sand.”
Kieran made a snorting, agreeing sort of sound.
“How about hiking?” he asked.
“That’s good, as long as it’s not too strenuous. Not a fan of camping, either.”
“Art galleries,” said Kieran.
“In moderation.”
“Travel?”
“One of those things I say I’ll do, and never get around to it.”
“I went on a school trip to London once,” said Kieran, almost wistful with memory, and a car passing on the other side of the street illuminated him for a moment, its headlights flashing against the taut skin of his neck, where Kieran had stretched it to look up at the roof of the car. Thomas swallowed and tried to pay attention. “I hated the trip – we had to stick together as a group, see all the things you’re supposed to see as a tourist in London – and all I wanted to do was go and sit in a café somewhere and just… watch.”
“I think you’re supposed to do that in Paris, not London.”
“I was fourteen, I didn’t know anything. And it’s not like I could break away from the group, either.” Kieran fell quiet, thinking, and then he shrugged. “The anticipation of going, that was good. And the times when the teachers weren’t yelling at us or shoving us onto buses so we could go to the next museum, those were good too. I wouldn’t mind traveling, if I had more of those moments.”
Thomas wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t as if he could tell Kieran that he’d get to go someday – most omegas, if they traveled at all, did so as part of a group, or went with their alphas.
Just the thought of Kieran, traveling with some other alpha… it made Thomas’s stomach twist. He gripped the steering wheel harder.
“I’m surprised you didn’t slip off on your own when you had the chance,” said Thomas finally, breaking the silence.
Kieran glanced at him. “What makes you think I didn’t?”
Thomas grinned, imagining a younger Kieran, tiptoeing dramatically around the back of a bus as he slipped away to a quaint little pub down the street, with the London skyline behind him. “I shouldn’t be surprised if you did - you’re not exactly typical. Most omegas your age would already be bonded.”
Kieran kept staring at him, the folds and creases around his eyes changing shape every few minutes, as if he was still trying to figure out how exactly to look at Thomas.
“I was going to be bonded. My alpha, she….” Kieran took a breath, and settled back in his seat. “She kept pushing back the date. For three years – over three years. Pushing and pushing and pushing and….” Kieran shrugged, and sat back in his seat. “Took me a while to realize she didn’t want me at all. Guess I wasn’t her type, either. So I walked away. I don’t think my parents have forgiven me yet.”
Thomas breathed in time with the squeak of the windshield wipers. Traffic stalled again ahead of them.
“Jessie’s mom died when she was a week old.”
Thomas heard Kieran turn his head; he could feel Kieran’s gaze on him, quiet and accepting and patient.
“She was exactly my type,” said Thomas, and felt the faint brush of Felicity’s lips on the back of his head.
“I’m sorry,” said Kieran.
Thomas stopped the car at a light and turned to him. “Your alpha – was she your type?”
Kieran didn’t look away. “Not by the end. No.”
Thomas couldn’t see the green in Kieran’s eyes – but he felt the way they caught him, and held him fast. He couldn’t look away. It took a dozen cars behind them honking for what had to be several minutes before Thomas could break the strange reverie, and start moving the car again.
It was entirely too long, and entirely too fast, when they finally pulled up in front of the house across town. There was a single light on, and Thomas felt somewhat mollified that at least he wasn’t leaving Kieran alone.
Thomas turned off the car, but kept his hand on the ignition. Kieran unbuckled his seatbelt – but didn’t move, didn’t reach for the door. He sat there, next to Thomas, as if waiting for something.
Thomas didn’t look at him, and the question that had been circling in his head all day finally pushed its way into the silence.
“Last night. Why’d you run?”
Kieran let out a slow breath.
Thomas held his.
“I… it’s not real. This… whatever this is. It’s just… pheromones. That’s all. You don’t actually want me.”
The edges of the key cut into Thomas’s hand.
“Pheromones,” he echoed, hollow. The pull toward Kieran – the ache he felt when Kieran didn’t look at him. Classic case of pheromones, of course.
But the rest of it? The need to be near him, to hear his voice, to make him laugh, to talk to him, to ask him questions, to find out what made him tick and smile and gasp and moan… that was something else entirely.
“Thing is,” said Kieran, slowly, turning toward Thomas. “I’m tired of not being wanted.”
