Kade lies back in bed, closing his eyes. He imagines Felix on the bus home, squeezed between other passengers, his blond hair falling over his eyes. Felix is allowing him into his life, allowing him to listen in on what he’s doing. And Kade is grateful for it, even now. He’s spent years not knowing at all. “Yeah, that works.”
“Thanks,” Felix says, a smile in his voice. “I really don’t mind if... well, if you drop by. Not saying you have to, of course.”
You want me there? Kade’s pulse thuds in his ears. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says. He’d be there every day if he could, except maybe that would make him seem too desperate. Maybe every two days. “Tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Felix says, and his voice brightens. “I’d love that.”
Something in Kade’s chest eases, like it had when he first saw Felix again. “Sure. See you then.”
19
Kade
Kade sets a plush giraffe down at the cashier the next morning. “Think the giraffe has a problem. There’s a murder on the candy aisle.”
Behind the counter, Felix stares. So Kade leads him to the candy section, where an ugly Halloween monster from the year before lies face-down on the floor, surrounded by plush rabbits, tigers, and cows. Felix stops at the start of the aisle, jaw hanging open.
“Guess we have an audience,” Kade says, his heart beating slow in anticipation. “You came too late. The murderer got away.”
And Felix snorts, stepping forward to crouch next to the stuffed toys. Humor glitters in his eyes, and Kade breathes out, relieved. Felix picks up a stuffed cow. “I’m shocked, Kade. There was a murder on my watch?”
“You should have watched more closely. Dangerous people around these parts.”
Felix turns to study him, his eyes gleaming. “And how would I know you aren’t the murderer?”
Kade shakes the giraffe. “I have an alibi.”
“You could be accomplices!”
“Do I look like a murderer?” Kade scowls, pushing his lower lip out in an imitation of a pout. “I was just drinking with the giraffe.”
Felix clutches his stomach, his laughter rippling through the store.
Kade grabs a bag of cola-flavored gummies. “See, drinks.”
Felix doubles over then, chortling silently, his eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t—can’t believe you did this,” he gasps, shaking a cow at Kade. The toys aren’t even hurt or destroyed, just sitting on the floor, but Felix wipes tears from his eyes anyway. “Plushie murder? Really, Kade?”
Kade shrugs, turning away. “Actually, the giraffe’s the murderer. You shouldn’t let them fool you.”
“You’re walking off with it? Aren’t you afraid for your life?”
“Do you think I should be?”
Felix beams, gathering up the stuffed toys in his arms. “You scare people away, Kade. I’m sure lots of giraffe-murderers are afraid of you.”
“What about you?” Kade asks before he can stop himself. “Are you scared of me?”
Felix’s eyes glint, warm and grass-green. “Probably not. Do you think you’ll frighten me?”
As Felix straightens, Kade steps closer, until his shoes bump into Felix’s, and there’s an inch between their chests. Warmth seeps through their clothes. Felix looks up at him, his lips slightly parted. Kade lowers his face, murmuring a hair’s breadth above his mouth, “Are you scared now?”
“Try harder,” Felix whispers. “You don’t scare me.”
So Kade drags the tip of his tongue over Felix’s lip. Felix’s breath puffs onto his skin. “Maybe this weekend,” Kade says. Felix opens his mouth, an invitation, and Kade swallows. “I’ll test you again.”
“No more murders?” Felix asks.
“Just a lot of fucking,” Kade answers, brushing his knuckles down Felix’s chest. Felix’s heart kicks against his fingers.
He turns, leaving Felix with musk rolling off him in waves.
The next week, Kade sets a bottle of lube down at the register. Felix smiles, meeting his eyes. “Another one? Are you already done with that first bottle?”
They both know it’s still in the bike’s trunk, unopened, but Kade shrugs anyway. “Need one for home. Ran out.”
Felix licks his lips. “You must be a beast, going through lube so quickly.”
“I fed it to the ants,” Kade says. “To drown them.”
“Oh?” Felix grins, raising his eyebrows. Kade knows his omega doesn’t believe any of that. The last time he looked, there was half a bottle left on Felix’s bedside table. They’d gone through a quarter of it this past weekend. “Don’t you need any? Not that you’re lacking, of course.”
