Chapter 25
twenty-five
JULIA
I squeezed Sunny tight, inhaling the sweet, powdery scent of her shampoo, before pressing a kiss to the top of Wyatt’s head. “Be good for your grandparents, okay? Listen to them.”
Wyatt puffed out his chest, looking entirely too much like Stetson. “I’m always good.”
Sunny just giggled, squirming out of my arms to chase her brother down the porch steps and toward Mary’s waiting SUV.
Mary didn’t follow them. She lingered at the top of the wooden stairs, her sharp eyes sweeping over my face. A slow, knowing smile curved the older Omega’s lips.
“You’re looking a little flushed this morning, Julia,” Mary noted, her voice dropping into a warm, conspiratorial register. “Those pre-heat symptoms catching up with you?”
Heat blasted straight up my neck, staining my cheeks. “Mary, please,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “I’m scent matched with two of your sons. I will literally die right here on this porch. We cannot talk about this.”
Mary just laughed unapologetically. “Sex is a natural part of life, dear. And finding your rhythm with a new pack? You should enjoy the build-up. It’s the fun part.”
I peeked through my fingers, cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but Mary just reached out and patted my arm.
“Don’t you worry about the logistics,” she promised gently.
“I’m taking the kids for a few days to give you some breathing room, but when your actual heat hits, we’ll step in and take them for the duration.
They love spending time at our place, and you all need the house to yourselves.
But once you’re fully settled on the other side of it, we’ll plan a proper family dinner. ”
“Thank you,” I managed, genuinely grateful despite my burning face.
Mary offered one last wink and headed down the steps, climbing into the driver’s seat. I stood on the porch, waving until the SUV disappeared down the gravel drive.
I was already going to miss the busy chaos of having the kids around, but Mary was right. My designation was overriding my common sense, and my pre-heat was severely complicating my ability to function like a normal human being.
Taking two knots in the span of a few days while off my suppressants had rewired my system.
My inner Omega was wide awake and eager to claim the rest of her men.
Ever since sex had officially hit the table, I was coming right out of my skin—pun intended.
I was insatiable. If I didn’t have one of my mates actively in my bed, I was locked in the bathroom taking care of business myself with a battery-operated toy.
I was half-embarrassed by how many times a day I suddenly needed an orgasm just to take the edge off.
I definitely hadn’t shared that particular detail with the pack. They’d probably scold me. Ransom, especially, would lose his mind, informing me with a cocky grin that I had way too much real, willing dick available on this ranch to ever need something silicone.
Just the thought of him sent a fresh throb straight between my thighs.
I covered my face with my hands, letting out a frustrated groan. I needed a distraction before I lost my mind, and fortunately, Chaddrick Hurst had just provided me with one.
I grabbed the thick manila envelope off the table and headed out toward the main barn.
The OMA director had finally sent the packet of forms for my business registration—the elusive exemption I’d been fighting for.
I had stared at the dense, bureaucratic legal jargon over my morning coffee for exactly three minutes before realizing I was out of my depth.
The registry deliberately made independence as opaque and confusing as possible.
If I wanted to beat them at their own game, I needed the man who had already successfully manipulated their system once before.
I pushed the heavy sliding barn door open, stepping out of the bright midday sun and into the cool, shadowed interior.
I found Gideon exactly where I expected him to be.
The back office was the undisputed nerve center of the Double T.
It wasn’t glamorous. The walls were pinned with breeding charts, veterinary schedules, and a calendar aggressively marked in red ink for the rodeo circuit.
Gideon sat behind a heavy, scarred wooden desk buried under ledgers and feed orders.
A mug of cold coffee sat forgotten near his elbow.
His reading glasses were perched on the bridge of his nose, and his dark eyes were locked onto a laptop screen.
The deep, grounding scent of his cinnamon and sandalwood saturated the small room, hitting my hyper-sensitive nose and immediately easing the frantic edge in my blood.
I leaned my shoulder against the doorframe, crossing my legs at the ankles and tapping my knuckles lightly against the wood. “Tell me you speak fluent bureaucratic bullshit.”
Gideon looked up from his glowing laptop screen.
His eyes darkened as they swept over me, stalling for a fraction of a second on the bare expanse of my legs.
