CHAPTER THREE – TRISTAN #2
I’m so angry, I storm over to the coffee table and snatch up my satchel, pulling out my camera.
I flick back through the most recent shots, and when I find the picture I took with my long-distance lens, I shove it in his face.
“That is Ellis’ son, Ot. He’s not a baby, if you missed that update.
He’s a full-grown kid, and I’m guessing that hunk of masculinity beside him is now his father. ”
Otley’s gaze simmers as he stares at the screen, but then he sighs. “We had no idea she was pregnant. Omegas are usually infertile during their first heat, so I assumed there was a low probability of it happening.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
As smart as he is, as cunning and perceptive in all things business, my alpha is a complete blunderhead in matters of the heart.
“She's the one percent!” I shout, waving a picture of Lily in his face. I took it while she was leaning over a lavender bush, and she looks like a sun-kissed angel, despite the hitch in her smile and the dark circles under her eyes. “In every way, Otley! Not just because she’s your scent match, but because she’s a really decent human being.
But I guess that motorcycle-riding hunk already figured that out, huh?
Which means you’re not just a decade late. You also missed your goddamn chance.”
We don’t talk for a while after that.
Otley stays in his study, and I retreat to my bedroom, my steps so furious I’m surprised I don’t leave scorch marks on the floorboards.
Not even the handstitched comforter or the silk-flocked wallpaper can soften my mood, although as I stomp into the bathroom and splash water on my face, I have to admit this is the prettiest suite in the house.
We have a huge pack room on the top floor, with a bed big enough to house all three of us, but we also like our own space.
Luckily, in a house with eight bedrooms, there’s enough of that to go around.
Which is just as well for my alphas, since right now I’d probably throttle them in their sleep.
In fact, it will take the entire fucking fellowship to drag me into their bed for the foreseeable future.
I spend a bristly hour downloading my SD card to my computer.
It’s hard to stay mad, though, especially when I get to the section from Rosie’s Blooms. I thought I was just enchanted by its owner, but every shot seems to pop with vitality, and every image is bathed in a sort of ethereal glow.
The flower farm really is one of the best locations I’ve found in a long time, and I feel a pang of professional disappointment that we won’t be able to use it in the upcoming campaign.
Because I was telling the truth about the Eros Chocolates account.
Or the truth as Otley had explained it to me, back when he first floated the idea of setting up house in Idaho.
I’d laughed him off at the time, but he insisted we needed a base for the biggest campaign of my career.
I’d fallen for it, of course, both because I was excited about the shoot and because I’d grown weary of the hustle and bustle of the west coast. In hindsight, buying a house in Idaho was an extreme way to show his support, but I wasn’t about to argue when his plan suited me down to the ground.
So, Otley and I had flown out ahead of Ellis, who’s on set at a remote location in Alaska for his latest film.
It’s the third and final chapter in a massive, award-winning trilogy, and the director is a paranoid lunatic who has kept the whole cast in lockdown to avoid any leaks to the press.
Ellis’ star billing means he’s been able to call us every week, but we haven’t seen his face since he left three months ago, which was another reason I was looking forward to the move to Idaho.
Once post-production wraps up in a couple of weeks, he’s promised to take the rest of the year off, other than some publicity engagements he can’t get out of.
I scowl at the thought of his studio dragging him off again before he’s had a chance to recover from the grueling shoot.
The grim reality is that everyone wants a piece of my alphas – Ellis, because he’s a highly bankable movie star, and Otley, because it’s a well-known fact that he has the juice to make or break careers with a single phone call.
Ellis might be the public face of our pack, but Otley is the ultimate dealmaker, working behind the scenes to build fortunes and create empires.
Everyone is always looking for a little of his stardust to blow their way, because in a place like Hollywood, power is even more seductive than fame.
I pause on the picture of Lily next to the lavender bush.
She didn’t know I was taking it, which just makes the shot more appealing.
