The Calm Before
Adrian
The best shirt I own has a bleach stain on the cuff.
Holding it up to the light, I stare at the pale splash near the button. It wouldn’t be so bad if the shirt wasn’t navy blue. How did I even manage that?
I toss it on the bed with the reject pile, but the problem is every other button-down I own is flannel. Soft and worn and good for a worksite but nothing else.
"You’ll find something," Nico says as he breezes past the bedroom door in a charcoal suit.
It’s the one he bought for the day he married Owen. He’s worn it maybe three times since. It’s a little snug across the back, but it still fits him. That leaves Mack and me to build something out of a closet that's ninety percent flannel.
I move back into the closet, leaning as I reach, being careful my feet don’t disturb Lyra’s nest. The whole space smells like her, vanilla and toasted almond wound all the way through Mack's hazelnut and my pine, and every time I reach past into the closet the scent pulls at something under my ribs.
Mack ducks in beside me and grabs an armful off his side. He drops everything on the bed next to mine and we sort through it there. He manages to find one dress shirt with a scorch mark where an iron sat too long a decade ago.
"I've got nothin’." Mack pulls out the scorched shirt, looks at it, then tosses it aside. "Everything I own smells like diesel or looks like trash."
"Why didn’t you toss that?" I nod at the scorch.
"You never know," Mack says with a grin. "It might come in style one day."
"Honestly, wear whatever." Lyra's voice comes from the doorway. She’s in one of my old flannels, swallowed up in it, her legs bare underneath and her hair still damp from the shower. "My parents won't look at either of you long enough to notice. They'll be too busy finding things wrong with me."
I reach for the bleach-stained shirt again. "They're not going to spend the night finding things wrong with you."
"You've never met my mother." She smiles when she says it, and it fucking guts me.
I want to scoop her up and tell her that the second anyone in that house says one wrong word to her, I'm walking her back out to the truck. But I don't. She doesn't need me winding tighter than I already am. So I file it down, and I make myself focus on the pile of clothes.
"Owen's got suits," Mack says as he goes through a stack of plain black shirts.
"Owen's a good fifty pounds lighter than you and four inches shorter." I hold up a shirt against my chest. "Nothing of his is fitting either one of us."
"Yeah," Mack grumbles as he ducks his head back in the closet. He pushes up, reaching for something on a far shelf, then he comes up with a cowboy hat.
It's old, with tan felt gone soft at the brim from years of handling. The kind of hat that takes years to break in. Mack turns it over once in his hands. Then he sets it on his head, tips it back with one finger, and studies himself in the mirror over the dresser.
"Now that," he says, "is a formal occasion."
I laugh before I can help it, then look over at Lyra, expecting her to be laughing at how ridiculous our mate is. But she’s not. The omega’s eyes are lit right up, honey-brown gone bright, and a slow grin is pulling across her whole face.
"I love that," she says.
Mack raises a brow. "Yeah?"
"Yes. My mother will hate it." She pushes off the doorframe and steps in, looking him up and down, delighted. "It might actually kill her to have that sitting across from her at the dinner table." Her grin goes wicked. "You have to wear it."
"Well, hell." Mack adjusts the brim, pleased with himself. "If the lady's demandin’."
The front door slams hard enough to rattle the house.
"Lyra!." Renata's voice carries all the way down the hall, loud and certain. "I found a body-con dress in my trunk that should fit you. Some black sandals, that might be too big, and some matching nail polish to top it all off."
Lyra lets out a long breath, her shoulders dropping like something just came off them.
Then she frowns and turns to me.
"What's a body-con dress?"
I shrug then Lyra disappears down the hall after Renata. The house fills with the two of them, Renata's voice and Lyra's laugh braided together behind the bathroom door.
Mack pulls a pair of jeans off the pile and turns them over in his hands. He runs a thumb along the hem, checking the stitching.
"Are you wearing those?" I ask.
"Damn right I am." He shakes them out and lays them over his arm.
"I've been dressing too city for the last five years.
Tonight I'm going back to Alabama." He tips the brim of his hat at me.
"Denim and boots, and if I can find it, my Papa’s old belt buckle.
" He grins. "Thing's the size of a salad plate. You could land a small plane on it."
"Subtle."
"Subtle's for lesser alphas." He scoops his good boots off the floor and heads for the door with his jeans draped over one arm. "Give a holler when it's my turn at the mirror. Owen! Do you have the iron?"