Thomas turned, the annoyed anger already flaring up again. “What makes you think—?”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Kieran moved quickly, as if he was afraid of what he might do if he hesitated for a single second – and then his lips were on Thomas’s in a fierce, demanding kiss. Kieran’s body twisted over the console between them as he rested his hand on Thomas’s cheek and pulled him closer, trying to keep his balance without falling against the horn on the steering wheel.
The moment Kieran’s lips touched Thomas, all of the rage and frustration and anger that had been simmering all week shot straight through his body, and Thomas wrapped his arms around Kieran, lifted him bodily up and across the console, until he was sitting nearly in Thomas’s lap. The feel of him – warm and heavy and solid – was better than anything that Thomas could remember feeling, better than the ghost of a feeling he’d had when they stood and watched the rain fall from his kitchen.
Kieran tasted like the dinner they’d had, rice and mushrooms, green beans with almonds and cranberries – but under that, he was just as sweet and sharp as Thomas had imagined he’d be. Maple syrup and oranges, sugar-sweet. He pressed himself up against Thomas, his fingers curling a bit around the back of Thomas’s ears, rubbing against the tight curls on Thomas’s head. Thomas could feel him breathing, shallow and quick, the thump-thump-thump of a heartbeat so close to his. He pressed his fingers into Kieran’s skin, imagined his fingerprints branding him, marking him, and his cock was hard, pressing up against what had to be Kieran’s own hardness – smaller, less substantial, but still there.
Not wanted, Kieran had said. And it was ridiculous, because Thomas wanted. He dug his fingers into Kieran’s skin, all the better to make sure Kieran felt it. He nipped at Kieran’s tongue, his lower lip, pulling and sucking into his own mouth, because he’d be damned if Kieran was going to insist on thinking he wasn’t wanted.
He moved his hands down to Kieran’s hips, fingers dragging against Kieran’s clothes, pulling and shifting, until his hands were straddling Kieran’s upper legs, his thumbs grazing the swollen bulge at the front of Kieran’s jeans.
When Kieran gasped into Thomas’s mouth, Thomas pressed up harder into the kiss, knowing that Kieran knew what it all meant, what Thomas had been about to say when Kieran interrupted him with a kiss.
What makes you think you’re not wanted?
He pulled away to say it again – and then it was over. Kieran pushed against him before Thomas could say a word, scrambling out Thomas’s door and into the rain.
Running. Again.
Thomas breathed. He could still catch Kieran’s scent, lingering on the seat, in the air, in his own clothes �
� but mixed with the fresh grassy-salt-ozone scent of the rain, which seemed to intensify on the metal roof of the car. He could barely see Kieran outside, walking up to the house, as if they hadn’t just….
Thomas breathed.
As if they hadn’t just made out like a set of unbonded kids giving into the pull of their hormones. As if they weren’t the reasonable adults they pretended to be between the time Thomas came home in the evening, and when Jessie went to bed.
Maybe Kieran was right. Maybe it was all about the pheromones.
Thomas started the car, and drove, eyes firmly on the street in front of him.
Right before he turned the corner, back to the main road, he looked at the rear-view mirror, hoping for one last glimpse of Kieran.
He got it – of Kieran, walking not to his parents’ house, but away from it, hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket.
* * *
The moment Kieran walked in the door, it was obvious to him that Cameron knew everything.
She lowered her book, and stared at his rain-soaked coat dripping on the carpet. The expression on her face – the way her mouth closed, her lips held together. The way she was so completely still, and didn’t comment on the hour, or the water pooling on the floor….
Yeah, she knew.
Kieran wondered if he should have had the grace to look ashamed, or at least look away. Instead, he looked right at her, waiting for… something. Acknowledgement, derision, chastisement. Maybe Cameron’s decision to take him straight back home, where he was less likely to get himself into trouble.
Kieran thought of Thomas’s kiss, Thomas’s fingers digging into his skin, the rich scent of Thomas’s lust building in the little car….
Yeah, he might need someone to keep him out of trouble, actually.
Cameron stared at him, quietly, until Kieran grew tired of waiting for her to just say something.
Instead, he took off his jacket, peeling the soaking wet fabric from his arms. God, he was soaked through, and shivering now. He hoped there was still hot water.
He left the wet clothes outside the little bathroom, in a heavy pile, and stepped into the hot shower and let the water run down his chilled skin, imagined it washing away Thomas’s scent along with the sweat and rain and exhaustion.
The Omega Nanny Page 9
