16. Candice
Chapter 16
I t is a delightful surprise to find that our omega had restocked the fridge since I was last here, and bought coffee…like real coffee, not decaf. Which shows she wanted and expected us to come back and drink it. I start a fresh pot and then start sorting through the fridge to figure out what to make for breakfast. Technically Xan and I already ate, but food’s food, so he will always eat again.
Oh, there is stuff in here for a frittata.
I wonder if she likes frittatas?
Does anybody not like a frittata, really? That’s a funny word, frittata…fritos…tatas…
I look over our omega, wrapped up in a blanket. From what I saw earlier it’s just the blanket, but her knuckles are white trying to hold onto it .
What could I ask her to help me with that would be difficult with just one hand?
“Don’t fucking do it, Jacks, I know that look.” Xan is glaring at me–and fair, he knows me better than anyone else.
I try to affect an air of innocence, but it never works with him. “As much as I love seeing so much of you, can you go put more than a blanket on, before Jacks gets us kicked out?”
My Little Lion blushes furiously and bolts towards her nest. The blanket flares from the wind and I still get a tantalizing view of her backside before she slams the door.
“Come on man, I’m trying to apologize here, don’t embarrass her. She looks like she cried half the night already. Her eyes are redder than Gabes right now, and he was dealing with smoke inhalation.”
It was a long night, and once Leo gets him discharged from the hospital they are gonna go get some rest before they have to start work. We need to rest too.
Xan looks at me, and sometimes it feels like he can read my mind. “We need to get home too as soon as I finish explaining things. I know you want to feed her now that we know she’s ok.”
I glower at my best friend and lover. I have a lot more energy now that I’ve seen my Little Lion. Of course, I don’t have to go into a job that deals with heavy machinery or vehicle safety, or try to save any lives, pet lives, but still lives.
Fine.
Whatever .
“Fine…but drink your coffee first, she obviously got some for the next time we came over.” I know I am acting like a toddler, but I still enjoy his look of surprise.
“Ok, guys, what was so important that you couldn’t wait to tell me? In case it isn’t painfully obvious, I didn't sleep last night, and I really want to try to get some rest before I start working.” Candice comes back, wearing a set of blue flannel pajamas, and I just want to scoop her up and take her home-
There’s an idea.
“Little Omega, we wanted to come get you, so I could cook for you, but alas, some foul fiend started a fire and we were forced to assist.” I’m putting all the frittata ingredients back in the fridge and Xan is looking at me like I lost my fucking mind.
“Oh, my god, is everyone ok? Where are Leo and Gabe? Were any of you hurt?” She’s wringing her hands now. Xan turns to put her out of her misery, but I beat him to it.
“Fair maiden, our pack lead hath suffered from smoke inhalation and is being cared for at yon hospital, but fear not, the all-knowing doctor is with him and shall text us when they depart forsooth unto our home. Shall you join with us, and meet them thus upon their return?”
Xan strides over and smacks me in the back of the head, with a snort of laughter.
“Sorry, Love, he gets goofy on no sleep. We work with the volunteer fire department. They had an emergency. Probably arson, over the old gym. We got the call just before five yesterday evening, and by the time we got there it had started to spread. No one was seriously hurt. The building was empty, but idiot teenagers sometimes hang out there, so we still had to check it out. Gabe got caught in a downdraft, he wasn’t even in the building at the time, but he got a pretty big hit of smoke. Doc took him to the hospital to get him checked out. But we didn’t get the all clear to leave until almost six this morning and we are all dead on our feet.”
Candice visibly deflates as Xan explains. I don’t know what’s going through her head, but I know that we missed what was supposed to be our first courting date, and we needed to explain.
“Come on Little Lion, the offer still stands.” I take her hand and start to purr. “You wanna come over for breakfast and a nap? I think we could all use some snuggles right now, and I know it would help Gabe feel better.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. Xan’s right, I am feeling pretty damned loopy.
She chews on her lip for a minute, “Ok, but on two conditions. You have to bring me back this afternoon, I can’t leave Iggy alone all day, and I really do need to get work done since I didn’t work last night. And can you remind me later to call the locksmith to come out and put in a deadbolt on the back door?”
“Already taken care of, Pretty Lady,” Xan leans against the counter beside me. “I texted Joseph, he’s one of the volunteer firefighters we work with, and I doubt any of us have had a chance to crash yet. He runs a handyman business, and will come out this afternoon at three after he gets some rest himself. ”
“Oh, ok…well…Um…let me get my shoes I guess. And thank you.” She reaches out to quickly touch Xan’s arm before pulling back.
“Anytime, Pretty Lady.” He wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head–smooth bastard.
