Chapter Eleven
Silas
As soon as Charlotte leaves his sight, climbing into the back of their black SUV, Silas feels himself deflate.
As always, as soon as she was gone, he busies himself with something—anything—to distract himself.
Shopping for her was his usual go to, but the punching bags in their basement gym weren't a bad option either.
Unbeknownst to her, the closet in the guest room had already become her own personal wardrobe. And it was filling up quickly. So much so that it was becoming a trial to figure out which outfit to give her to go home in. He wanted to see her in all of it.
But he also wanted to tear it off her and bury his knot so far inside of her that she was locked to him forever. The feelings weren't conflicting so much as joining together like hot and cold water colliding off the coast of the Atlantic seaboard and churning out a hurricane.
Watching Tomas knot her while she had made those pained noises and asked him to stop had shamed him.
It shamed him because the emotion that had filled him in that moment had not been concern or distress.
It had been envy. He wanted to fuck her, to knot her himself.
Even as she whined and wiggled in pain, when he reached for her to pull her away, it had been with the thought of replacing Tomas' cock with his own.
A growl rumbled out of him at the direction of his thoughts.
The desperation they all felt was getting to them, as was made clear by their actions tonight.
How could they not feel desperate, though, when the perfect omega was just out of their reach?
Theirs one moment and gone the next. The fact that she was so tactful about their dreadful behaviour was only a testament to how perfect she was.
They had all known it from the moment she had walked into their office wearing a second-hand wool pencil skirt that fit her like a glove and that white cotton blouse that was so worn thin it had shown just the barest hint of her pink bra beneath it.
She was beautiful, with soft features and curling hair she tried so hard to restrain in a bun, yet little pieces always found their way to curl around her face.
But it was her mind that had truly enthralled him. She was smart, the kind of smart that was always five paces ahead of everyone else. She had been too clever for the role she had been hired in, so he had always found ways to engage her.
He had given her a manuscript once on the philosophy of tractor maintenance and asked for her notes on it, just to see what she thought about it.
He had thought it would take her a couple weeks at least. She had gotten back to him at her next day in the office with a fully annotated and edited copy that had cross referenced publications he had never even read himself.
And she was so graceful and thoughtful and kind, she didn't even hold it against the rest of them that they weren't smart enough to breathe the same air as her.
But she could never be theirs, not the way they wanted her. She was always so sweet about it, reminding them about the arrangement in gentle little ways anytime they began to overstep. Which they constantly did, because they couldn't keep their hands off her.
He didn't know how they would survive the day she decided to go her separate way and find her own pack.
She deserved the world. She deserved men her own age who she had chosen to be with, not a pack who she ended up with because they could help her pay her way. A pack old enough to have fathered her.
He wished they had the strength to simply give her the money with no strings attached. He wished they were better men. Honourable men who deserved her. But they weren't. They were selfish and possessive men who would take any scrap of her mind and body that they could get.
"I want us all to sleep together tonight," Tomas rumbles. "I think we all know what that was. I'll schedule an appointment with the endocrinologist, but I need to take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again."
"It's going to keep happening until we bond her," Alex says, his voice a little too casual as he looks at something on his phone that looks suspiciously like rings.
Silas nearly chokes at his words, turning to stare at his pack brother incredulously. "Bond her?"
Alex raises a brow, looking at him like he was an idiot. "Are you saying you don't want to?"
"It's not about whether we want to," Silas says quickly. "Charlotte has not indicated any interest in bonding with us, and I am not going to ruin this by bringing something up with her that she's not ready for or interested in."
"The reason we even agreed to let Gwen find us an omega was because of Charlotte.
Because the minute she walked into our office, none of us could keep our eyes off her.
I told her to find us a brunette, curly-haired omega who was willing to wear scent blockers with us so Tomas wouldn't end up in another rut.
And she brought us back Charlotte herself. Doesn't that seem like fate to you?"
He had never heard Alex speak so seriously about things like fate, of all things, and neither he nor Tomas know how to respond immediately.
Charlotte was the woman of his dreams. Of their dreams. Her daddy, she had called him. The mortified way she had looked afterwards had warmed his heart. He hadn't even known that was something he had wanted until she said that word, and then it had lit a fire inside of him.
He wanted to be there to look after her, not just financially as a sugar daddy.
And the way she said it had been something more.
He didn't think it was just his wishful thinking hearing that vulnerability in her voice when she had spoken that word.
He wanted to care for her, guide her, and be a steady, reassuring presence when she needed him.
He wanted to be everything to her. Her alpha.
He wanted to bond Charlotte so badly it hurt. None of them could stop making hopeful comments around her about nests or bonds or futures, and sweet as she was, she always gently changed the subject or responded politely.
It was clear she didn't want more from them. She was only with them because she had no other choice, because despite being brilliant and clever and resourceful, omegas did not get rights the same way alphas did.
But he would take what he could get, and if all he could get was to have her in his bed a few nights a week in exchange for their financial support to help pay for her to finish her degree, he would do it.
"Let's just go to bed," he says finally. The closeness would do them all good. Maybe stave off the rut another day.