Chapter Twenty-Six
Brooks
This phone meeting is taking forever. It shouldn’t be this damn hard to get five grown, adult men to agree to a date and a charity.
I don’t care if we do five separate charities, so long as those charities benefit equally.
I am also a little past frustrated with the argument over which of us will be listed on the first line of the contracts.
I don’t care about any of it anymore; I just want it to be done so I can get back to the day I was trying to have.
Laz and I made plans for the afternoon. I knew I’d have to take this meeting this morning, and he decided to take a nap until I finished.
I’m half tempted to leave them arguing with themselves and go join his nap.
I just need this thing to end so I can be done with it.
None of these decisions should take the amount of time dragging on from one tiny point to the next.
I’m about to lose my patience and possibly my temper when it becomes very obvious that Laz is no longer resting.
His scent is strong before the door even starts to open.
His smoldering gaze slices into me the moment he steps into the room, and anything I was about to say to the men waiting for my reply on the other side of the screen dissipates into the cloud of need quickly filling my office.
The sight of him like this—his chest bare and rising with shallow breaths, his cheeks flushed, his dark eyes daring me to look away from him—takes my breath.
This is how I want him. This is how I've always needed him.
He leaves the door open and stalks toward the other side of my large desk and pushes everything to the far end before he slowly starts to undo his pants. He drags the zipper down one notch at a time, and his eyes follow my tongue as I lick my suddenly dry lips.
This is a preliminary spike to his first true heat in what is likely years.
I can't imagine how he must be feeling, but the scent that fogs around me as he drops his pants to the floor and climbs onto the surface of my desk is almost overwhelming even for me.
He gets on his knees, right beside and just behind my laptop, and spreads them wide, leaning back to brace himself on the wood behind him.
“Brooks, is everything alright?” someone asks, but I might as well be deaf to anything but the sound of Laz's shallow breaths.
Laz wraps his hand around the base of his cock and squeezes. His eyes flutter shut and his head tips back, but he doesn't make a sound as a heavy drop of precum leaks from his tip to pool on the shiny surface of my desk.
Well, that's done it.
“Gentlemen,” I start, my voice much deeper and rougher than the last time I spoke to them. “I'm afraid I need to cut this meeting short. Something pressing has come up. I'll be in touch soon.”
Exiting the meeting, I close my laptop and slowly rise to my feet.
Laz may be tempting me to abandon my better senses and ravish him, but I need to be careful.
Every single thing I do must remain intentional.
This will be my first opportunity to help him through a heat spike.
I refuse to allow myself to lose control and possibly hurt him.
My fingers tremble under the strain of undoing the buttons on my shirt rather than ripping the fabric apart and scattering buttons across the room.
My shoulders ache with the effort it takes to slide the shirt over my shoulders and down my arms. It physically pains me to fold the shirt in half and drape it over the back of my chair.
Then he strokes down his length and makes a sound of such tortured need that it almost destroys my determination. An involuntary growl begins deep in my chest, and he responds to it with a sigh.
I'm not going to make it through this. Not with any amount of sanity. It's been too long since I've had him like this. The chemically induced fog he was in for weeks at a time was intense, but this is genuine Omega heat. This is real.
I lower my fingers to my belt buckle, the sound of me unfastening it loud in the room.
Laz groans when he hears it, his hips thrusting into the tight grip of his fist. “Brooks,” he gasps. “Please.”
My engorged cock presses urgently against my zipper as I slide it down.
I let my pants fall to the floor, and I step out of them, but I keep my boxers on.
There are things I want to do to Laz before I finally let myself sink into his heavenly depth, and the thin material will be enough of a reminder to remember them in the throes of this.
When I drag my gaze back up his torso to his face, he's watching me through slitted eyes.
“Don't stop, gorgeous,” I purr. “Show me how you touch yourself.”
“You've seen it before,” he pants.
“I want to see it again,” I tell him as I sit back down on my chair. I lean forward far enough so that I can prop myself up on my elbows and rest my chin on my hands, just a scant few inches in front of his swollen head. “Show me again.”
