Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hamish came through the yellow door at twenty past seven, and Lysander jumped him like a guided missile.
His arms locked around Hamish’s neck before the alpha had even got both feet over the threshold, his carry-on bag dropping to the hallway tiles with a thud, and the alpha pulled him in so tightly that Lysander’s feet left the floor.
He buried his face in the crook of Hamish’s neck and breathed him in deeply. His alpha smelled terrible after twenty-two hours in the same clothes, but the strength and concentration of his pheromones made his knees go soft.
“Hi,” Hamish said into his hair.
“Shut up.” Lysander’s fingers dug into Hamish’s blazer. “Don’t talk. Just stand here and let me smell you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sander.”
Lysander took a loud, theatrical sniff of Hamish’s neck. The alpha’s thumb traced a slow circle at the base of Lysander’s skull, right where the tension had been living for weeks.
Behind Hamish, Cassian was standing on the front step with two suitcases and a tote bag slung across his body. He watched Lysander and Hamish with dewy-eyed reverence.
“You two are so beautiful together,” Cassian breathed. “This is exactly like the video of the pug snuffling around his pug friend after they hadn’t seen each other for a couple of months. Except it’s not Hamish’s arse you’re sniffing.”
From somewhere behind Lysander, Stephen lost it completely. Lysander ignored him. “Cass.” He loosened one arm from Hamish’s neck. “Get in here.”
Cassian abandoned both suitcases on the step and launched himself at them. He wedged himself into the embrace, his arms going around both of them, his chin hooking over Lysander’s shoulder. The tote bag swung between their legs and something inside it crunched under the pressure.
Lysander held him. He pressed his cheek against Cassian’s hair and felt the younger omega’s grip tighten around his waist.
Lysander shifted his weight. Cassian’s arms tightened. Lysander tried to step away, but Cassian followed, moulding himself into Lysander’s side like cling film.
“Cass.”
“Mm.”
“You can let go now.”
“I missed you, Sander.” Cassian’s face was pressed into Lysander’s collarbone.
“I missed you so much. The cottage was so quiet without you, and Hamish let me watch whatever I wanted, which sounds nice but actually made me sad because there was nobody to fight me for the remote.” His grip intensified.
“And the kitchen smelled wrong because you weren’t cooking in it, and I couldn’t sleep properly because I kept thinking about your daddy. ”
“That’s lovely, Cass. Really.” Lysander patted his back while his gaze tracked sideways to Hamish, who raised both palms in a clear ‘your turn to deal with him’ signal. “But I need you to detach from my body now.”
Cassian did not detach from his body. His fingers hooked into the hem of Lysander’s jumper and twisted into it, anchoring himself like a barnacle that had identified its ideal rock and had fully committed.
Over Cassian’s head, Lysander caught Diwa’s eye.
Diwa was leaning on the kitchen doorframe with Tala cradled in one arm. He straightened, crossed the hallway and stopped beside the cluster of bodies.
“Cassian.” Diwa’s voice was warm and low, hitting that commanding alpha register. “This is Tala.”
Cassian’s head came up from Lysander’s collarbone as though jerked by a string. His eyes went to the bundle in Diwa’s arms, and every other person in the room ceased to exist for him.
“Oh,” Cassian whispered. He released Lysander’s jumper, and Lysander could have wept with gratitude. “Oh, she’s tiny.”
“She’s three weeks old.” Diwa angled Tala so that Cassian could see her face, and Cassian’s whole body listed towards the baby. “Do you want to hold her?”
Cassian’s arms were already out before he’d finished the sentence. Diwa transferred Tala over to him, and the moment Cassian’s arms closed around her, every sharp edge of his face softened.
“Hello,” Cassian murmured, his voice barely raised above a breath. “Hello, Tala. I’m Cassian.” His thumb found her fist. “You’re the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen hundreds of lambs being born, so that’s not a small compliment.”
Lysander grabbed Hamish’s hand and pulled.
Hamish came willingly, scooping up his carry-on as Lysander towed him towards the stairs.
Behind them, Diwa was already guiding Cassian towards the kitchen, going on about Tala’s grip strength as Cassian held his palm flat against the baby’s, her tiny fingers splayed like a starfish on the broader span of his hand.