She has the curves of a Marilyn Monroe with the fine features of an Audrey Hepburn, giving her an enticing blend of fragility and sex appeal.
It’s not really surprising, since a decade ago she was the town’s beauty queen, but instead of flaunting her looks, she’s wearing a bandana covered in watering cans and clearly hasn’t indulged in a manicure for a while.
According to her own description of farm work, she spends her days knee-deep in grit, sweat, and manure.
Is that because she feels obligated to carry on the family business, or because more glamorous jobs are thin on the ground in rural Idaho?
Questions I may never get answers to, thanks to her history with my alphas.
I sigh as I send the picture to the printer, then head to the shower.
Parts of the house might be a little heavy and outdated – something Otley promises to remedy in the next few weeks – but my bathroom is a dream, with both a clawfoot bath and a steamer shower.
I’m just squeezing some gel into a washcloth when the door opens behind me, and Otley plucks it from my grasp. “Let me, sweetheart.”
“Bossy as usual,” I sigh, but lean back against him as he wraps an arm around my waist.
“I’m sorry you found out that way,” he murmurs as he drags the washcloth over my chest. “I was planning on visiting her myself, to get the lay of the land.”
I twist to give him an incredulous look. “Well, the land is great, but you turning up will probably hit it like an earthquake.”
“She looks tired.” He jerks his head, and I see the picture I took sitting on the vanity beside his glasses.
In true Otley form, there isn’t even a hint of shame in his voice that he stole it off my printer.
“Based on what I’ve seen of her farm’s finances, she’s only just breaking even.
She’s understaffed and cash poor, and clearly not making the most of other revenue streams.”
Normally, his forensic accountant mode is hot as hell, but it’s all too little, too late for my liking.
“Did you stalk her bank manager for those insights?” I snipe, and grunt as he gives my nipple a warning pinch.
“Ouch! Okay. I talked to a couple of her neighbors, and I think you’re right.
They said the farm is always insanely busy during the festival, and she doesn’t have enough staff to help carry the load. ”
“Then maybe that’s our way in,” he muses, and when I narrow my eyes at him, he drops the washcloth and takes my cock, giving it a practiced stroke. “But enough about that. I can tell you have a lot of frustration to work through.”
I’d growl at him, but this is Otley James to the core.
He rarely does guilt or doubt, mainly because he lives by iron-hard rules, and only commits to an action once he’s planned it down to the last detail.
I always thought I was an anomaly – the penniless student who rode his bicycle into his Bentley and somehow ended up riding him.
But looking at the picture he’s propped on the vanity, it’s pretty clear that I wasn’t the first disruption to the meticulous order of his life.
Am I jealous?
I know I felt a flicker of that emotion when they first told me about their elusive scent match omega.
Seven years later, they were still carrying around the hurt and disappointment of losing her.
They thought they’d done the right thing by a young omega who was going through her first heat in a strange city, but she’d left without a backward glance.
Or a forwarding address, according to Ellis’ uncle.
Fucking Crest. The only surprising thing about that asshole was that he’d died of a heart attack – since he’d never used the organ in his mean-spirited life.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Otley murmurs as he grips my chin and gives me a slow, drugging kiss.
When he finally pulls back, I’m panting, and he nudges my leg until I’ve lifted my foot onto the wooden bench.
Filling his hand with shower gel, he nibbles on his mating bite as he opens me up with his long, careful fingers.
Otley is as good at sex as he is at everything else, and it doesn’t take long before I’m rocking against his hand and hissing in pleasure.
When he turns me around and presses me gently against the glass, I find myself staring at Lily’s picture through lust-blurred eyes.
Is it deliberate? Does he want me staring at his scent match as he eases into me, his hot, hungry cock stirring every nerve to life?
“You feel so good, sweetheart,” he groans when he’s all the way in. The stretch isn’t quite as bad as it is with Ellis, but I’m still stuffed full as I reach back and grip his muscular thigh. “How do you want it? Hard or slow?”