Chapter 4 #2
“Or maybe a shower first,” Jack said, rambling a little. “Or a bath. I think the suite has a really nice bathtub. We could run a hot bath, maybe put some bubbles in there….”
He trailed off with a happy sigh.
He was going to kill me. My inner omega was going nuts, reaching and stretching for what it wanted on a visceral level. Only, its arms had been cut off, and it would never be able to reach for anything again.
“Yeah, a bubble bath would be nice,” Jack said, stroking his fingers through my hair. “Maybe room service, too. I hear they do great—”
His sweet words and my descent into madness were cut off abruptly by a knock at the door.
“Junior?” a deep voice said from the other side.
Jack tensed so hard and fast I thought he might pull a muscle. His knot had gone down, and the sharp movement caused him to slip out of me.
“What the fuck does he want?” Jack wondered to himself, then scrambled to get out of bed.
There was another knock as Jack searched for something to cover himself with, found a robe, then headed for the door.
I crawled around until I was able to slip between the covers, which we hadn’t even pulled back yet.
By the time Jack opened the door to reveal a grey-haired, somehow familiar-looking alpha, I was covered up enough for modesty.
“Just checking on you,” the alpha said, stepping into the room.
My skin crawled as he came closer to the bed, and not just because I was technically in heat that another alpha was taking. Although I could already feel the induced heat leaving me. The grey-haired alpha sniffed the air, frowning, and glanced around.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” Jack asked, hugging his robe tighter.
The intrusive alpha was Jack’s father? Gross.
Jack’s dad scanned the room a bit more, then noticed the crop on the floor. The bedcovers weren’t exactly freshly laundered either. He humphed, then smiled the nastiest smile I’d ever seen.
“Good,” he said, turning back to Jack. “I was worried you’d let me down.”
Let him the fuck down? What was wrong with this asshole?
“No, I haven’t let you down,” Jack answered, standing almost at attention, his red face lowered.
“Good,” the asshole repeated. “Then carry on.”
He nodded once, clapped a hand on Jack’s shoulder like he was proud of him, then marched back out into the hall, closing the door behind him.
The sick silence in the room after he left was horrible, especially since Jack continued to just stand there, his head bowing more and his shoulders drooping.
“That was your dad?” I asked.
Jack nodded, sighed, and said, “Yeah,” still not looking at me.
I pushed my way around in the bed until I was sitting with my back against the headboard. “And he just barged in here to make sure you had actually fucked me.”
Jack swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing guiltily. “Yeah,” he said, sounding miserable. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, then said, “Technically, he didn’t barge, he knocked.”
“That’s fucked up,” I said.
And then, before I was really aware of my movements, I did the last thing I should have done. I scrambled over to him and threw my arms around him from behind. I wedged my knees on either side of him, too, so I could hold him with my whole body.
The thudding, throbbing pain of slamming against what should have been inside me turned my stomach again, but I couldn’t pull away from Jack. Especially when he said, “My dad thinks I’m a terrible alpha.”
“Why? Are you supposed to be an interfering asshole like him?” I asked.
Jack sighed. I felt it with my whole body. “Probably, yes,” he said.
“That’s stupid.”
Jack shrugged. “My dad is…someone important.” I was furious over the way he felt like he had to protect the asshole’s identity. “My family is high society.”
That also made me feel sick. These days “high society” was code for old families with a shit-ton of money who thought that any and all advances made in the last century were a bad idea and that things should return to feudal days, when omegas were property.
“I’m an only child,” Jack went on. “There’s a lot resting on my shoulders, an entire legacy.”
“That sucks,” I said, then kissed his shoulder without thinking about it.
The warped, dizzy, horrible feeling swelled inside me again. I needed to let go of Jack. I needed to get as far away from him as fast as possible.
“It definitely sucks,” he said, sagging even more. “I’m never going to be good enough. I’m never going to be what my parents want.”
“So your dad makes you go to omega-fucking events because he thinks that will make you into the right kind of alpha?” I asked.
Jack twisted to look at me over his shoulder. The sadness in his eyes nearly broke my heart.
My own broken insides throbbed again. My inner omega was in agony, crippled and hurting and wanting so badly to just…connect with this alpha.
“I don’t want to be that kind of alpha,” Jack said, vulnerability blaring.
A second later, he huffed and pulled away from me, standing.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t dump all this on you,” he said, pacing away from me then back again. “I shouldn’t dump it on anyone. I should just go along, do what’s expected of me, and take moments wherever I can.”
“What kind of moments?” I was stupid enough to ask.
Jack shrugged. “I’m a lawyer. That’s my day job. I like helping people. I don’t always get to do it because Dad—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I should seek out more cases where I can actually help people. Maybe then, someday, maybe once he’s dead….”
I had never hated anyone more than I hated Jack’s dad in that moment.
No, that wasn’t true. I hated Chester more.
But Jack’s dad was a very close second.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, bursting with manic inspiration. I scrambled out of bed and over to where Jack had stopped near one of the windows. It was still dark outside, but morning had to be coming soon.
Jack turned to me with an endearing, questioning look. “An idea?”
“Yeah,” I said, more excited by the second. I shifted around to sit on the windowsill in front of him. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s…what?”
I couldn’t stop the smile that took over my face. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, tugging at his robe.
“And go where?” Jack asked.
I shrugged. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Let’s run away and get into trouble.”
“I’m not really the sort who gets into trouble,” Jack said.
“That’s why we should go,” I insisted, pushing away from the wall and grabbing him to bring him with me to the bathroom. “Let’s break free of this, of your dad, of everything. We can drive until we run out of gas, get some more, and keep driving.”
“Keep driving?”
I could tell from the way Jack looked happy for maybe the first time since he’d picked me up from Hamish at the front of the auction dais that he was considering the idea.
“We’ll just run away,” I said, pulling him into the bathroom so we could clean up before leaving. “No one will know where we are. There won’t be any expectations on either of us. We can go where we want, do what we want. We can be free.”
And maybe, if I ran hard enough, if I had Jack with me as I ran, I could finally get away from the damage inside me.
“Free,” Jack repeated the word like it was a prayer. “We could be free.”
“Totally free,” I said, turning to face him again. “Just you and me.”
Jack’s gaze was unfocused for a moment as he considered it. Then he zeroed in on me with a smile. “Let’s do it.”