28. Chloe
CHAPTER 28
CHLOE
Alright. So Brutus had just gone and blown out my back, rutting into me like there was no tomorrow… and now, we were going to put our clothes on and go out on a date like nothing had happened?
Well, okay.
A date actually sounded pretty nice right now.
Brutus was proving himself to be the perfect gentleman, now that I’d met him properly and we’d exchanged bodily fluids. When we got into his car, he opened the door for me and everything.
He had a much nicer car than the one that the twins shared. The interior seats were leather, and Brutus showed me the buttons I could press if I wanted to turn on a seat warmer or cooler.
The ride was fairly short, just long enough to figure out which button controlled what, and to enjoy how the seat did some fancy shit that made my ass icy cold. Then Brutus stopped.
We were in the parking lot in a generic shopping plaza. Behind us was a grocery store with an elderly lady coming out of the sliding doors, pushing her cart that seemed to be loaded with cat food and bags of chips.
Honestly, if my guess was correct about Brutus being the one responsible for all the expensive furniture in the pack house, I was a bit surprised about the date location.
It’s not like I’m some great connoisseur of relationships, but the grocery store just seemed like an odd choice for a first date.
Brutus opened the door for me, and all of a sudden he was standing before me. Right there and so close.
I bit my lip, taking all of him in.
Even fully clothed, with all of that glorious chest hair and the vast expanse of his muscular body fully covered, Brutus was magnificent. His very being exuded sex and raw masculinity—he was dangerous. I swear, being in close proximity was like a chemical reaction, turning me on and melting my thoughts into a giddy mess.
I was a shaken bottle of champagne, fizzy and exhilarated around him.
“Ready for more already, Love?” He leaned in closer, close enough that I was surrounded on all sides by his sweet bannana scent as he whispered into my ear, “keep looking at me like that and I’ll have to fuck you again in the back seat.”
My mouth dropped open.
Uhhh. That didn’t sound like a bad thing? Getting fucked versus whatever he had planned for me in the grocery store.
But like he could read my thoughts, Brutus winked as he took my hand, leading me away from the tinted windows and the comfortable leather privacy of his car.
I tried not to pout as I followed Brutus to a little salon just past the grocery store.
Inside was surprisingly elegant. A delicate crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. An ornate silver frame surrounded hundreds of rose blooms, artfully arranged together. A pink neon sign declared that this salon was ‘Polish and Bliss. ’
“Brutus, it’s been too long!” A short man with bright purple hair sat up straight from where he was lounging. The man walked up to Brutus with a smile that was too wide and too enthusiastic. He walked all the way to Brutus, clasping his free hand in both of his. “What can I do for you?”
“Two mani pedis with the works, Fernando.”
“Only the best for you, honey.” The purple-haired man turned around hustling to the back of the store, presumably to fetch that ‘best’ for his ‘honey.’
Something sharp and prickly that I didn’t even know existed, reared its ugly head from somewhere deep within my omega hive mind.
It was ridiculous and territorial. I had to fight against the urge to start rubbing my scent glands all over Brutus and hissing at this intruder like a strung-out ally cat.
This other man hadn’t even done anything that seriously hinted that he had plans to take my Brutus away.
Woah now.
Since when was he my Brutus? I’d just met the guy today.
From the moment the other man had touched my scent match, I’d gone very still. I was an ice sculpture, with cool anger thudding through my veins.
Though I hadn’t said a word, Brutus had picked up on the tension. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, pulling me in closer to the bulk of his body.
“Is my girl getting jealous?” Brutus teased in a low voice.
I couldn’t answer him. I was so tense it was overwhelming. Especially since I knew that I was over-reacting, and that my hormones were just acting up. Yet, despite having read about these reactions in a dusty corner of my text books, here I was experiencing it for the first time. Knowing that it was just a part of being an omega didn’t make me any less lost in it.
I didn’t want to admit that I felt jealous. It wasn’t fair. Brutus wasn’t doing anything wrong. I couldn’t just meet him for a first date and then start making feral noises at the salon staff, just because they were doing their jobs.
Yet still. Seeing that short little man touching my alpha made me want to tear my hair out, drop to the floor and cry myself to pieces… which would be awful for my hair, and fuck up the make up I’d put on for the date. It wasn’t an option.
Brutus dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “I’m surprised you’re jealous, now… with my cum dripping out of you. But I’d be happy to remind you that I only want you. There’s no one else for me, Love. Just you and the twins.” Brutus leaned closer to me, with his low seductive voice… with sex dripping from every word. “If you need me to remind you. Wherever you’d like, whenever you’d like. I’ll remind you that you’re mine.”
Something about his deep voice pierced straight through my anxiety, settling over it like a warm blanket, until my fears were able to settle like an alligator sinking back into the still water.
My cheeks were heated with embarrassment, but I forced myself not to show it. Being a little bit rabid and defensive of my alpha was completely natural. Especially now, as things between us were so new.