The bedroom door closed behind them, and the sound of Cassian’s rapturous cooing cut to a murmur through the floorboards.
Lysander shoved Hamish against the door and kissed him.
His teeth caught Hamish’s lower lip. The alpha’s glasses went sideways on his face, and Lysander didn’t care, because Hamish’s grip was already on the backs of his thighs, hauling him up until his legs locked around Hamish’s waist. The carry-on bag was somewhere on the floor behind them.
Hamish’s blazer was bunched between Lysander’s fists.
“Off,” Lysander said, yanking at the corduroy. “Get this off, so you can get me off.”
Hamish shrugged the blazer down his arms while Lysander’s fingers went for the buttons of his shirt, popping two and giving up on the third because his fingers were shaking and the buttonhole was too tight, so he pulled the whole thing over Hamish’s head instead, taking the glasses with it.
Hamish blinked at him, bare-chested and half-blind, his hair sticking up where the collar had dragged through it.
“Hi,” Hamish said.
“Shut up.” Lysander dropped to his knees on the carpet and went for Hamish’s belt.
The leather was stiff and his fingers slipped twice before the prong cleared the hole.
He wrenched Hamish’s trousers open, shoved them down past his hips, and pressed his face into the cotton of Hamish’s boxers, breathing him in deeply.
Hamish’s cock was already hard, bulging out under the fabric, and Lysander mouthed along the length of it through the cotton while Hamish’s fingers settled in his hair and his head tipped back.
“I take back everything I’ve ever said,” Hamish managed, “about eating the rich and there being no such thing as an ethical billionaire.”
Lysander hooked his thumbs into Hamish’s waistband and dragged his boxers down. “Diwa’s converted you, has he?”
“Diwa is a billionaire who is absolutely a-okay with me.” Hamish sucked in a breath as Lysander’s hand closed around his cock. “Any alpha who throws himself between us and Cass so we can go off and have a root is a friend for life.”
Lysander stood, kicked his own joggers off with enough force that they hit the wardrobe, and pulled his jumper over his head in one movement.
His slick was already running, a warm streak sliding down the inside of his thigh, his body so far ahead of his brain that the two had given up communicating.
Hamish looked at him. His gaze moved from Lysander’s face to his chest to the wet shine on his inner thigh, and his pupils blew so wide that the brown of his irises nearly disappeared.
“Wall,” Lysander said. “Now.”
Hamish didn’t need to be told twice. He caught Lysander by the hips, spun him, and pressed him face-first into the wall beside the door.
The wallpaper was cool under Lysander’s cheek and palms, a jarring contrast to the heat of Hamish’s chest on his back.
He arched, pushing his arse out, and felt Hamish’s cock slide through the slick between his thighs.
“Fuck me,” Lysander said. “I’m not interested in foreplay, Hamish. I haven’t seen you in weeks and I’m soaking wet, so just get inside and show me how much you’ve missed me.”
Hamish’s fingers pressed into Lysander’s hole, two of them sinking in without resistance.
Lysander was so wet that he felt sure the slick sound of Hamish’s fingers working inside him would escape through the shut doorway.
But he didn’t have time to be self-conscious about it because Hamish withdrew his hand, gripped his cock, and pushed into him.
Lysander’s forehead dropped onto the wall, and he bit down on his own forearm to keep the sound of his cry in. Hamish seated himself to the hilt, his hips coming up flush against Lysander’s arse, his breath ragged and hot on Lysander’s neck.
“Fuck, Sander.” Hamish’s voice had dropped into a register that went straight through Lysander’s nervous system. His hand braced on the wall by Lysander’s head, while the other held Lysander’s hip into position. “I could live the rest of my life with my cock up your arse, and be a happy man.”
“We really need to work on your dirty talk.” Lysander pushed back onto him. “Now move.”
“I want to knot you so full that you’re still leaking me out tomorrow during breakfast with your family.”
“My father is in his bedroom recovering from organ failure, there’s a newborn in this house, and you’re telling me you want me dripping your come into Diwa’s dining chairs?”
Hamish’s hips stopped moving, and his mouth brushed the curve of Lysander’s ear.
“I love you, Sander.”
