Chapter 7
Seven
Xavier
By the time Brady’s heat was at his peak, I was certain I’d do just about anything to keep that man in my life.
Our encounters before were nothing like this.
There were only a couple of times we had sex without Gio, and they had been slightly awkward at first, mainly because Brady expressed worry over my husband’s feelings.
Even without his physical presence, Gio came between us.
Little did we know that he was encouraging us to be together because he was hiding another life from us.
Brady’s heat was nothing like anything I’d experienced before.
I’d taken an omega through their heat plenty of times, but years ago.
I still remembered how to do it properly, always leaving them satisfied.
This was completely different. Sex with Brady was intimate, passionate, raw.
He could read me as easily as I could read him.
I knew exactly when he wanted me to be rough, to leave marks, to let go.
I also knew when he needed sweet words, soft touches, and a slow, gentle pace.
In the middle of the night, just after the peak of his heat, Brady felt vulnerable.
He was tired. He ached, but he still reached for me.
I wrapped my arms around him as if he were the most precious thing in my life and rocked in and out of his body.
I whispered praise in his ear as I worked my hips, bringing us to the edge.
He came when I tightened my hold on his thigh, hooking it higher and adjusting the angle of my thrusts.
His hole, softer from plenty of use and his heat pheromones, pulsed around my shaft, pulling my orgasm from me.
My knot inflated quickly, but didn’t stay full for long, signalling his heat was nearly done.
We ate more of the food from the hamper.
There was a tasty pasta salad with a tomato and red pepper dressing that Brady devoured with a cheeky grin.
I picked at the basic salad the hamper offered, grateful it was still cold thanks to the ice packs inside the basket.
My worries stole my appetite. The closer we got to his heat being over, the more I grew concerned that Brady was going to put an end to our arrangement.
“Chill, Xavi. You’re gonna hurt yourself if you think that hard.
What’s got you all in your head?” Brady put down his fork and opened a bottle of a rehydration drink.
A trickle of the blue liquid escaped his mouth.
I leaned forward to lick it up and stole a kiss.
He sat back with a smug grin. “You’re not going to distract me.
We’ve got some time until the next wave. Spill. What’s wrong?”
The determined look on his face told me I wouldn’t get away with avoiding the question again. “Do you want to keep doing this after your heat?”
He relaxed, his shoulders unbunched. “If we can keep it as easy as this, then yeah. Not dating. No dinners, movies, anything that could be considered a date. Friends with benefits only. Call for a hookup, then go home after we’re both satisfied.”
What if I wouldn’t ever be satisfied? I wanted to ask. It was pointless and would only put pressure on him. “If that’s what you want, then yeah. If you ever change your mind…”
“Then we can talk about it. This is all I can offer right now. Besides, you’ve got the divorce and everything to worry about.”
Little did he know it was thoughts of being with him that kept me going.
We settled into something resembling a relationship over the next few weeks.
Sometimes Brady would ask me to bring dinner and we’d eat, fuck, then I would go home.
Always at his place, never at mine, and I never stayed over.
Sometimes I’d push my luck, and we’d snuggle, chat, and even go for another round before I left, but I tried not to do that often.
I was addicted to being with Brady.
Little by little, the lines blurred. He invited me to his gym. I met him at the pool. He came to an art show with me. There was more of a friends element, not just the benefits.
Malik was my sounding board while I navigated my thing with Brady, even though he was wrestling with parenthood. His daughter, Sora, was keeping him and Chen on their toes. He reminded me, often, that I couldn’t push my luck, not with everything going on in my life.
Though he had dropped the alimony claims, Gio wanted more of my art collection.
He said we bought it together with his connections.
Nevermind the fact I represented some of these artists in the past. My soon to be ex husband was drawing out everything he could.
Rather than stay in the apartment, we were selling it and splitting it seventy-thirty in his favor just to get this over and done with.
I gave in more, just wanting to get the divorce over with, something I’d probably regret later, but I couldn’t find the energy to care.
When I wasn’t at work, with Brady, or trying to keep my sanity at home, Gio was bothering me about crap from our old life. “Do you want this photo?” he would call to ask. “Do you want your old hockey jersey?”
“If I left it there, I don’t want it,” I reminded him for the hundredth time.
“Come on, Xavier, talk to me,” he cajoled in that sweet tone he reserved for me.
“Go talk to Candice if you’re lonely. Better yet, take the kids and let her get some sleep. I’m sure you’re not helping as much as you could be.” Gio couldn’t touch my heart anymore. That door was closed to him.
Gio tried to tell me a story about feeding his twins, but I didn’t listen. I tried not to learn anything about his life. Not the gender of the babies or their names. All I knew was that they were healthy and kept them up at night a lot.
“I’ve got to go.” Without giving him a chance to reply, I hung up. When he called back, I sent it to voicemail.
A month after his heat, I got a request for a lot of booze from Brady. I already knew what it meant. When I arrived at his apartment with a bottle of vodka in hand, I spotted the test on the coffee table: negative.
Rather than try to soothe the hurt I was sure he was feeling, I went to the kitchen, found some shot glasses, and poured for us both. Brady took his silently and slammed it back with a wince.
“I don’t want to talk,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “All I want to do is drink and then maybe fuck if you can still get it up later.”
“Is this your pre-consent?” I asked with a smirk. My heart felt heavy, so the expression likely looked forced. Honestly, I was as heartbroken as Brady was.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “Just nothing kinky. Orgasms only, please. Drink first.” He held his glass out to me to refill.