As long as I didn’t pull any truly deranged shit—like rubbing my scent to mark the nail clippers and polish used by Brutus—I still had a chance of walking out of this date without truly embarrassing myself.
Fernando walked back holding a basket of manicure supplies, with another one of those wide smiles that I irrationally hated. He beckoned over a coworker, who was younger, somehow even shorter but with less vibrant hair, pointing to one of the big chairs with a sink at the bottom.
The two men started fussing with the sink and the supplies, filling the basin with water. Then, they were pointing to the chairs, indicating that the two of us should sit.
I walked closer, side-eyeing Brutus to figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
He’d settled into the chair in front of the younger coworker, pulling off his socks and shoes, revealing feet that were big, hairy and somehow perfectly formed. Just like the rest of him.
I sat next in the chair next to him, in front of that little fucker Fernando, copying how Brutus began pressing buttons on the chair to turn on the massage function, and how he’d dipped his toes into the water.
“Have you never gone to a nail salon before?” When he saw me nod, Brutus smirked at me. “Perfect, I got one of your firsts, taking you here.”
Oh God, that man lit my cheeks on fire. I risked a quick glance to Fernando to see if he was paying attention to our conversation. But he seemed to ignore me, fussing with the water in the tub. Fernando put in some blue powder that smelled like lavender and immediately made the water begin to bubble.
The warm water around my feet and the soothing scent of lavender in the air were enough to soothe my frayed nerves. Or maybe it was the fact that Brutus barely took his eyes off me, even when he was being massaged and scrubbed. The nail technician took out some tools and began to prod at Brutus’ toe nails.
Brutus paid him enough mind to let him know that he wanted his nails “squoval shaped,” whatever that meant. I swear I’m not dumb. At this point they weren’t even using real words. Was everyone here in on it? Were they all just fucking with me?
When Fernando asked me what nail shape I wanted, I wasn’t about to tell him that I had never thought about the shape of my nails before in my entire life, so I just said, “same as him,” jerking my chin towards Brutus.
Then Fernando handed me an entire book of different colors that I could pick to paint my nails. There were way too many color options. I settled on a pale pink that looked pretty, without flipping too many pages. This whole process started to feel like a bit much—that is until Fernando started to rub my feet.
The foot massage was making me forget all about the fact that I was pissed at Fernando. He sort of was really good at finding all the tense spots, deep within the arch and at the corner of my heels, and then soothing all my discomfort away—he was doing such a good job at it that I wasn’t even mad at him anymore.
After a bit, I got comfortable enough to have a conversation with Brutus, right in front of the nail tech who was probably–definitely not Brutus’ secret lover. “Why did it take so long before I could see you? Why were you okay with the twins’ plan to hide you away from me?”
“Were the twins acting like I’m the big bad wolf, here to abduct their little red omega to ride her?” Brutus was smiling at me in a way that was admittedly a little predatory. There was a small gleam of hunger in his expression whenever he looked at me, that made a thrill of anticipation slither down my spine.
With Brutus, everything he said felt like it was weighed down with the heavy promise of sex.
“They never mentioned you, like you were some dark secret.”
Brutus pressed his back harder against his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. I couldn’t quite blame him, this was rather nice.
There were rose petals floating around in the basin that I was starting to think of as my feet’s personal little whirlpool. Fernando had pulled out hot rocks… and I don’t know if I ju st had been living under a rock or something because I had no idea how good a massage like that felt. The heat of the rocks was cutting through all the tension I didn’t even know I had. This felt amazing, even when they had started sugar scrubbing each foot, which was ticklish as hell. Then he took a file, and expertly started to shape my nails.
“The twins knew that I would seek you out on my own time.” Brutus’ eyes were closed, with a look of pure distilled relaxation on his face.
The way that Kain and Sabien left Brutus to do whatever he liked, they sort of treated him like he was the pack lead. But he wasn’t. Officially, it was Kain who was the leader of the pack.
However, it was obvious who the dominant alpha was.
It was also pretty clear that neither of the twins would be able to get Brutus to do something that he didn’t want to do. The only way that someone else was running their pack was if Brutus himself wasn’t interested.
“Why didn’t you want to be pack lead?” I thought I had a decent understanding of how the pack hierarchies worked; I’d aced the quiz on it and everything. The packs chose a leader who would make decisions and have the final authority on all pack business.
At home, it was obvious that Father was the pack lead. Someone just walking into our house without knowing a single thing about any of us would be able to figure it out immediately. Father seemed born for the role.
“I would be an awful choice as pack leader. Kain is in charge because he actually gets shit done. He makes the appointments, pays the bill, checks the mail. All that important stuff.” Brutus was scrutinizing the way his nail tech was filing his nails. I don’t know what exactly he was looking at—they sort of looked just like they did when he first walked in, only a bit shorter now.
“You don’t care about taking charge?”
“No Love, I only care about fucking.” There was no smirk on Brutus’ face now, no hidden innuendo. He was telling the truth. “Kain’s the obvious choice. If he didn’t look exactly like his brother I would deny that the two of them ever shared a uterus. Sabien’s the unfortunate appendage that Kain was born with. Now we’re both stuck with him.”
