Chapter Fifteen – Nic
Spending the week with her was a good idea. As the days go on and the hours spent with Mercedes grow, it becomes crystal clear: she’s mine. She belongs to our pack, but she doesn’t want to believe it, not yet.
And that’s fine. I meant it when I told her I’d give her all the time she needs.
As the days go by, she becomes more comfortable in the house. She smiles more. I can tell she feels freer—and that’s exactly what I wanted from the beginning.
I make her three meals a day; she’s a bit on the skinny side, so I don’t mind plumping her up. Warren tries to eat his meals alone, like Darius, but after the first night, he rejoins us at the dinnertable. Darius, on the other hand, refuses.
It’s annoying, frankly. Here I am trying to get to know our omega, and our pack leader won’t even be in the same room as her. I don’t get it.
So, one night, when it’s just Warren and me on the couch, after Mercedes yawned and said she was going to bed, I decide to bring it up to my pack brother: “We need to talk to Darius.”
Warren gives me an are-you-crazy look. “Why? Because he’s keeping himself locked in his office? How is that different than any other day? Ever since you… you know, he’s thrown himself into his work. I don’t mind. Keeps me busy.”
Of course he doesn’t mind. He likes getting his hands dirty. We work as security for a few high-profile people in the city, and sometimes that requires getting information out of people the world won’t miss. It’s not a clean business, but we do what we do for the betterment of those who can’t protect themselves.
Warren is more of an enforcer, I guess. Less security detail, more muscle. He has a thing for knives, let’s just say.
“He can’t keep himself in his office every minute he’s home,” I say.
Warren shrugs. “Why not?”
“Because he needs to get to know Mercedes.” I think back to the few conversations I’ve had with Darius about the omega in our house. He’s more dismissive than usual, like he’d rather think or talk about anything else—which I find odd. The man isn’t the avoidant type, which leads me to think something else is going on.
But what?
“You can’t force him to talk to her,” he tells me. “You can’t force Darius to do anything.”
“I know, but there has to be something we can do. Some excuse I can give him when I’m really pushing him toward her.” I tap my chin as I lean back on the couch. The room around us is dark, save for the light coming from the TV. It’s late; both Warren and I should be in bed soon. I still have off three more days, but Warren has work in the morning.
The alpha’s a night owl, though. He hardly sleeps, and when he does, it’s fitful.
And then, out of nowhere, an idea comes to me.
Warren squints his eyes at me through the darkness. “What are you thinking? If it’ll bug the man, I’m down, if you need my help.”
“Actually, I’m going to do something for you and Darius.” When he gives me a strange look, I explain, “I’ve spent more time with her than you and Darius combined, so I’m going to plan you both a date night.”
“A date night?” Warren echoes, his doubt evident. “Like, you want Darius and me to go on a date with each other?” He sounds like he wants to vomit.
I barely resist rolling my eyes. “No. I mean, I’m going to plan you and Mercedes a little date night, and then Darius and her one.” I can feel his dissent, but I don’t let him speak it. I continue, “It’ll be something simple. We can do it here. I’ll make nice meals for you guys. You could walk her around the property if you want, or make a fire outside. You two should both spend some alone time with her. I’m sure she’d like it.”
Warren harrumphs. “Would she? Or do you just want us to click with her as well as you do?”
“Dude, I already know you click with her. Remember what happened the first dinner we had together?”
“How can I forget? She smelled so goddamned good.” He shakes his head. “What if I can’t stop myself, Nic? What if I do it again and I’m too far gone? What then? I don’t think this is a good idea—”
“I won’t be around all the time. Once I go back to work, there will be days when you’re home alone with her.” Quieter, I add, “You can do this, Warren, I know you can. You need to have more faith in yourself.”
He grunts. “You sound like my therapist.”
That comment makes me cock my head at him. “You have a therapist?”
“No, but if I had one, I imagine you’re exactly how he’d sound.”
Okay, I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes at that one. Just when you think you know what to expect when it comes to Warren, he goes and says something like that. The man is ridiculous.
I stand and say, “Just be ready for a date night with her, okay? I promise it’ll be good. I’m going to go break the news to Darius.”
I’m halfway to the hall when Warren calls out, “Good luck!”
Good luck. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m going to need all the luck I can get when it comes to our grumpy pack alpha.
To my utter surprise, I don’t find Darius in his office. I actually find him in the home gym on the third floor, running on the treadmill… at eleven-thirty at night. He’s covered in sweat, his dirty blond hair slick with it. When he’s working out is the only time he’s not in a suit—that, or when he’s sleeping.