We drank half the bottle before Brady was ready to talk. “I wanted it so bad.” He slumped against me, head resting against my shoulder.
“Yeah, me too,” I admitted.
“Really?” He turned his pretty green eyes up to me.
“Really, really. A little mini-Brady sounds pretty amazing.”
He initiated the kiss. It was sloppy and our teeth clacked together, but somehow it was perfect, so full of feeling.
Brady slung his leg over, pushing onto my lap.
We kept kissing through peeling off our clothes until Brady was on his knees over me, with my cock at his slick hole.
He lowered himself onto me with a breathy sigh.
It was slow, with Brady rocking his hips, rising and falling on my cock until he grew tired and laid his head on my shoulder with a whine.
I took over then, fucking up into his perfect hole, groaning as he squeezed around me.
I stroked him in time to my thrusts until he came over my hand.
Fuck, I loved watching him take his pleasure.
He gave a sleepy smile as I ate his come from my hand. The taste of him burst over my tongue as he clamped down again, another spurt of come shot from his dick. My orgasm hit from nowhere, making me feel dizzy, or maybe that was the alcohol.
We sat there panting for a while, each of us lost in our own worlds.
I was hurting for Brady since I knew how much he hated being a recessive omega.
Truthfully, I felt no difference in his pheromones or my response to him when he was in heat.
He didn’t feel recessive, he only felt like Brady, the man I wanted to keep forever.
“Another shot?” Brady held up the bottle in question.
“I should probably drink some water and head out.”
He looked uncertain. “Or… just for tonight, you could have another shot, then stay the night?”
“Are you sure?”
“Wouldn’t suggest it if I wasn’t.”
We didn’t finish the bottle. I think we only had two more shots each after he asked me to stay. He found me a spare toothbrush in his bathroom, and we moved around each other as if we had done it countless times.
That night he let me hold him while he slept. It felt important, so it was even more devastating when he ghosted me for three weeks after. Those weeks passed in a fog of grief. Was what we had over with?
“Xavi, you need to send him a text acting as if nothing is wrong. Pretend he didn’t break the rules or be vulnerable with you. I bet he’s just embarrassed or worried he crossed the line.” Malik held his daughter carefully as he got ready to feed her.
It made sense because he had. Staying over was against the rules of our FWB thing. With nothing to lose, I pulled out my phone and shot him a text.
Xavier
Been a hell of a week. Down for some stress relief?
It was an hour before he read it. I kept checking my phone, not so patiently waiting for his response.
Brady
Yeah, come over. Bring cheesecake.
“Well, I can tell the mission was successful,” Malik said with a smug grin.
“Sure was. Gotta go!” I stood and kissed Sora’s head and Malik’s cheek. “You’re the best.”
“Hey!” he protested. “It was your turn to change her!”
My laugh followed me out of his house.
My offering of banoffee cheesecake earned me entrance into Brady’s apartment. We didn’t talk about what happened, only told each other trivial things about what we’d been up to since he’d ghosted.
Brady was about to be very busy with his promo tour for Jae’s book. The new legislation after the successful lawsuit against AlphaPharm had brought a lot of attention to his debut author best friend. It meant we would see each other less, though that was probably a good thing in Brady’s book.
I knew our night drinking together had shifted something between us. It had scared Brady, but cemented how much he meant to me at the same time. I loved him. It was the simple, yet undeniable truth.
We ate the cheesecake before he led us to his bed. Things were awkward at first until Brady shook off his mood and pushed me onto the bed. “Strip.” I did what I was told, then lay there waiting for him.
Brady flopped onto the bed next to me. “I can’t.”
I sat up. “You don’t want to have sex?” Sure, I’d be disappointed, but I’d understand. Things were still off between us.
“No, it’s not that. Can you just take charge? Get me out of my head?” He gazed at me with conflicted eyes, begging me for relief.
I twisted until I was over him. “Anything for you.” I thought for a moment, the tension between us rising. I felt his pheromones spike in reaction to his growing arousal. “Color?”
“Green.”
He let me tie him to the bed and blindfold him. I spent the next hour working two orgasms out of him until he begged me to fuck him. When he cried with my knot still inside him, I held him close. I didn’t offer any platitudes, just my company.
When he fell asleep, I slipped from his body, cleaned him up, kissed his nose, then left. I knew it was too soon for anything more. It killed me to do it, even though I knew it was for the best.
It was the right thing to do, since I got my first good morning text from him later the next day. It kept me in a fantastic mood the whole day. Until Gio tried calling about an offer on the apartment, at least.
We fell into a pattern over the following weeks.
Sexting while he was on tour, nights at his apartment when he was home.
Simple, easy, ignoring the elephant in the room.
Brady knew how I felt about him, but he only wanted the physical side of the relationship for now.
I didn’t push even as the obstacles to us being together fell away.
My old apartment sold. I found a house and broke my lease. Gio seemed to get the message that there was no going back. We were waiting for a judge to sign off on our divorce.
Everything was going so well, I became anxious it was all going to fall apart. Malik and my moms tried to talk me out of my anxiety spiral with little success. It was only my therapist who could talk any sense into me.
“What will be, will be. You can’t control his feelings. You have to give him time.”
I only calmed down when I got his text.
Brady
My heat is next week. You ready?
Another heat with Brady? Was this a sign? With my divorce nearly final, could we be something more at last?
Xavier
I’m in.