Xan
C andice relocks the back door, grabs a tiny backpack for personal care items , whatever that means, and gives Iggy a kiss, telling her that she will be back soon. Then Jacks is bundling her into the back of the Jeep before climbing in the back with her. We all smell like smoke, but she was kind enough not to mention it.
“Why is no one sitting in the front seat with me? I’m not a chauffeur.”
“Oh…Shotgun!” Candice shouts before trying to squeeze through the bucket seats. It is a valiant effort, but she almost loses her pajama bottoms in the process. Not that Jacks seems to mind. I’m actually surprised he isn’t trying to shimmy them down her hips. Then I see him out of the corner of my eye, pinching the fleecy fabric between two fingers, rubbing it back and forth, so I think he’s just trying to get a feel for the texture at this point. He’s been very interested in setting up her nest, and once he focuses on something he will keep at it until he wears himself out, or it gets done. Often to his own detriment.
“My Lady! You left me…I mean, I can sit up front with you in my lap if you really want to be in the front.” He starts to try to climb through the seats after her but I punch the gas and pull away from the curb, and he has to sit down. “Now, put on your seatbelt, the sooner we get home the sooner we can have breakfast and sleep.”
Leo messaged while we were waiting on Candice, and Gabe had been discharged. He said that they would meet us at home, and we are pulling into the driveway about ten minutes later, to park beside the truck. I go around to open Candice’s door.
“Wow, so I guess owning a garage pays pretty well, huh?” She laughs nervously.
Jacks wraps his arm around her shoulder. “Well, if you have four incomes and are willing to swing a hammer, you can work some stuff out.”
Our house is old, not exactly historic district old, or fancy, but Jacks isn’t wrong. We pooled our resources and bought a big fixer upper outside of town. It had a solid brick foundation on a good slab, and after the last few years of work, it looks pretty good. There are always small things we could fix up, but it’s ours and it’s home .
“Hey, come on, I need to show you your surprise!” Jacks pulls her towards the front door, staring at her to watch her reaction as they walk inside.
“Shit Man, Goddamit!” Gabe croaks, then bolts up the stairs in just a towel–we probably should have told them we were bringing Candice home, but oh well. It's too late now.
“What’s wrong, do we need to go back to the hospital?” Leo comes rushing down the hall in nothing but boxer briefs with a towel around his neck, slides to a stop, sees us standing in the doorway and trips over his long legs trying to escape upstairs to his room.
Jacks is leaning against the wall laughing, tears running down his face, and Candice has turned the color of a tomato and is staring at the floor.
“Great man…real mature. Now, do you want to show her what you’ve been working so hard on, or do you want to start breakfast?”
“You in the mood for sweet or savory, Little Lion?” Jacks asks when he can finally catch his breath.
“Well, I always like sweet. But it’s your house, so whatever you feel like doing.” I don’t think she quite understands how much we want this to be her house too, but we need to ease her into it. Jacks taps his chin a few times looking thoughtful.
“Have you ever had a German Pancake?” She shakes her head. “It has a kind of a custard thing going on, so it's sweet, but eggy. Wanna try it? I can put on some sausages for anybody who wants meat.”
He pulls her into the kitchen and sets her up on a barstool, and I leave them there to go find Gabe and Leo and make sure they’re alright.
“So, I take it she was alive then, unharmed?” Leo is coming back down the hallway, wearing pajama pants and a tank top this time. It looks like he got a shower and is just about ready to crash.
“Yeah, she was still asleep. Jacks broke in through the back door.” His eyes widen.
“He wanted to stay and make breakfast for her, so our compromise was that she would come over now, have breakfast, and then we could take her back home in a few hours on the way to work? That cool with you two?” I know Gabe can hear me, because I get a grunt in response.
“She’s fine sleeping here, then? None of us are exactly great for entertaining at the moment you know?” Leo is drying his hair as we talk, waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Gabe.
“Yeah, apparently she didn’t sleep well either. She almost fell asleep in the car just on the ride over here.” Gabe joins us and we head towards the kitchen, where Jacks has just put a large pan in the oven to cook.
“I set the timer on that for about 30 minutes, don’t open the oven, yeah? We’ll be back”. He grabs Candice’s hand and practically drags her from the room.
Candice
“ O k, I got a surprise…and you don’t have to use it…but if you want to you can…but no pressure.” Jacks babbles along while pulling me up the stairs and down a long hallway. We reach a closed door at the end of the hall, and he tells me to close my eyes while he takes both hands, and I am totally having a Beauty and the Beast moment.
Somehow I doubt I am getting a library.
Still, the room is dark enough, even with the full sun outside, that everything is still black behind my closed lids. We stop, and he lets me go and I just stand there while I hear him circling behind me, the door shuts, and a switch flips.
“Ok, open up!”
