Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Shawn
As it turns out, there’s a lot of admin involved in getting an omega pregnant.
The first task was convincing Enzo not to freak out and do himself or our growing baby any harm.
“It’s okay, it’s alright, I swear,” I told him as we sat on the edge of the disheveled hotel bed.
I wanted to rub his back or put my arm around him and hold him close, but his post-heat aversion to touch was in full swing.
Although he mentioned that it wasn’t half as bad as it usually was at the end of his heats.
“This is not alright,” he sobbed, face buried in his hands, elbows planted on his knees. “This is the exact opposite of alright.”
“Really, it isn’t,” I insisted.
He dragged his face away from his hands and stared incredulously at me. “Weren’t you listening when I told you the story of what happened to my papa when my dad knocked him up? It ruined his life.”
I was halfway through opening my mouth to say the two sets of circumstances weren’t even remotely the same when Enzo gasped and blurted, “Oh, God! I wished this into being by telling that story, didn’t I. I made this happen by thinking about it.”
“Sweetheart, that’s absurd,” I said as gently as possible.
Truth be told, I was losing patience with my overly emotional omega.
But from the little I knew, that was part and parcel of heat.
The hormones made omegas extra emotional for a few hours at the end of their heat, whether they’d conceived or not.
I took it as a personal challenge to see how patient and understanding I could be.
“But what if it is, Shawn?” he asked, turning to face me, his eyes wide with horror. “What if I somehow willed this into being?”
“Aside from the fact that we’ve been having unprotected heat sex for two days and we’re both young and in the peak of health,” I started as if that deeply important fact were a side thought, “people can’t just will themselves to get pregnant.”
“You don’t know that,” he said sullenly, his shoulders hunched and reluctant agreement in his eyes.
I let him sit there and breathe for a second before risking the gesture I’d been longing to make for the last fifteen minutes and resting my arm around his shoulders. He flinched but didn’t pull away.
“Okay, Zo-Zo.” I couldn’t resist his pet name, even though it sounded like it was something special between him and his papa and he hadn’t given me permission to use it yet.
It was adorable, and I was determined to earn the right to use it.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. And mind you, this is coming from your friend and your alpha. ”
He glanced slowly at me with a combination of dread, gratitude, and affection in his big eyes.
“We’re going to take a shower and wash off all this sex stuff.”
That made him huff into a smile and a blush.
“Then we’re going to get dressed and order room service, because I, for one, am starving.”
“So am I,” he admitted.
“Then we’re going to leave the hotel staff an obscenely large tip—” he laughed gently and blushed even more, “—before going back to your apartment.”
“Wait, what?” Panic filled Enzo’s eyes.
I held up a hand and went on with, “Where we are going to pack everything you own that you want to keep and put it in my car.”
Tears filled Enzo’s eyes and his bottom lip wobbled.
“Then we’re going to hand over the keys to that place to Mr. Asshole, along with a check to cover whatever remains in your lease,” I went on. “Once we’re done with that, we’re driving to Barrington, where you will come live with me in my condo.”
“Shawn, I can’t ask you to do any of that. It’s way too much,” Enzo said in a small, helpless voice.
Which, of course, was exactly the reason I was laying down the law and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I’m telling you, you’re not asking me to do any of it,” I said in the authoritative voice he seemed to respond well to.
“I’ll give you the rest of the week to get acclimated to your new home,” I went on.
“You can tell whoever you want about the move, and if you have any friends you’d like to invite over, you are more than welcome to do that so they can see that I haven’t kidnapped you and I’m not holding you against your will. ”
“I have a couple friends,” he said weakly, which made me smile and my alpha preen. He was going to go along with my plan. “There’s Amy and her partner, Erica. I know Amy from work.” He gasped suddenly, then said, “I have to go to work. They probably think I disappeared.”
I shook my head. “I called that store where you work when you were sleeping after your third heat wave.”
“How do you know where I work?”
“Worked, past tense,” I said. “Although to be clear, I didn’t tell Mr. York you resigned when I called. And for the record, you told me where you worked when I asked you, although you were a little fuzzy after that heat wave and possibly half asleep.”
He nodded like the whole thing seemed plausible.