Kade raises his brows. “And you’re a good judge of that?”
Felix squirms. His ass still stings, Kade knows. He smirks. “I’m not certain,” Felix says, grinning. “We may have to try it out again.”
“Sure.”
Felix lets Kade take him home that night, and they spend two hours in the kitchen, Felix’s moans ringing through the house.
The week after, Kade returns, saying, “Do I come here if I want to lodge a complaint?”
Behind the counter, Felix bites down his smile. “What would you like to give feedback on, sir?”
“The lube. It’s gone too quick.”
Felix snorts, turning and biting his lip, and over on the other side of the store, Susan groans. “Could you at least stop flirting while I’m here?”
“I have serious issues with the lube,” Kade says, but he’s grinning. “It doesn’t last. You squirt it and it goes—”
“No! I don’t need to know,” Susan says, hidden somewhere behind the shelves. Kade imagines her covering her ears.
“Where does it go, sir?” Felix asks, gaze darting down to Kade’s hips. Kade grins. Two nights ago, in Felix’s bathtub, they’d smeared lube all over each other’s thighs. Then they tried to wrestle, getting their shirts sticky. And Kade had pinned his omega down after.
“Inside,” Kade says, quirking an eyebrow. Felix grins. Susan marches up, wagging a finger at them.
“Enough,” she says, grinning. “Pay for your gas and go. Felix, you know better than this.”
“Not how you treat a customer,” Kade tells her. “Felix is doing better than you.” He’s smiling, though, reaching for his wallet. Susan shakes her head.
“I should be educated on lube,” Felix says.
Susan groans. When Felix reaches for his cash, Kade rubs their wrists together, scenting him. Felix beams.
Two days later, Kade steps in with a small lavender bouquet.
“Where did you get that?” Felix asks, eyes widening.
“Across town,” Kade says. “You don’t sell them here.”
“I know we don’t.” But Felix stares at the flowers anyway, pink fanning up his ears. “What are those for?”
“You,” Kade says, pushing them across the counter. Maybe he shouldn’t have assumed that Felix would want them, but Kade had glimpsed the bouquets when he walked out of his office, and it had felt right, getting one for his bondmate.
His omega stares up at him, his throat working. “You shouldn’t,” he says. But his cheeks turn pink, and he glances hesitantly between Kade and the flowers. “Flowers are expensive.”
Kade shrugs. They’re worth the fifteen bucks, if they light Felix’s eyes like someone told him he sold a million-dollar painting. “Are you taking them, or not?”
Felix reaches out for the bouquet, his eyes glued to the tiny purple flowers, and he raises them to his face, inhaling deeply. “I guess they smell like me.”
“Thought of you when I saw them.”
Felix ducks his head, blushing up to his hairline. Kade smiles. It gives him hope that he has a chance with Felix after all, that he can still win his omega back, and maybe... they can have a future ahead of them.
“Thank you,” Felix mumbles, pushing his face so far into the bouquet that the plastic crinkles. “That’s very nice of you.”
“You don’t ha
ve to thank me,” Kade says. “You never need to.”
Felix hides his smile, and Kade watches as he darts to the backroom to tuck the flowers away.
When Kade walks out of the convenience store, it feels like things in his life are finally falling into place.
20
Felix
Five months into his pregnancy, Felix has a breakdown.
The tape measure around his waist reads thirty-four inches, up from twenty-eight. He drops the tape on the floor, sits back at the kitchen table, and tries not to look at the bills spread before him.
Instead, he pulls his lumpy sweater down, his skin prickling with sweat, and stares at the dark screen of his phone.
Kade still doesn’t know. Every time his hand drags down Felix’s chest, Felix links their fingers together, shoving their hands down on his cock. Kade’s voice always echoes in his mind: Don’t wanna knock you up. That’ll be a mess. He doesn’t want a baby. And that thought haunts Felix the most.
Once, Kade’s hand had rested on Felix’s abdomen, and Felix’s heart had clenched. He’d kept absolutely still, picked off Kade’s hand as calmly as he could, and pushed it down hard on his cock.