I let out a scream; his face is directly in mine when I open my eyes.
“Oh, shit, my bad…ok…sorry,” He mumbles, but steps to the side and I see the most amazing nest. It is bigger than mine back home, with plush rugs all around the room, and a low pack size platform bed, piled high with blue and gray blankets, and stacks of more in green and purple sitting in the corner. There are dozens of pillows–I am not actually sure how anyone could sleep here with so many pillows–but I just want to burrow into them and hide.
Jacks shuffles sideways and grabs a dark purple pillow from the bed to give me. The fabric is incredibly soft, and it has the perfect amount of stuffing, and it smells like him. No one has ever done anything like this for me, and I can’t help the tears that start running down my face at what this sweet alpha has done.
He wraps one arm around me and tries to take the pillow out of my shaking hands, “Oh, no…what is it? Whatever’s wrong I can fix it. I mean..I can get rid of anything you don’t want…is it the pillow? I tried getting their smells off." He is speaking faster and faster with each word, trying to pry my fingers off the pillow without hurting me, until I let it drop to the floor and wrap my arms around his neck instead. His breath is coming out in a harsh pants and his heart beats frantically against my own.
“The pillow is wonderful, it smells just like you,” I say into his neck. “No one has ever done anything this nice for me, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry.” I tighten my arms around him, so he has to either stay bent over or stand up with me dangling off him. He wraps his other arm around me and lifts me up to walk towards the bed. When I am standing on the edge of the mattress we are just about the same height.
I slide my hand up to cup his face and kiss him, a soft peck on the lips, but his tongue comes out and licks across my bottom lip before nibbling it gently. I open my mouth in a shocked gasp and his tongue is suddenly in my mouth, sliding against my own.
Pleasure blooms down my body, it feels like electric current is running from my lips straight to my core. He lets out a low moan and tips me back until I start to lose my footing. Then he lowers me down ‘til I’m sitting on the mattress and he’s kneeling in front of me. His hands unwind from my waist, pushing under my pajama top and across the skin of my stomach. I can already feel how wet I’m getting just from his kisses and his scent.
He lets loose another ragged moan and pulls back. “Please Little Lion, I need…”
I don’t know what he needs, but sign me the fuck up.
I feel like I’m about to combust as he leans in farther, lightly biting at my lips. One hand running up to cup my breast while the other slides down, gripping my ass and pulling me against him so I am straddling his hips. Then he is grinding his hard length against my needy center.
I hear little whimpering and whining noises and realize they are coming from me as he plunders my mouth, and all I want is to tear him out of his clothes so I can feel more of his skin against mine. His hips rock out a stuttering rhythm against my core, and I am about to come just from that amount of friction, and the sounds of his moans muffled against my mouth.
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes bouncing between mine, but I don’t know what he’s looking for. I feel barely coherent at this point, as I wrap my legs around his lean hips and try to pull him back against me. Reassured by whatever he sees, he closes the distance between us again, one hand sliding up my back and wrapping in my hair. I feel his fingers from the other hand brush over my center as he tries to undo his own pants with one hand–while not looking.
A quiet knock draws our attention to the door, where Xan stands smirking. “Wow, smells like someone is enjoying her new nest…now I have a craving for a peppermint mocha. Also, your timer went off on the oven.” He looks pointedly at Jacks.
“Shit!” Jacks stumbles back, tripping over his own feet when he tries to stand. His erection is painfully outlined against his jeans as he stumbles from the room, and I hear the loud thump of him running down the stairs towards the kitchen.
“Sorry to interrupt, Pretty Lady, but he gets kind of upset if his cooking doesn’t come out right. Also, as much as I would love to watch the two of you break in your new nest, I really think we all need to get some food and rest.” I know I’m still practically dripping from my kiss with Jacks, and I can feel my face getting red as my mind clears from the fog of lust.
And again, I want to just burrow into this wonderful nest he made me, but this time to hide until they all go to work so I can sneak out.
Xan stands there with a grin, “Don’t be embarrassed. He is sexy as fuck. Hell, I have a hard time resisting him even when we're this exhausted. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of time, we’ve barely started courting, and this is technically our first date.” Great, now I feel even more like a slut. I bring my hands up to cover my face and groan, when Jacks pops back through the door.
“Breakfast is ready, well, the sweet part is, so we can get you started. Oh, and I got you candles.” The abrupt change in topic snaps my head up, and he is pointing at four covered jars on the table in the corner. I didn’t notice that, or the other two doors in the room before, as I was so mesmerized by this beautiful nest. But now is not the time to explore, so I stand up, straighten my clothes, and follow Xan and Jacks out of the room.
There is German Pancake to eat, and from the smells wafting up the stairs it’s going to be delicious.