I noticed that Brutus’ jaw tensed, though he acted like talking about Sabien wasn’t bothering him at all.
“Do you really find Sabien that bad? Or is this all because of that sandwich incident?” I’d talked to Kain about the weird tension between the rest of his pack. All Kain knew about it was that he wasn’t sure how it started; just that it had something to do with a sandwich—presumably, someone who wasn’t supposed to eat it? If I didn’t have so many siblings with a history of stealing my food, I’d say that this was all blown out of proportion. But honestly, sometimes you just had to stand up and protect your ham and cheese. Even from loved ones.
“Sabien’s always been a bit of a twat when he’s left unchecked. The sandwich was the last bit of drama that broke the camel’s back.” Brutus drummed his fingernails against the arm rest once before shaking his head, as if he had to bring up something unpleasant. “He called me, when the two of you were… together. ”
Oh yeah.
Shit.
How exactly does one explain the need to finish an essay while an engorged penis was locked inside of one’s vagina? In order to stay on top of all my coursework, I was just trying to have good time management. Should I say that it was my attempt at multitasking? No. That just sounded insane.
“I just wasn’t expecting it. You know, the whole being stuck there thing. Waiting.”
“Was that your first time with an alpha?” Brutus frowned.
“Yeah… that had been my first time…” My voice trailed off a bit.
I’d gotten comfortable around Fernando (he’d worked some kind of voodoo magic on my feet, at this point I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to get a manicure from him), but that didn’t mean that I was ready to outright talk about losing my virginity, right in front of him.
Luckily, Brutus was able to read between the lines.
“Sabien? Not even Kain? Well that’s unfortunate. You picked the brother who has all the finesse of a jack hammer.” He sighed deeply, shaking his head. “Did he even get you off?”
“Uhh.” Did he?
I tried to think back. I definitely remember enjoying it… I know that Kain made me orgasm multiple times… but did Sabien?
Brutus seemed to take my non-answer as an answer. His expression darkened, and he sat straighter in his massage chair. “Don’t worry. I’ll sort him out.”
Brutus pulled his hand away from his nail tech, Fernando junior or whatever, and examined his cuticles like a sovereign Lord examining his lands and titles. Satisfied, he stretched out his other hand, to be massaged and manicured. “You should be graduating soon.”
“Yeah.” It was less than a month and a half at this point. Just a few weeks away, really.
“After you’re done with those Institute dorms, what do you think about moving in with us?”
My mouth dropped open a bit. Was Brutus asking me to move in? On the first date?
I don’t know what it was about him… if the twins had asked me I probably would have felt love bombed, or like things were moving too fast.
With Brutus, all I felt was flattered.
Instinctually, my omega hive mind was doing giddy cartwheels and fist pumps. I had to rein it way in, before I leapt out of my massage chair and started running excitedly around the room and started bouncing off the walls like some rabid squirrel.
I felt like my insides were all filled with helium, and I was about to float straight into the puffy clouds with the men of my dreams.
Hold the fuck on. I needed to actually think about this.
“You want me to live with you?”
“Yes.” His voice was dark and seductive, and I was embarrassed to say that at the moment, I was ready to agree with anything he asked me. “I want you to be my girl. Take my name.” Brutus was staring right at my lips, like he wanted to kiss me, to take me, right here on this massage chair… in a nail salon that was next to a grocery store. “Join my Fanny pack.”
“Wait. Excuse me. The what pack?” Was this some kind of joke? That was not even a real last name. Was it?
But Brutus frowned, completely serious. “The Fanny pack. Did Kain and Sabien never mention their last names? Kain Fanny? Sabien Fanny?”
Had I slept with the twins without even knowing their last names?
Apparently yes.
“You don’t mean…” Please let this be some sort of misunderstanding. But all the cheerful bubbly endorphins within me were freezing into ice in my veins. Something dropped, deep in my stomach as my entire body started to tremble. “That’s not the pack name.” Please let this be some sort of misunderstanding.
“We’re the Fanny pack.” Brutus’ gaze darted around my face and the way I was struggling to stop myself from having a full on panic attack.
This was not real. I did not just go from feeling the happiest I could ever remember feeling, to being right on the verge of hyperventilating.
I could not be known as the omega of the Fanny pack.
Absolutely not.
“If it’s the twin’s name that’s bothering you, we can come up with solutions. It’s not exactly unheard of for packs to take the last name of the alpha who isn’t the pack lead.”
I took a deep breath to calm myself down.
I was falling in love with these men; they were my alphas. I’d been on the cusp of telling Brutus that yes, I wanted to move in with them. Yes, I wanted to be his, and everything that came with it.
It didn’t make sense to throw that all away just because the pack name sounded a little silly. Especially when there was a reasonable course of action we could take about it.
But no. I should have known that it couldn’t be that simple.
I didn’t think that I could be more horrified, until Brutus told me his last name.