It distracts Kade, when Felix wants to be touched there anyway. Kade has never questioned why Felix wants his shirt on. Felix thinks Kade will find out, but he never does.
Kade has hardly removed his own shirt either, now that Felix thinks about it. Kade sometimes does, but his shirt stays on more often than not, and... it’s not as though he’s pregnant. He’s never been shy about his chest before. Felix frowns, dragging his gaze back to the bills—the rent, the electricity, the water, his phone...
The water bills have been increasing. And so have the grocery receipts. Felix bites his lip, thinking about his half-stocked fridge and the baby needing more food, and the doctor’s appointments that the internet says he should make, but he hasn’t yet. In the living room, the pregnancy books Taylor brought along are hidden in some boxes, just in case Kade visits. Felix knows he should eat better, knows he should exercise and talk to other pregnant omegas...
It suddenly feels like looming mountain that Felix isn’t fit enough to climb, and a nervous pang shoots through his stomach.
He’s looked at a few post-natal websites—bottle feeding, teaching children to talk, teaching them about discipline. He wouldn’t do what his own father has done. But is that good enough? Felix has other flaws, doesn’t he, and what if his baby grows up resenting that?
“I hope you won’t be disappointed in me,” he says, looking at the bump of his sweater. “Your dad isn’t all that clever, or brave like your other dad. I... I think Kade would do a better job raising you.”
Except Kade had asked about condoms all those months ago, and Felix hadn’t remembered enough to get his BC right.
“I can’t even pay these bills,” Felix says, covering his face. “I’m not even out of Meadowfall yet.”
In his belly, the baby shifts slightly, as though disapproving. An inexplicable wave of misery swamps Felix. He hates himself. Hates how he can’t pull a mask on these days, when his hormones wreck havoc on his body. Felix wishes he isn’t sobbing, but the tears spill down his cheeks like water from a broken dam.
He curls up in his chair, hands over his face, and thinks about Kade, about the unborn child, about his father and the cheerful family Kade used to have. He wails harder. What would his own mother have done? He doesn’t know, because he’s never met his mother at all.
He goes through handfuls of tissue, and when the misery finally washes away, Felix slumps into his seat, still faced with bills and still pregnant.
The phone buzzes. He reaches for it, feeling like a wrung towel, and his pulse skips when Kade’s name flashes on the screen.
Thought about you, Kade writes. Want a plushy? Along with the text, he’s attached a graphic of a stuffed giraffe. Felix laughs, his cheeks still wet. He scrolls up through their conversation, looking through the texts they’ve exchanged. Scattered through numerous 6 AM now, don’t be late texts, he finds Are you busy tonight? and Was thinking that selling more cookies would help and I hate my boss.
He flicks through the conversation, ending up at the giraffe again, and he remembers Are you scared of me?
Kade had pressed close that afternoon in the convenience store, and in that heartbeat, he had thought Kade would reach for him, kiss him, squeeze his cock right there in the middle of the aisle.
Blood rushes down his body, pooling at his groin. Felix gulps, reaching down, rubbing himself through his pants. He wants Kade with him. He strokes his thumb down his cock, pretending it’s Kade’s touch instead, and he grows stiff, straining against his briefs and pants. The material chafes a little against his skin, mildly annoying.
He hooks his thumb into the waistbands and pulls them down over his cock, looking at its flushed red tip, the fine veins that stretch across his skin. Felix licks his lips, sliding his foreskin down, his eyelids fluttering shut at the pleasure humming through his body.
He closes his fist around himself, stroking slowly, thinking about Kade standing over him, about Kade’s cock on his face, and wouldn’t Kade like to see this now, Felix hard for him, all wet at his tip?
His pulse quickens, throbbing between his legs. Felix picks up his phone, tapping on the camera app.
In the incandescent lights of the kitchen, the image on the screen is far too orangey, but it’s not as though Kade will judge that. Felix holds the phone up, angling his cock down with a thumb, and snaps one picture of it. He flushes. They haven’t done this before. Five years ago, a picture message cost a dollar to send.