I had ditched my usual jeans for a lightweight, flowy skirt this morning, mostly because heavy denim felt too abrasive against my overly sensitive skin, but the sudden flare of heat in Gideon’s gaze made me very glad I’d put it on.
He didn’t make a comment about my flushed cheeks or the buzzy energy I knew he could sense. Instead, he reached up, pulled his reading glasses off his nose, and dropped them onto the cluttered desk.
“Unfortunately, I’m damn good at it,” he said, his voice a low, steady rumble. He pushed his wheeled chair back and kicked a heavy wooden stool out from under the opposite side of the desk, dragging it right up next to his own seat. “Bring it here.”
I pushed off the doorframe and crossed the small room, handing over the manila envelope before settling onto the stool.
The space was incredibly tight. My bare thigh pressed directly against the denim of his jeans.
Tingles spread through me, settling low in my belly.
I forced myself to look at the paperwork as Gideon slid the thick stack of documents out of the envelope.
He leaned forward, his shoulder brushing mine, and started reading.
For the next twenty minutes, the simmering physical tension in my blood was eclipsed by the brilliance of the man sitting next to me.
Gideon didn’t just read the legal jargon, he dissected it.
He pointed out the specific clauses the registry used to stonewall independent applicants, then showed me the tiny, overlooked loopholes buried three pages deep that could unravel all their red tape.
“They rely on fatigue,” Gideon explained, tapping a calloused finger against a dense paragraph detailing financial guarantor requirements.
“They make the process so miserable that most Omegas just default to an Alpha’s authority.
But if you file an addendum under section 4-B, citing an intellectual property trust instead of a standard LLC, it bypasses the guarantor requirement. ”
I stared at his profile, captivated by him.
It was the easiest thing in the world to look at Gideon and see the domestic caretaker—the Beta who brewed the coffee, managed the emotional well-being of the house, and kept Stetson grounded when things built up.
But sitting right here, watching him dismantle a corrupt government structure with nothing but a ballpoint pen and his strategic intellect, I finally saw the mastermind.
This was the man who had kept the ranch financially afloat. The man who had quietly gone against his pack because he knew they needed it. Needed me. He was sweet, smart, sexy, and so much more, yet the rest of the world underestimated him because he lacked an Alpha designation.
The air in the small office suddenly sweetened, broadcasting my sudden arousal loud and clear.
Gideon stopped talking. The tip of his pen hovered over the paper. He didn’t turn his head right away, but the deep, spicy warmth of his cinnamon and sandalwood flared in response, nearly making me whine.
“Are you listening to me, Jules?” he murmured, dropping into a low register I’d never heard him use before.
I swallowed hard, forcing my gaze up from his lips to meet his dark eyes. “I’m trying.”
Gideon didn’t smile. He dropped the ballpoint pen. It landed on top of the exemption forms with a sharp clatter. “You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said for the last five minutes, Jules. You’re looking at my mouth.”
“I...” My brain shrugged, unable to form a defensive lie. “Yes.”
He pushed his chair back, the wheels scraping loudly against the concrete floor.
In one fluid motion, he stood up, gripped my waist, and hauled me off the stool.
I gasped as he lifted me, his forearm sweeping a stack of feed orders out of the way before he set me down on the edge of the heavy wooden desk.
He stepped between my parted knees, crowding into my space, his jeans grazing against my bare inner thighs.
“You’ve been vibrating right out of your skin since you walked into the barn,” Gideon purred.
His hands caught the hem of my flowy skirt, gathering the material and slowly pushing it up my legs.
“I could smell how worked up you were from the second you crossed the threshold. You feelin’ needy, Sweetheart? ”
“Gideon,” I breathed, my hands dropping to grip his shoulders. “I—Yes.”
“Tell me what you want, Jules.” His words were a filthy, commanding rumble. His knuckles brushed over my cotton underwear, feeling the damp heat. “Use your words. Tell me exactly what to do to you.”
“Touch me,” I begged, completely stripped of my pride by how badly I wanted him. “Please.”
Satisfaction lit his eyes. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties and tugged them down my legs. I kicked them away, leaving myself exposed to him. Gideon didn’t hesitate. He traced two thick fingers directly along my slick center.