I approach him, and he doesn’t slow down his speed at all. He doesn’t even listen to music as he runs. He just… runs. Literally. It’s kind of psychotic.
“Pretty late to be on the treadmill,” I remark.
“What do you want?” Darius huffs. The man is the largest out of us all. He’s got a few inches on me, and on top of that, he’s built wider. He’s the most intimidating man I know, and that’s coming from someone who knows our father.
“I’m planning a date night for you and Mercedes.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, he stops the treadmill, and his feet move to the sides as the belt slows to a halt. His glare is legendary, and the frown on his mouth even more so. “Excuse me? You’re what?”
“You heard me. I’m doing the same for Warren too, so don’t think I’m singling you out or anything. You both need to get to know her better.” I don’t back down under the intense glare. “It’s happening, whether you like it or not.”
Darius postures, but I won’t back down—and he better not use his über alpha dominance to tell me not to do it. I’ll be pissed if he pulls that shit.
Thankfully, he doesn’t exert any dominance, but he does resist my idea, saying, “If you want her to get to know Warren, and Warren is fine with it, go right ahead, but I won’t—”
“You’ve hardly said two words to her, so you will.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “She’s not here for me. She’s here for you. You’re the one that wanted an omega, not me.”
The look I give him should say it all. “She’s here for all of us. She’s a part of this pack now, whether you like it or not, so pull that stick out of your ass and be a gentleman on the date I’m planning. I know you can do it.”
His mouth thins into a line, and he outright scowls at me. “Why does it matter so much to you?”
“Because I want us to be one big, happy pack? Is that really too much to ask for? Why do you refuse to see her? I’ve never seen you this avoidant of anything.” And, believe it or not, that’s saying something, as I’ve known him my whole life. Darius is my older brother.
I love the guy, but sometimes he can be a bit… stubborn.
“I’m not avoidant. I’m—” Whatever he’s going to say, he stops himself as he wipes some of the sweat off his brow with the back of his forearm. “Fine. You want us to have a little date? Fine, I’ll do it, but I’m doing it for you, not for her.”
Quieter, I say, “Just give her a chance, please? If you give her a chance, I’m one hundred percent confident you’ll see the same thing I do: she’s supposed to be here. She’s meant to be ours.” Out of everything I’ve ever known in my life, nothing has ever been truer.
He waves a hand at me, wordlessly telling me he’s done with this conversation. As I turn away from him and leave him to his late-night exercise, I can’t help but smile to myself. He fought with me, but in the end I won, and now I have two dates to plan out. Two meals to cook. Two alphas to push toward Mercedes.
Hmm. I suppose the first thing I should do is tell Mercedes herself that she’s going to spend some quality alone time with the other two members of this pack.
I don’t get much sleep that night, my mind too busy working. When Mercedes comes down for breakfast the next morning, I decide to break the news to her then—but only after she has an omelet in front of her and she’s mid-bite.
“I was talking with Warren last night, and I came up with an idea,” I tell her. Since she’s chewing, all she does is look at me over the table, and I give her a smile that I hope keeps her calm. “You and I have spent a lot of time together while Warren and Darius are at work. I thought it’d be good for you to have a bit of a date night with each of them so you can get to know them, too.”
The look she gives me tells me she is of a mind with Darius: it’s a terrible idea, and she doesn’t want to do it. The two of them are more alike than they think. If I lock them in a room together, I know exactly what’ll happen.
“Nic,” she says once she swallows her food, “that’s… I mean, I don’t think—”
“Listen,” I pause as I walk around the table and take the chair beside hers, holding her stare all the while. “I know you might not want to stay, and we won’t stop you from leaving, if that’s what you really want. But please, Mercedes, let them try to get to know you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll fall in love if you let yourself.”
The laugh she lets out right then is skeptical and a bit awkward. “It’s a nice thought, but… are you sure it’s a good idea? After his apology for how he reacted, I haven’t spent a single minute with Darius. How is a date going to go?”
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I will have everything set. You won’t have to leave the property. I’ll be the chef, the maid, and whatever else you need. I’ll make sure Warren steers clear while you’re on your date with Darius, and vice versa. It’ll be good for all of you to have some alone time.”
I can tell she still doesn’t agree. Her voice comes out soft, “What if the dates end badly?”
“They won’t.”
“But what if they do? I’ve never—” She bites her bottom lip, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint on my part to not let my gaze fall to her mouth and those pouty lips. “—been on a date before. I’m really not that interesting. I don’t have much to say.”
It hurts me to hear her tear herself down, and I’m sure it’s such an instinctual thing for her, something she’s done to herself her entire life. I say, “That’s not true. Don’t tear yourself down like that.”