“I’m your alpha now, Zo-Zo,” I said, actually enjoying using a dominant, commanding voice. “We didn’t bond during this heat, but I do feel an extra closeness to you, like we’re in tune and could bond at some point.”
“I think that happens when two people have strong bond potential,” Enzo said halfheartedly.
“It does, or so I’m told. The point is, you’re carrying my child now, and no matter how that happened, I will take that responsibility seriously and provide for both of you.
” An uncomfortable thought hit me, and because I felt like I had to, even though my alpha screamed no, I said, “If that’s what you want, of course. This is your decision.”
Enzo looked at me like he was guilty of a grievous crime and whispered, “It’s exactly what I want. All I’ve ever wanted is to belong to an alpha. But I feel like I trapped you into it.”
“I think we’ve established that neither of us did this deliberately,” I said. “And we might need to talk about the whole you wanting to be owned by someone.”
I was just joking, but the look he gave me felt like a rock dropping in my gut. Did he actually want to be owned by an alpha? He’d been submissive in the bedroom, but that was just sex-play, right?
That was something else to think about later.
“Come on,” I said at last, standing and offering a hand to him. “Let’s get started with our plan for the rest of our life. Shower first.”
He looked gratefully up at me, then obediently took my hand, only flinching slightly at the skin-to-skin contact.
We followed through with every part of the plan, from the shower to getting Enzo situated in my condo.
“Wow. You actually live here?” he asked at his first glance of my place.
My condo wasn’t all that different from the Riverview Hotel’s penthouse suite, to be honest. It was also on the top floor of one of Barrington’s pricier high-rises.
The view on one side looked out over the ocean instead of the river, and the other side had an amazing view of the city’s skyline.
Most telling of all, my place was decorated in the same calming but impersonal style of a corporate living space.
“For my sins, yes, I live here,” I said, grinning at my omega’s awe. The place wasn’t exactly my lair, but it felt like I’d brought my omega home to my territory anyhow.
“It’s…it’s….”
I tilted my head to one side and waited for Enzo to gather his thoughts for his first impression.
“It looks expensive,” he said, taking a few more steps into the main part of the living area, one hand on his belly. “I’m almost afraid to touch anything.”
If that wasn’t a red flag about my lifestyle, I didn’t know what was.
“Feel free to redecorate all you want,” I said. “Or better still, we’ll go looking for a suitable family home after the holidays, once things settle down a bit. I’ll let you take the lead on that, since omegas have an inherent sense of nesting and know what they want for their young, right?”
Enzo turned and gaped at me like I’d spoken in a foreign language. “Excuse me?”
I winced. “Sorry, that’s offensive, isn’t it. I shouldn’t refer to our children as ‘young’.”
Enzo gaped harder. “Children?”
It was the weirdest way to emphasize the word, but I knew what he meant.
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face, then shrugged and said, “I’m treading on new ground here. I know what I want, but I feel like I’m going to say it wrong, no matter how I say it.”
“And what do you want?” Enzo asked, inching closer to me and looking up to meet my eyes, hope and fear and everything in the entire universe in his eyes.
“I want you,” I said honestly, though my voice was quiet. I moved closer to him and took his hands. “This nasty Santa wants his naughty elf with him always.”
It was a gamble, but it turned out to be the right thing to say. Enzo burst into laughter. “No,” he said, shaking his head and stepping all the way into his arms, giving me a hug. “You suck at role play. I draw the line at Santa fantasies.”
“It worked at the auction event,” I protested, folding him into my arms. I didn’t really care about the whole bad Santa thing one way or another, I was just so relieved he wanted to be with me.
“It worked because you needed something to get you out of your head,” Enzo laughed.
“And into your pants?”
He laughed even harder. “And into yourself,” he corrected me. “You’re a natural Dom, you know. You probably just haven’t been allowed to feel those things.”
“All alphas are natural Doms, aren’t we?” I asked. I didn’t really feel like discussing the ins and outs of alpha/omega dynamics just then, but Enzo was talking to me, and he was relaxing more with every second. My omega was home, and he was going to be happy here.
“I don’t want to know about other alphas, I just want to know about you,” Enzo said, resting his cheek against my shoulder and closing his eyes.
I could have died happy in that moment. It felt like I had everything I could possibly want in my arms.