Chapter 28 #2
“The point where you say ‘pizza’ and I know your preferred toppings, or you ask for your ‘usual’ and I know what that means. There’s lots of levels of details, and some are more important than others.
I’d rather you pick what you want and say it so we can spend our time on other things.
” I try to pull back from dumping my frustration but my alpha instincts take over, making me go add, “And when it comes to gifts, give me a list. Don’t make me guess. ”
“Got it.” He raises his fork and nods.
Given the measuring look in his eye and the solemn expression on his face, I believe him—about this—but there’s so much farther to go to build a pack.
“Your turn.” I pick up my fork and dig into the noodles, though playing rather than eating.
“Pardon?” Corin asks.
“You’ve been married and all but in a pack with Max and Johanna—you should know the basic deal by now.
I share something about me, you do likewise, and we build things a piece at a time.
” The heavy pressure in my stomach remains.
Getting along with Corin is crucial if I want Johanna.
She’s already lost Max. I know what it is to lose two loves in one go, and I won’t ask anything close to that of her.
“Fine.” Corin sets his fork down and pushes the food to the side; I mirror his actions as he continues.
“I really don’t care that much about food, as long as I and the people I care about get proper nutrition.
We have a standing order with a local grocery to stock our kitchen, and though Johanna changes things up now and then, I almost never do.
I don’t move furniture, either, once a room has a reasonable arrangement that doesn’t involve tripping over things.
” His lips twist as he gestures at the office furniture.
“Be warned: Johanna likes to rearrange the living room at least once a year, sometimes more often, no matter how much I grumble because, half the time, she’s just going back to last year’s layout. ”
“Set in your ways, eh?”
“If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” He shrugs.
We’re getting along. I could like him given enough time, though being around him makes my alpha itchy. Neither my alpha nor I can say for certain who’s more dominant him, or me. I don’t want to find out in either of the traditional ways. Not now, not yet, and maybe not ever.
He’s giving me keys to know him better. His little speech about not caring what he eats was more than just reeling off preferences.
Whether or not he realizes it, he revealed an underlying desire for stability.
At a guess, if I checked the walls and carpet in this room, I’d discover he hasn’t moved the furniture or changed the artwork for years, if ever, other than maybe adding in a new photo—and, even that, only after due deliberation.
Which makes me wonder how he lasted so long in an all-but-pack situation without anything other than verbal agreements binding him, Max, and Johanna as roommates, outside of any written agreements required for this consulting firm to flourish.
That uncertainty and lack of full connection had to have been haunting him for years.
We’re here to learn about each other and see if we can make a pack, so why not jump to the deep questions? In particular, the one that’s nagged at me since I first realized the unofficial and unusual nature of Johanna and Max’s relationship with him.
“Why didn’t you pack up all the way with Max and Johanna?”
He leans back and stares at me, expression blank. “‘All the way’ meaning pack bonds and bites?” His scent changes for the first time, turning sour and vinegary.
“Exactly.”
“It’s complicated.” He crosses his arms over his chest and looks down and away for the first time, exposing the side of his neck, which is completely free of mate marks.
Definite signs of defensiveness, and the first hint of possible submission?
“To avoid assumptions, here’s a bargain for you: trade, truth for truth, no matter how uncomfortable. ”
“That’s probably about the only way we’ll ever let each other in closer.
” I match his body language as best I can, including exposing my neck and the upper edge of the bite mark Renee placed there once upon a time, although we’ve both chosen to angle our heads so we can watch each other.
“Provide enough blackmail material that we turn into the kind of friendly enemies or antagonistic friends that one keeps close.”
“Let’s hope for something more on the positive side. Hope’s free enough.” He shakes his upper body, taking on a looser, freer stance as he offers his hand. The vinegar element to his scent eases, a hint of cedar mixing with the apple cider. “Deal?”
“Deal.” He has a firm grip, despite the spark of static that shocks both of us to the point we hiss in unison.
Otherwise, his handshake is just like the man I’m starting to appreciate: stable, solid, and in control.
Reliable. Dependable through in hell or high water.
A good friend, a dangerous foe, and—just maybe—a great packmate.
“Alright, so, when I moved in with Max and Johanna—because Max went out and bought a house for us all and told us afterward, mind, which was just like him.” Corin rubs his temple and chuckles.
“I was married to a beta woman.” His humor vanishes in an instant, and the sour edge to his scent returns.
“I never bonded her. My alpha refused the one time I pushed it, or she did, but by the time I knew it was probably a mistake, she was pregnant.”