She looks away. “It’s true. I’m nothing special. You guys would be better off with another omega.”
Though I probably shouldn’t, I find myself reaching for her hand when she says that. The moment my fingers touch her soft skin, my chest shudders. So soft, I can’t help but wonder if the rest of her is that soft, too.
As I hold her hand, I say, “Don’t you dare say that. It’s not true. I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were meant for us, and I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you if I have to… if you let me. You’re ours, even if you don’t believe it yet.”
The sorrowful look on her face makes me lean in toward her and press my lips against her cheek. Just a soft, quick peck. Nothing inappropriate about it, even if parts of my mind immediately go to places they shouldn’t.
I mean, she is our omega. I’m dying to make her mine in the most primal way possible.
She does something I don’t expect after that. As I pull my lips off her cheek, she turns toward me and presses her mouth against mine. I’m so caught off-guard that I don’t quite know how to react, and by the time she pulls her mouth off mine, she wears a guilty look on her face and wide, amber eyes full of regret.
“God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” she mumbles, her cheeks flushed. She pulls her hand out of mine and stands, like she’s going to run away and hide in her bedroom.
But I’m finally over the shock, and I stand with her. I grab her hand again and stop her from fleeing. “Wait.” When she turns those big, brown eyes up toward me, I tell her, “Don’t be sorry. Don’t you ever be sorry for wanting to kiss me.”
“But I—”
I interrupt her by whispering, “Can I kiss you again?” Maybe she wouldn’t run if I showed her, without words, that I don’t mind the feeling of her lips on mine. No, I don’t mind it at all.
Mercedes takes a moment to respond, and for a split second I worry she’ll say no, but in the end she gives me a tiny nod as her gaze falls to my mouth.
That’s all the affirmation I need. I bend my top half down as I place both hands on her cheeks, cupping her face as I lower mine to hers. It takes quite a bit of bending on my part since she’s so short, but we make do. I hear her suck in a breath the moment before our lips meet a second time.
And this time? I’m ready for her. This time I show her what a real kiss is like. My mouth fits against hers like two adjacent puzzle pieces always meant to find the other. Her lips are ridiculously soft and supple, pliant in all the right ways. I kiss her slowly at first, and then I introduce her to real heat and passion.
The kiss turns into fire, a tug-of-war between our mouths. I gently nibble her bottom lip, and the action draws out a soft, breathy moan from her. I then rub my tongue along her lower lip before slipping it past and colliding it with hers.
Mercedes is putty in my hands. She leans her body into mine, her eyes closed. For the first time since she got here, she doesn’t want to run away, and that gives me a certain type of satisfaction nothing else could.
A heat creeps through my body as I kiss her, an undeniable need to make this omega mine. I’d like nothing more than to heave her up in my arms, take her upstairs to her room, and shed all of our clothes. Together, we’d crawl into her bed and combine our scents to make something new.
Fuck, yes. I want that more than anything—and so does my dick, based on the way it instantly hardens as I kiss her.
And her scent. It fills the air, so potent, so damn sweet, it’s like I injected candy right into my lungs. The moment my tongue meets hers, the alluring scent of her slick fills the air, the key sign of our chemistry, our bond.
Omegas don’t make slick for every alpha that comes along. It means she wants me just as badly as I want her, even if she won’t admit it aloud. It means her body wants my cock, my knot, my bite.
My cock presses against my jeans, begging to be let free, but that would be moving way too fast for her—and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable. We’ll do things at her own pace. I might want to let the inner animal free, but I can control myself.
Barely.
When I finally pull my mouth off hers and we both come up for air, I give her an easy grin and whisper, “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Her pupils must’ve dilated during the kiss, because her eyes are mostly black as she stares up at me, panting.
I can tell she wants to run to her room to change, to clean herself of her slick—but we’re the only ones home right now, so why bother? I wouldn’t mind torturing myself a while longer. I can smell that delicious slick and keep my dick in my pants.
It’ll be rock hard the entire time, but I can keep it tucked away.
“Why don’t you sit down and finish your breakfast, hmm? And then you and I can go over what you’d like to eat on your dates with Warren and Darius?”
Mercedes nods, and I drop my hands from her face and take a step back. She doesn’t drop her gaze from my face; a good thing, otherwise she’d see the raging bulge I’m currently fighting. The skin on her neck and cheeks is flushed as she goes to retake her seat and resume eating. I’m pretty sure I see her squeezing her thighs together a bit harder, too.
Right. I can act normal after that. Totally. No problem here. I can ignore the hard dick in my pants while getting high off the scent of her slick. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
Hah. If only saying something is easy actually made it easy.