Am I being too needy? We haven’t really been talking. He bites his lip, fingers digging into the phone. Before he stops himself, he attaches the picture to their conversation, and sends it. Then he sets the phone down, pushes Kade out of his mind, and strokes himself. I’m not thinking about it.
A minute later, the phone buzzes. Heat sweeps through his face. Felix groans, tossing his head back against the chair. “Tell me I’m a slut, why don’t you?”
He avoids touching his phone while the wall clock ticks the seconds away. But curiosity sinks sharp teeth into his mind. Felix picks the phone back up, holding his breath. 1 new message from Kade. He taps on the text notification, heart thudding.
Right beneath the too-orange picture is a too-yellow picture. It’s Kade’s denim-clad thighs pushed down low on his hips, and his cock jutting up hungrily, thick and big, pink at the tip.
Did you get hard because of me? The pressure at his groin magnifies. Felix moans, tightening his fingers, sliding his skin down, and he reaches into his pants to lift his balls out, letting them rest on cool fabric. Felix imagines Kade at home, stroking his own cock. Then he takes another picture, his fist pulling the foreskin away from his gleaming tip, and sends it.
Half a minute later, the phone buzzes again—another too-yellow picture; Kade’s strong hand around his own cock. Felix’s breath rushes out of him.
He brings the camera app up again: the next picture is an out-of-focus shot, his finger stretching precum away from his tip, and he’s stroking harder, hips rocking up, wishing Kade were here instead. Wishing Kade would suck his cock, his beautiful mouth stretching around Felix’s tip, his tongue slipping under his skin.
Felix trembles, leaking onto his fingers. The thought of Kade getting off on his pictures makes him throb, makes him want to kneel and fuck his hand, imagining it’s Kade’s. He wants to slow down, wants to enjoy this with Kade, see how many pictures they’ll send between them.
He pulls his hand off his straining cock, staring down at its flushed, hungry length. He flattens his hand against the cushioned seat of his chair, dragging his eyes to the kitchen cabinet, the wall calendar with its bright, colorful pictures of food: spinach quiche, a steaming bowl of minestrone soup, golden-brown puff pastry.
It gets a little easier to ignore the pressure at his groin, so he sits on his hands, squirming, thinking about r
oasted chicken, vegetable pizza, garlic toast.
His stomach tightens suddenly. He wants to taste an Italian soup, full of meat and tomato and spices, and he can’t push the craving out of his mind when his mouth waters, and he steps over the kitchen to check his fridge. There’s sliced pepperoni in the chilled compartment, bell peppers and tomatoes in the vegetable crisper, but no ham, or sausage to complete the dish.
Felix sags, staring down at his jutting cock, his pants loose around his hips. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he says. “I was jerking off.”
But he’s hungry for food now, and from his experiences over the past four months, he can’t eat something else and hope the craving will go away. Felix sighs, picking up his phone. It buzzes against his palm.
Kade’s next photo is of his fingers squeezing his tip, forcing his damp slit to open. Felix squirms, thinking about his tongue on it, lapping up salty precum. He winces. I need some sausage, he types. And by that I mean sweet Italian sausage. I have a craving suddenly and I really am sorry to kill this conversation. I’m heading out of the house right now.
He hasn’t thought about walking to the bus stop, or waiting for a bus, but the thought makes him groan. Felix stares down at his belly, frowning. “The things I do for you,” he says.
The phone buzzes seconds later. I’ll pick it up for you. Need anything else?
You really don’t have to, Felix answers, surprised. I don’t want to trouble you.
Better than waiting for the bus. You’ll be out for two hours just to get some sausage.
Felix bites his lip. It’s nice of Kade to offer. And he can’t stop scrolling back up to look at their pictures, Kade’s cock heavy in his hand, looking like it needs a bit of care. Like it needs Felix’s mouth on it.
He groans, knowing there isn’t a faster way to go about this. Fine, he types. I actually also need a bit of ham. I’ll pay you when you get here.
The Omega's Secret Pregnancy (Men of Meadowfall Book 1) Page 14