“It's nothing special,” he says softly, his eyes closing to hide the shame he's determined to carry.
“Give me what I want, Omega,” I growl, letting just enough command into my voice to overpower any doubt he might have.
Laz whimpers and lets his head drop back again as his fist slowly moves down his shaft.
“There you go, beautiful,” I roughly encourage. “Keep going.”
He strokes himself while I watch, need dripping from him right in front of my face.
It's all I can do to stop myself from stretching out my tongue and lapping at him.
I watch his wrist flex as he twists his grip from base to tip, over and over, until the muscles in his thighs are visibly trembling. Then I take him into my mouth.
He gasps harshly, coming up onto his knees and catching himself on my shoulders to keep from tumbling over me and onto the floor. “Brooks,” he pants.
I swirl my tongue around him once, savoring his taste, before letting him slip from my lips. “Did I tell you to stop jerking off?”
“Brooks,” he argues, but he loses his words when I look up at him.
“Did I tell you to stop?”
He shakes his head.
I raise my brows.
He takes a breath and leans back again and wraps his fist back around his shaft.
“There you go,” I encourage. I wait until he's worked himself back into a breathless rhythm before I open my mouth again.
I don't suck or lick. I simply let him jerk himself into my wide-open mouth, swallowing every drop that leaks onto my waiting tongue.
I can feel his gaze on me, and I glance up.
I find him staring down at me, his eyes dark and deeply hooded, his teeth sunk into his soft bottom lip. Fucking beautiful.
But it isn't enough. I know he needs more than this. We're both at the mercy of the spike he’s trying to stay on top of, and we're both losing.
As if on cue, he lets out a low groan. “Brooks,” he hisses. “Please. I need—“
“Shh, baby,” I croon. “I know. You've done so well for me. You're so beautiful and perfect.” I turn my head to kiss the inside of his thigh. “Thank you. Do you need me to take you now?”
Words. Words are important. Laz needs to be fucked.
I know it, and he knows it. He needs to be fucked as hard as I can possibly fuck him for as long as I can last. He needs me pounding into him almost violently.
But I won't say those things. Even if he does, I won't. I might fuck every self-depreciating, self-destructive thought out of his head, but I won't say it.
I will take him. I will claim him. I will give him every single thing he needs, always, but I will not say that I'm going to fuck him.
He needs soft words. Even if the things I do are decadently vicious, the words I use will be soft and gentle.
“Brooks,” he pants. “I need you to—“
I wrap my hands around his thighs and reposition him so that his legs are spread wide, his heels resting on the edge of the desk.
“You need me to make love to you, don't you, baby?” I stand up and push my boxers down my thighs and let my thick length rest beside his on his clenched stomach.
I move my hips so that my cock is moving hotly against his. “Tell me what you need, angel.”
He lets out another sound that sounds suspiciously like a sob, but he manages to choke out the words. “I need you, Valla. I need you to t...take me. Please.”
“Anything you need, Laz,” I say softly, smiling down at him. “Anything you need.”
I gently press his knees back, spreading him wider for me. “Stay just like that, baby. I need to get you ready for me.”
He doesn't argue, but he does whine, long and keen.
Laz is as ready as he'll ever be, but I still take time away from our shared misery to make sure he won't feel any pain when I have him stretched around me.
An Omega in the middle of a heat spike is already more than wet and primed to receive relief, but with him the intention is more important than anything else.
His smart mouth might deny it, but his body, his soul, craves being cared for.
He yearns to be treated like the precious thing he is; he just needs to be reminded that he is, in fact, precious.
Part of that process is not shoving my aching cock into him as fast and as deep as I can to assuage my own intense need.
I can and will overlook my own discomfort if that means making sure he feels his worth.
“Brooks,” he says, drawing out the s in a long, trembling hiss.
“Are you ready for me, Laz?”