“Take your time,” I say, voice calm and posture as open and encouraging as I can make it. “I’m a divorce and dissolution lawyer, so I hear this kind of thing all the time. You’re not alone.”
“Right. Classic case of a mismatched couple trying to hang on through three daughters. I wasn’t sure I’d get custody if we split, and I wasn’t leaving them.
She stuck, too, though I don’t know why, and we made ourselves miserable for far too long—to the point she started taking her frustrations out on our eldest, and I reached the point of no return. ”
He runs a shaky hand through his hair, leaving it in disarray. Then, he grabs a half-full glass water bottle from somewhere—I forgot to bring drinks—and drains it.
“So, long story short,” Corin continues, “if I’d bonded Max or Johanna or both when we first moved in together, all hell would’ve broken loose, and I might have lost my girls. And by the time the divorce was final, we’d lived without bonding for so long that no one ever rocked the boat.”
“But you wanted to.”
“God, yes. Her and him,” Corin says. “It wasn’t sexual with Max, not just due to his disinterest in sex but because we were cousins. Not with Johanna, either—not then—at least nothing I would admit to myself for fear of destabilizing everything. My alpha hated the distance from them, the ...”
“The uncertainty,” I offer quietly. “The possibility that, at any moment, they might move on.” The loss, something I know all too well.
“Yeah,” he nods, gaze narrowed and focused on me.
“You were spared the experience of Max’s death breaking the bond.” Remembered pain ripples through me. “A mixed blessing, but it’s something.”
“Do you regret bonding your pack?”
“Never.” I trace the marks on my throat.
Once upon a time touching them made my connections to Renee and Lawrence flare; now, it brings nothing.
“They died quickly. It wasn’t instantaneous, but they didn’t endure much pain.
The bond flared, and then they were gone.
If it weren’t for my children and cats, I wouldn’t have survived. ”
That’s not enough truth to pay back what he shared, but instead of going deeper into my loss, I offer truths about what helped pull me through the last of it.
“I didn’t want to help out with Max’s heat.
” My turn to run my hand over my head, though I touch bare skin and stubble.
“Johanna lured me in with a scent card from his last heat, or so she might have thought. In truth, I liked the fire in her eyes—and the challenge she offered. It was the first time I’d been with anyone, with any kind of success, since my loves died.
He was fairly typical of omegas. She was the star. ”
Corin smiles and waits.
“She had how to handle Max down to a science: what kinds of touch and positions in specific sequences to satisfy his omega in as short a time as possible. It was beautiful to watch, to be a part of. Made me feel alive. Cherished. When it ended—too soon—I wanted that, for me.”
Before he can respond, the door bursts open. Johanna’s there, as glorious as ever, with her face ablaze with purpose. She stalks forward, leaving Dan watching from the door. Her hips sway, heels digging into the carpet.
“So.” She barely grants me a nod, her gaze fixed on Corin. “What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, eh? Yet, somehow you forgot to mention the lunch plans for today.”
“No, I told you.” Corin shrugs. “Didn’t I?”
She shakes her head as she rounds the desk, and he swivels in his chair to face her.
Before he can rise, she lays one hand on his shoulder and the other on his cheek.
Bends and kisses him deeply, her hair falling to partially cover their faces, but its short length cannot hide the clash of lips and tongue.
My heart beats faster, blood pooling in my groin.
So beautiful to watch two lovers together.
If I were kissing her or being kissed, I’d miss many of the myriad subtle details showing her pleasure: the way her fingers flex as she holds him close, the arch of her throat and fluttering of her lashes as she savors his taste, the clench of his hands on the chair arms as he resists taking control.
Cranberry and apples. Cranberry and cedar. A hint of woodsmoke and midnight forest from behind me, and even a gust of my own scent; which I rarely notice but can’t miss now because it’s pouring off me. Johanna and Corin smell glorious together, with or without the tinge of Dan’s and my arousal.
As Johanna breaks the kiss, her hand slips from Corin’s shoulder down along his chest to his groin.
The desk obscures my view, but Corin arches and gasps.
Apples and cedar flare, and his lips draw up in a snarl.
His teeth flash, tongue touching the tips of canines, suggesting he’s desperate to bite and initiate a bond between them.
But no, he holds onto the chair rather than grabbing for her.
Such admirable control.
Then, she stands and stalks away, back to the door. She pauses, turning her head just far enough to glance over her shoulder. “Payback will be sweet.”
The door closes behind her.
Corin’s still gasping. He manages a shaky smile at me. “Your turn with her Friday. Still interested?”
All the more—in her, Dan, and him, or better still: all three together.