51. Jordan
Chapter fifty-one
"Absolutely, Ronda, I can take Phillip on as a client."
"Are you sure? His agent says he's a handful, but he really needs a PR manager."
I rub my temples, silently pleading for Ronda to hurry up. The woman is as kind as can be, but she is verbose, and I already agreed to take on this client. "I'm sure. I researched him, and he can easily come back from this sort of scandal with the right strategy. Visiting a seedy nightclub like Prism isn't a career-ender, no matter what they're known for. Even if his whole public persona is what a sweet, innocent boy he is. I can spin this in my sleep."
After Ronda repeatedly expresses her gratitude and hangs up, I jot down a few ideas that came to me during our conversation. I make a note to call Phillip's agent tomorrow and get the ball rolling.
The month since I lost my job at Hurry Up and Grow has been a whirlwind. With twice-weekly therapy sessions with Dr. K to ensure that I'm coping with the extreme change, I've barely had a chance to focus on anything but getting Knightmare off the ground. What was once a marketing, ad, and PR venture that I barely paid attention to has become my full-time job, and I'm nearly booked up on clients for the foreseeable future.
I thought my regular clients wouldn't want to do more work with me, especially after how things ended with HUG, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth. After moping for a week, Cyrus insisted I let him call Ronda and put feelers out, while Simon forced me to call my prior clients and see if they needed more work.
The result? I now have so much business that I may need to hire some help. But I'm not ready to trust someone else just yet.
"Hey, sunshine," Vick coos as he walks through the front door. "How was your day?"
"So so busy."
His eyes catch on the sprawl of papers, my laptop, and magazine ad cutouts on the dining room table. "I can see that." He kisses my forehead before leaning against the kitchen counter. "Do you think it may be time for us to think about moving somewhere bigger where you can have an office?"
The idea had crossed my mind several times, but I've been reluctant to bring it up. I have some savings, but with everything with Knightmare so new, it will be a while before I can take a salary. I know we can sell my condo and get a nice chunk of change, but I feel weird asking the guys to spend their money so I can be a little more comfortable.
Sometimes, I swear Vick can read my mind because he chuckles, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me against his chest. "Stop worrying about money. I've got savings, and you, Cyrus, and Rafe have property to sell."
"They have property?"
"Yeah, love. They had condos across the hall from one another before they moved into that house to reunite with Slime and court you. They didn't tell you?" Dae comes strutting into the room without a care in the world, meowing for Icarus to feed him even though I have already given him dinner.
"To be fair," Rafe's voice echoes from the entryway as the door closes. "She never asked."
"To be fair, I was pissed off." He kisses me on the cheek as he walks by, humming an unfamiliar song on his way to the room he shares with Simon.
"Are you still pissed off?" Vick whispers, his breath hot on my ear. "When will you put those boys out of their misery?"
Sighing, I slump against his hard body, marveling at the way we fit together so seamlessly. "Honestly? I don't know. I've reconnected with Simon and Rafe, and even if things aren't easy, they're comfortable, and we're working towards everything. But Cyrus and I are still tap dancing around each other, and that was never my preferred form of dance. More of a jazz girly, myself."
He chuckles and buries his nose in my hair. "Why not just talk to him, tell him you're ready to forgive him?"
"It doesn't feel right. It's not that I'm not there. He's more than proven he legitimately cares for me and that all of it was a shitty, stupid decision made by teenagers." Icarus strokes my hair down my back, and I melt under his touch. "There just hasn't been that moment where things become clear, you know?"
My Alpha winces. "Actually, I don't think I do. If you forgive him, and you've always cared for him, why not let him know you're done keeping him at arm's length?"
"Okay, so, with you, I woke up in your arms after a traumatic event, and you took care of me. It was one of those moments where my soul recognized yours, and I was all in."
He kisses me softly, fingers gripping my chin. "I was all in, too."
I groan as he pulls away, leaving me aching for more. "With Simon, I found out he'd saved me a spot to claim him since we were teenagers. All that ink and the spot I once joked about biting was left open for me. That was when it clicked for me that this man would never purposefully hurt me again. That though what he went along with was brutal, it was done with a pure heart, and he hated it as much as I did."
Vick runs his hand up and down my spine in silence, and I peek down the hall to see if Rafe is going to come out and interrupt this next part. Instead, I catch the faint sound of the shower running and rush to speak. "When Rafe took me to that rage room and watched me destroy everything, it just brought into perspective how he's always been the ship in the storm for me."
"You mean port in a storm." His eyes glint the way they do before he goes on one of his fascinating tangents, but he bites his tongue. I wait to see if he'll keep talking, but he doesn't.
"You aren't going to tell me about the saying?" I ask, wrinkling my nose. "Why was I wrong?"
"Oh." He blushes and ruffles his hair sheepishly. "Well, it's an older proverb, mainly used in politics, but its first known use was in literature. It's fascinating. The first publication of it was in an erotica novel of all places in the 1700s. How wild is that? A smutty book had a phrase that is now used by politicians everywhere. And people say smut isn't literature!"
I push up on my toes to kiss him as I laugh. "That is so interesting, and I'm never going to think about that phrase the same way again. Why don't we ever go out and play trivia together? I feel like you'd destroy the competition."
We shuffle into the kitchen as we chatter away, making plans for doing a pack trivia night at some point in the future as we cook dinner. Cyrus won't be home this evening as he's got an episode of Sin Bin to host tonight, but Simon comes home, grease covering up his chocolate malt smell, right as we're plating dinner.
He kisses me on the forehead as he passes me on his way to the shower, calling for us to save him a plate. Rafe pours me a glass of wine before sitting down, and eventually, the four of us are eating as we joke and laugh, talking about our days like a proper pack.
"Holy shit," I whine, rolling over and clutching my stomach.
Simon sits up, bleary-eyed, blinking at me in confusion. I grab his arm, trying to yank him down on top of me, and he swears softly and grunts, "Heat spike."
"Alpha," I groan, the ache inside me feeling like fire running through my veins. "It hurts."
"I know, Omega, I know," he whispers, stroking my head.
My clothing feels suffocating, like when you're trying on a shirt that's just slightly too small, and you go to take it off and get stuck in it, and then there's that moment of anxiety where you think that this is where you're going to die and you'll be stuck in the shirt forever.
I rip the leggings and t-shirt off with a speed that may break the sound barrier. He chuckles as he watches my frantic movements, peeling his clothes off almost as fast.
My eyes roam over the thousands of dollars of ink embedded in his skin and the little silver rings that adorn his pink nipples and perch above his belly button.
But the real prize is the thick piece of jewelry that's fed through the head of his cock, shining with precum that drips from the tip of him. I can't control myself, and I dive, sucking him into my mouth while I grab him around the hips to hold him in place.
He yelps in surprise before his noises fade into a low moan as I twirl my tongue around the piercing before swallowing him down my throat.
But as much as I love the taste of him, the feeling of his fingers feeding through my hair as he roughly fucks my face, it's not enough. My core clenches around nothing, and I rub my thighs together for friction.
"Oh, is my Omega needy?" he purrs, cupping my chin. "Well, that can be fixed." His fingers dance across my cheekbones before hooking in the side of my mouth beside his cock and pulling my cheeks wide. "Omega. Present for your Alpha."