“Yes. Fucking yes. Please, Brooks. It hurts.” He pulls his knees even wider, shifting his hips to create the perfect invitation.
“My poor Omega,” I say softly, and he moans in response. “I'll make you feel so much better.”
I grasp the back of one of his thighs to steady both of us as I guide myself to his weeping entrance. I hold my breath and start pushing inside of him. His body urges me deeper, and the pleasure of it is excruciating. “Fuck, Laz. You're so damn wet for me.”
And he is. There's so much slick. His thighs and my desk are shining with it.
“If I didn't need to be inside you as badly as I do, I would lick up every drop of you.”
He starts to chuckle, but it turns into another long whine.
I tilt my hips to adjust the angle as I press myself fully inside of him, only stopping when my already swelling knot makes it impossible to go further.
His fingers are digging into the backs of his thighs, the nails leaving angry marks as he pulls his knees up to his chest. Leaning forward, I pull his hands away and push them down until I can wrap his fingers over the edge of the desk.
“Hold on, beautiful,” I tell him.
He swallows and nods, his dark eyes lost in a fog of need.
I'm losing him to the spike. I'm surprised I've held onto him this long, if I'm honest. He's done shockingly well.
I might not tell him that I'm going to fuck him, but that's what I do. I surge forward, my hips making more of a thudding sound than a slap when they meet his ass. Then I do it again. I fuck Laz until the heavy desk starts moving across the floor with every thrust.
Praise and encouragement fall out of his mouth incoherently between his gasps and moans. “Oh God, Brooks. Valla... Fuck... Yes... Please... Oh, God... It's so fucking good... Please... Don't stop...”
“Never,” I growl, giving him another deep thrust. “I will always give you what you need. You're mine, Lazarus. Mine, and only mine.”
He cries out, his own hips raising to meet mine as much as I'll allow it, his nails digging into the desk. “Knot me.”
I pause mid-stroke. The enormity of his demand takes my breath every time.
That closeness, the intensity of the connection, is my deepest need and my ultimate weakness.
Subconsciously, I recognize that part of me is afraid that he'll break me again.
I can hope that I will eventually lose that fear, but for now it's something I have to endure and push aside.
“Brooks?” he whimpers, straining to lift his head to meet my eyes.
I lean down to kiss him. I put everything I need and everything I want into the kiss, and when I pull away, he blinks up at me with heat-muddled, wet eyes. “Anything you need, Omega.”
The sounds Laz makes as I push my knot into him burn a path from my brain straight down to my balls.
Usually, I can make it last just a bit longer, long enough to feel the release before it rushes out of me, but not this time.
This time, the moment my knot is fully seated inside him, my orgasm explodes from me so violently that my vision blurs and I lose myself for a moment.
Laz finds me, though, and drags me back to the immediacy of the present with a satisfied groan and a sharp nip on my chest. “Careful, Valla. Once you mark me, that's it. No refunds, no returns.”
My teeth are pressing into the juncture of his shoulder and neck, begging to bite. I can feel his flesh giving itself to me, as if his body is trying to close the distance and complete the claiming mark. His blood, his taste, his soul are crying out for me to take what we both know is mine.
It would be so easy. So fucking easy.
I lick across his skin, fully contemplating the decision.
I didn’t want to mark Laz again when he was in heat.
I wanted him to be aware of it. I wanted him to participate in it.
But isn’t he aware now? He’s completely conscious of himself and what’s happening.
Opening my mouth, I let my teeth press into him again.
He gasps my name, and I drag them back and forth, grazing, tempting myself.
He clenches around me when the skin breaks under the sharp attention, his head dropping back in submission as he moans.
I could do it.
I should.
I’m going to.
I was going to anyway.
I pull back just far enough to speak. “Say yes.”
“Yes?” he asks, breathlessly.
“Let me mark you again.” My tongue swirls, and the taste of him makes me groan. “Right now.”
“Yes,” he moans, wrapping his arms around my neck to pull me closer. “Yes, Brooks.”