Epilogue
JAMIE
Six months later
I’ve become well acquainted with the top floor of Artemis headquarters in the past half a year.
The elevator opens to an atrium with ten-foot-high ceilings and skylights streaming sunlight down onto a marble desk and the living moss wall behind it, softening the modern space.
This is Eileen’s domain, her station as she guards Morgan’s space and time. Her blonde hair gleams in the sun, and there’s cunning in those blue eyes.
To the left is a lavishly appointed conference room where Morgan hosts exec meetings, foreign investors, anyone else she wants to keep close. The view from the floor-to-ceiling glass is stunning, but it’s second best.
The absolute best view—of the city tapering down to the river that winds along it like a blue serpent—is split between Morgan’s private gym and her office.
The office conforms to Morgan’s usual style—timeless and moody—with a heavy wooden desk and a worn-in leather chair.
On the wall hangs a map of the city and a watercolor of the view from the office, and I think I’m one of a very small handful of people who know that they’re both by Morgan herself.
The interior design is so professionally curated that you wouldn’t guess every single item is personal and significant.
The framed snakeskin on the wall is Kaa’s, the vintage survey set is Morgan’s from childhood, the polished stone now used as cabinet pulls was collected when breaking ground on her mansion.
And the matching pair of wine glasses printed in gold with Yes, please and our wedding date are a gift from Eileen.
But it all might as well be blank white walls when Morgan is in the room.
The idea of ‘don’t let the clothes wear you’ certainly extends to her space.
No matter if it’s this custom office, a brand-new yacht, the sprawling ‘loft,’ or the private jet, Morgan is always the shining jewel at the center of it all.
I’ve taken to calling her my diamond. Brilliant and indestructible.
For a month or so after she claimed me, I still worked in the lab, finishing up my project.
Morgan promised that everything with HR was taken care of, and she even got her lawyer friend involved.
I’m not sure if they worked out something legally defensible so much as nobody was brave enough to challenge two alphas.
But having Morgan skulk around the lab all the time was scaring the other scientists, so when I finished that project, Morgan moved my assignment to ‘patient advocate.’ And I’m loving it.
I get to take the latest studies and translate them into lay terms, help write template letters to senators, publish FAQs to debunk common myths, interview other omegas from the support group for their perspective, and more. The response is really amazing.
“Lots of people can do the science,” Morgan told me. “But only you can tell these stories.”
I’m surprised at how little I miss being in the lab, but I still keep up with Lily to stay sharp.
Since the patient advocacy work is flexible, I can do nearly all of it in Morgan’s office, and I’ve claimed a chair by the window where I sit with my laptop.
Morgan and I still can’t bear being apart for very long. I get anxious—she gets irritable. As soon as I smell her again, everything is right in the world. For most alpha-omega bonded pairs, that intensity fades after about two months, but it’s been six and it’s as fresh as it’s always been.
Morgan has Gia working on a research framework—we’re trying to figure out if it’s something to do with Morgan’s or my anatomy specifically, or a potential side-effect of suppressant usage. Artemis scientists are working with Gia to release an updated dosage protocol with tolerance breaks baked in.
Morgan’s on the phone with the Dublin office now, explaining the latest proposed changes to the protocol and getting their feedback on any roadblocks we can expect with European regulatory agencies.
And I’m under Morgan’s desk, eating her out.
Of all the lovely places in Morgan’s office, this one is my favorite. All she has to do is make eye contact, crook a finger, and I’m here, right where I belong.
I am a penitent, and this is my altar.
It’s been a good fifteen minutes now, and Morgan’s legs are starting to shake. I can tell she’s counting out her breaths to keep them steady.
This is the game we like to play. I try to see if I can make her cum before she hangs up the call. Morgan’s rate of ‘internet outages’ and ‘unexpected callers’ has skyrocketed since I moved in.
“O’Conner, hold that thought,” Morgan says, sounding almost bored. “I’ve got to take this.”
“Sure,” O’Connor says, and the phone clicks as Morgan puts him on hold.
Her hand clamps around the back of my head, crushing my tongue against her clit as she lets out a low growl.
I moan, finally allowed to voice my pleasure, and the mix of the sound and vibrations makes Morgan’s breath hike and then catch, her hips rocking into me as her cunt pulses against my tongue. I lap up her arousal as she rides out the climax.
“Good boy,” she sighs, sending me straight to cloud nine as she resumes the call. “Proceed. … Mhm. … Yeah. … Fair, send me the notes. Tell the kids I say ‘hi.’ … Yep, you too. Bye.”
Once the call has ended, she reaches down and drags me up from under the desk by the front of my shirt.
“You’re in top form today, aren’t you?”
I shrug, wiping off my mouth with the back of my hand.
Morgan grabs my cock through my jeans, and I yelp, blood rushing from my head.