Lysander closed his eyes. This man was fucking insane. He’d gone from narrating a breakfast-table come fantasy to a love declaration without so much as a breath between them, and the worst part was that Lysander knew he’d met his match the second those words left the alpha’s mouth.
“I love you too,” Lysander said. “Now are you going to fuck me, or have you gone soft?”
He could feel that Hamish hadn’t gone soft.
Hamish pulled nearly all the way out and drove back in hard enough that Lysander’s hips slammed into the wall.
From there the rhythm was brutal, exactly what Lysander needed.
His world reduced to the relentless snap of Hamish’s hips, the wet slap of skin on skin, and the grip on his hip pulling him back to meet every thrust. Lysander braced both palms on the wall, his back arched so deep that he could feel the stretch in his spine, and let Hamish fuck into him.
The angle shifted when Hamish widened his stance, and the head of his cock dragged across the spot inside Lysander that made his vision blur. Lysander’s nails scraped the wallpaper. His thighs were slick from hip to knee, the mess of it running down his legs.
“Harder,” Lysander said, though the word came out broken in the middle because Hamish had already anticipated the demand.
His hand left Lysander’s hip and wrapped around his throat, fingers pressing in just enough to narrow the airflow, and Lysander’s whole body went liquid at the claiming hold.
He rested his head onto Hamish’s shoulder and let the pressure hold him there: pinned, breathless, given over completely to the one alpha he trusted enough to handle him like this.
The grip on his throat had narrowed all sensation to a single blazing point at the base of his groin, and when it broke, it tore through him so hard that his legs buckled.
Hamish’s grip loosened on his throat and the air rushed back in.
The flood of oxygen doubled the wave of his orgasm, dragging a ragged shout out of Lysander as his come spurted out of him and onto the wall.
They stayed there, pinned together, both of them breathing like they’d sprinted up five flights of stairs. Hamish’s forehead rested between Lysander’s shoulder blades. His knot pulsed inside Lysander in slow, rhythmic throbs, each one pushing another hot rush of come deeper into him.
“We need to move,” Lysander said, after a long moment. “My ankle’s about to give out.”
Hamish wrapped both arms around his waist and walked them sideways to the bed, still locked together.
They collapsed onto the mattress in a tangle of damp limbs, Hamish spooned behind him with his knot still buried deep, and Lysander breathed out, emptied of the tension he’d been carrying since he left Hamish and Cassian in Melbourne.
Hamish pressed his mouth to the nape of Lysander’s neck. “I missed you.”
“I know.” Lysander pulled Hamish’s arm tighter across his chest and laced their fingers together, pressing the alpha’s knuckles to his sternum. “I know you did.”
They lay tangled together while Hamish’s knot softened inside him. Hamish’s thumb traced the ridge of Lysander’s collarbone in slow, idle passes. Lysander let himself sink into the animal press of bare skin, the pleasant ache of being thoroughly fucked settling into his muscles.
“How’s the podcast going?” Hamish asked.
Lysander’s shoulders went tight. The question had been tossed out casually and delivered in a disarming tone that invited an answer.
They’d been talking freely about Lysander’s plans for the podcast for weeks, but Meredith’s question had blown a hole in them that Lysander wasn’t ready to show Hamish yet.
He’d spoken to Hamish about his OnlyFans past before coming to Melbourne, of course, and had no doubt that he’d done his own digging after Lysander’s reassurances. But he’d only ever allowed Hamish insight into the toll that it had taken on him when Lysander had sent him the practice recordings.
Hamish hadn’t pressed for details beyond what Lysander had offered, hadn’t asked follow-up questions about Dane or the videos or the years between, and the restraint had felt like a gift so enormous that Lysander hadn’t known how to acknowledge it without breaking something.
The line between before-Hamish and with-Hamish was one Lysander had drawn deliberately, and Hamish had respected it. He’d been allowed to keep Dane in a sealed compartment, referenced only in the abstract, and he wanted to keep things that way.
“It’s going,” Lysander said. He kept his tone flat, a door closing on the subject. He waited for the probing follow-up question that was Hamish’s specialty, but today it didn’t come.
Hamish’s arm tightened around Lysander’s chest, and his mouth pressed a kiss to his head. Then there was just his alpha’s breath on him, moving through Lysander’s hair in soft rhythmic passes as the silence hung over them both and pulled Hamish into sleep.