I pick the bleach-stained shirt back up off the reject pile. It's the best thing I own, stain and all, and if I roll the cuff right the bleach splash disappears into the fold. Good enough. I find a pair of gray slacks that still hold a crease and lay the two together on the bed.
My hands move to the waistband of my sweats when Lyra steps into the room.
The tight black dress stops just above her knees, molding to every curve the whole way down. The straps are a pencil line over her shoulders, and her tits…fuck, they look amazing.
They push up and out, showing off a solid two inches of perfect cleavage.
I've seen her in several of my flannels and old tees for weeks now, swimming in fabric that hid all of her. But this hides nothing.
"Does it look okay?" Lyra twists, showing me the curve of that plush ass, and my knees go weak.
Every drop of blood in my body rushes south at once. And I'm hard before I've taken a full breath, so fast it's almost painful.
Lyra doesn't seem to notice. She's too busy frowning down at herself in the mirror over the dresser. She tugs at the front where it hugs her tits, tugging like she can pull some give into it.
"It's so tight." She twists again, trying to see the back of herself, still pulling the neckline up. "You haven’t said anything." She turns to me. "Does it look okay?" She smooths her hands over her hips. "I feel like I’m all rolls."
I can't answer her at first. I’m too busy trying not to tackle her.
But my sweet omega reads my silence wrong. Her face starts to fall, and a flicker of hurt crosses her face. She drops her head like she's done something wrong, and her hands go still against the dress.
"Lyra." I swallow hard, trying like hell not to growl out loud.
"I’m sure I can find something else," she says to the floor. But then she lifts her gaze, and it lands right on the front of my sweatpants. Her eyes go wide as she takes in my cock straining hard against the fabric, then everything on her face changes at once.
Her lips part, and something goes loose and hungry behind those pretty eyes.
"Omega," I snarl, dropping my shirt.
Suddenly Lyra’s scent floods the room, vanilla and toasted almond turned thick and sweet, and my balls draw up tight enough to ache.
Without looking, Lyra reaches back and shoves the door. It slams. Then she's coming at me across the room. She jumps, and I catch her on instinct, her legs wrapping my waist, and her mouth crashing into mine.
For half a second she leads the kiss, frantic and clumsy and desperate.
Then I take over.
I fist my hand in her hair and angle her head where I want it. She opens her mouth and I lick into her, until my sexy omega goes soft and pliant against me.
"Adrian," she whispers, followed by a small broken sound climbing out of her throat. The sound fucking undoes the last of my restraint.
I turn toward the wall and pin her against it.
Thankfully, her dress is some stretchy thing that gives easily under my hands.
I drag one strap down then pull the front, baring her breasts to my hungry mouth.
I suck on one puffy nipple, and she arches off the wall with a cry. Fingers knot in my hair, holding me to her. I suck her hard, rolling the stiff peak with my tongue, desperate to taste every inch of her.
Lyra's hips lift against me as I move to the other nipple, nipping and sucking. I palm one breast, and she grinds up against me, desperate and wild.
Desperate to feel all of her, I shove the hem of her dress all the way up to her waist, baring the flimsy scrap of cotton between me and what I want.
Her legs lock around my waist, her ankles crossing at the small of my back, and she pulls me in tight. The hot, wet fabric of her panties presses against my bare stomach. She's soaked, covering me in her slick, and the thought of it, of her scent marking my skin, makes my hips jerk forward.
"Adrian." She whines my name and pulls hard at my hair. "Please."
Something primal roars up in me at the sound of her begging. My whole body goes tight with the need to claim her and a growl rumbles out of me before I can stop it.
Keeping her pinned in place with my hips, I grip the side of her underwear and rip. The delicate fabric tears with a sound that goes straight to my cock.
Then I pull down the front of my sweats, and grip my shaft. I notch the head against her. She's soaked, hot and swollen, and so incredibly open for me.
"Lyra," I whisper, looking deep into her eyes.
She looks so wild, her chestnut hair a tangled halo around her face, her lips swollen and wet, her tits bared. She cups my face, her thumbs stroking my cheeks.
"Stop holding back." The desperate snarl rips out of the omega, her need pouring off her thick enough to taste. "I can feel you doing it. Stop."
And that’s all it takes.
I push in.
The sensation is indescribable.