“Quid pro quo,” she says with a dark chuckle. She yanks my jeans down my hips and frees my cock, bending me over the desk so she can stroke me with one hand and grip my balls from behind with the other.
“Quiet,” she warns, pressing her thumb hard into my perineum.
I moan loudly, writhing in her grasp. “Y-you know I can’t stay quiet when you do that!”
After twenty minutes with my face buried in her cunt, cock throbbing hard, I have about zero self-control left.
Morgan licks the palm of her hand for an easier slide and resumes her stroking. The sounds I make as she works me over could only be described as whorish.
“Such an easy little slut for me,” Morgan purrs into my ear.
“Please!” I gasp, but I don’t even know what I’m asking for.
“So worked up,” she chuckles. “You aren’t ready to cum already, are you? With all these notes across my desk? You wouldn’t ruin them, would you? Because then I would send you to Eileen to get fresh copies, and you’d have to explain why…”
“Fuck, Mor!” I try to pull away, to change the angle, to reach for a tissue at least, but Mor’s got my balls tight, and she’s not letting me go anywhere. The sharp tug when I try to move is enough to send me hurtling towards the edge.
I let out a strangled half-sob.
“Oh baby,” Morgan mocks. “What’s the matter?”
“Y-you’re gonna make me…”
“Make you what? I wouldn’t make you do anything you don’t want to do…” She presses harder into my perineum, stretching my rim, and I whimper. “Go on. Speak up. What am I going to make you do?”
“You’re—you’re going to make me cum, you’re going to make me cum, I’m—”
There is nothing quiet about the sound that I let out as Morgan fucks me hard with her hand, balls tight in her grip and thumb digging in to my prostate.
I cum a lot to begin with, and it’s always so much more when she holds me like that. Spurt after spurt lands across the scattered notes, bleeding the ink and wrinkling the paper, ruining them just like Morgan said. The sight keeps me cumming twice as long as usual.
“Oh god,” I moan, and Morgan catches me so I don’t fall over.
As my cock starts to soften, she runs a finger across the tip to collect the last of my cum, and I wince at the sensitivity. She sucks her finger clean, and my cock does its best to harden again.
With gentler hands this time, she pulls my briefs and jeans back into place, then ruffles my hair.
I think she’s about to go back to work, but she pulls me over to the chair by the window, settling me across her chest. I relax into her, floating in the afterglow, that sea of calm and safety that comes with being close to her.
“I have a confession to make,” she says quietly.
“What’s that?”
“That night… I was… still so scared to claim you. I had spent so much of my life fighting those instincts that even when I wanted to, I… I almost couldn’t.”
I nuzzle against her neck. “What were you scared of?”
“Hm… Wearing my heart on my sleeve. Except that sleeve has a mind of its own and likes to naively walk into trouble.” She squeezes me tighter.
“Eileen’s metaphors are rubbing off on you.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not that naive.”
Morgan sighs. “I know. But you take risks that I don’t.”
“I do?”
“You got cats, Jamie. Even tinier, stupider, more fragile creatures. And if anything happens to them, it’s going to break your heart. Which means it’s going to break my heart. And I… I wouldn’t have it any other way. But it’s… a new thing for me.”
“But you have Kaa, don’t you?”
“Kaa is strong, large, smart, and powerful. And immortal.”
A smile pulls across my lips. “Oh, okay.”
“Mhm.”
Even though Egg and Bacon are weird little shelter cats, I can tell they’re really growing on Morgan.
And Kaa is growing on me, too—I’ve now been back to the loft a few times for a quiet weekend when Morgan feeds the giant snake.
Watching Kaa surge down from the trees like lightning to nab a rabbit is both horrifying and thrilling.
And when it’s not feeding time, the massive creature really is a sweetheart. Just like Morgan.
Something occurs to me, and I laugh.
“What?”
“Oh, just… you really are a lot like Kaa. And that succulent you gave me. ‘Don’t overwater it’? Was that your way of trying to tell me you just needed time?”
“I thought it was obvious,” Mor says, but there’s irony in her voice.
“Did you spend all that time teasing me so mercilessly because… you were scared if I liked you back?”
“Maybe,” she murmurs against my neck. “I knew you did, but I thought if I heard you say it aloud… I might never let you go.” She squeezes tighter.
“Well, your worst dream came true.”
“You are my nightmare.” She laughs into my hair.
I smile against her neck. “And you’re my terrible luck charm.”
“For always,” she says, voice softening with tenderness.
“For until the divorce,” I quip.
Morgan pinches my ass—hard.
“Hey!”
“You deserve that.”
“I do not!”
And then she pulls me into a kiss. So, I say it with my hands tangled in her hair, my chest tight against hers, with the brush of my lips and the press of my tongue.
For always.