“I’m pushing thirty, it is about time.” I left out all of the things we needed to talk about—someday. That someday was in the distant future, as far as I was concerned.
“If you had been responsible, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
Parker stiffened beside me, but to his credit, he stayed still, his mouth shut. Just as promised, he was letting me handle this, which bolstered my strength. What I really wanted to do was to yell back how it actually happened, again, then storm off. Instead, I pulled on my big boy briefs and adulted.
“Dad, this is not the time for anything other than moving.” It was all I could do to keep my true thoughts glued inside my brain. Now was not the time for that confrontation, although it’s time would come soon enough.
“Then why did you bring him here?” Dad seethed, pointing a finger right at Parker’s chest.
“He’s my mate. Where else would he be?” I feigned ambivalence. It wasn’t worth it, I reminded myself. I had Parker and he was mine in the very best of ways, and that was all that mattered.
“If he were a good alpha, he would be working to provide for you right now. From what I’ve heard, his company isn’t in a very good position.” Before I had a second to ask Dad what he meant, he leaned in, inhaled deeply, and stomped off with a wrinkled nose. He must’ve assumed I was saying mate figuratively, but scents don’t lie.
Parker waved the movers to us and told them to move anything I told them to, and to ignore the habitants of the house. Habitants—my mother’s actions had lowered them to habitant status in Parker’s eyes. A not insignificant part of me had hoped that in the future, things between all of us would be sunshine and roses, but chances of that seemed increasing slim given what I now knew.
My things were just as I had left them, most of them still in boxes. We made quick work of clearing them out of my childhood home. My mother still didn’t show her face. It saddened me that it came to this.
“I told you a moving truck was ridiculous,” I teased Parker as the mostly empty truck was closed.
“It made me happy, so worth every penny. Though it would have been fun staring at your ass as you bent over to pick up those boxes.” He leaned in, kissing my cheek gently. “I’m proud of you. Your dad was doing all he could to set you off.
“I could and should say the same to you.”
Parker opened the driver’s door to my car, kissing me again before helping me in, like a gentleman.
“It wasn’t easy,” he confessed. My mind was so kiss drunk that it took me a moment to remember what it was that challenged him. “My need to protect you is stronger now than ever before. I pretty much wanted to punch him square in the nose.”
I pulled him into the car, and he braced himself on the seat beside me while I gave him a searing kiss.
“That would’ve pissed me off,” I said when the sound of the moving truck roaring to life ended our kiss. “I get dibs. He’s my father.”
Parker chuckled as he closed my door and walked around to his side. That was when I saw it, on the dash. A letter, addressed to me. It had to be my mother. She and I had shared my car a couple of weeks earlier when hers was on the fritz, and I had never thought to get the spare key back. I grabbed it, mushing it into my pocket. Now was not the time. I would read it later, when I was emotionally ready. Or at least when I was far enough away that I wouldn’t run back in and have yet another fight.
45
Parker
Miles’s face went blank when the movers asked him where to place his stuff in the condo, and I stepped in, guiding them to one of the spare rooms. They were both nearly empty, with just a bed and a dresser. Maybe a nightstand, if I remembered correctly. Linda had overseen the details for me. I really owed that woman a lot. I winced, thinking of how curt I’d been on the phone that morning. Maybe Miles would help me put together a thank you basket for her. Normally, I would have Linda put it together, but that seemed a little gauche, asking her to put together a thank you basket for herself.
In barely any time at all, it was just Miles and I and the echoing ghosts of change in the apartment. I wandered over to my music system and flipped it on, hitting play on the last playlist I’d listened to. I smiled. “Remember this?”
“I can’t believe you’re still listening to Jason Mraz,” Miles said. “And especially that song. I couldn’t listen to him without crying for three years.”
“What can I say? I’m a wall fower. And even our broken love can’t destroy the Mr. A-Z.”
Miles groaned, but I sang along with the lyrics. “They don’t know how long it takes/waiting for a love like this.”
“Please, no! I haven’t disassociated from the anxiety of missing you yet.”
I swing him into my arms and swayed, can’t dance slow dance style. “Lucky I’m in love with my best friend/Lucky to have been where I have been/Lucky to be coming home again… You have to admit that it’s even more appropriate now.”
“I admit nothing,” Miles said adamantly, peeling out of my arms and heading for the sound system. “How do I change this?”
I showed him with a pout, pulling out the tablet I used to manage my playlists, and he searched through it for a few moments before choosing a song with an, “Aha!” A heavy bass beat kicked in and I raised my eyebrow.
Miles turned toward me and started prowling across the floor back to me in a way that clearly indicated I was his prey. I took a step back and his grin widened. I kept stepping back as he advanced. “I can’t do this to Jason Mraz.”
The back of my knees hit the couch and I fell. Miles crossed the last few feet between us in a moment, his arms bracketing either side of my head. He nudged my legs apart and stepped between them, swaying his hips in time to the music.
I licked my lips. “What’s this?”
“Thank you properly, of course. For helping me get my stuff. For not forgetting me. For staying long enough for me to capture you again.”
He trailed a hand down my chest and I could barely think, my cock straining against the tight jeans I’d thrown on before leaving the house. “As if I could forget you. That’s nothing to thank me for. And you think you captured me? What if I was the one who captured you?”
Miles slid to his knees, his lips brushing against mine without falling into the kiss I tried to chase him with. “You wish,” he whispered with a wicked grin.
He made slow work of removing my pants. Every time I tried to push in and hurry things along, he just pushed my hands to the side, and pushed me back against the couch. His touch was torture… it was heaven. Finally, he teased the zipper of my pants all the way down and I begged him, “Please, Miles. I need… need…”
He had leaned down to hover over my cock, still constrained by my boxers, and just breathed over my skin, the warm air like the breath of a dragon.
“What do you need, Parker?”
“I need you.”
He smiled warmly. “You’ve got me.”
Finally, he grasped the waist of my pants and boxers and pulled down. I hitched my hips up and then I was finally bare from my hips down. I felt perilously vulnerable, half dressed and tattered while Miles hadn’t removed a stitch of clothing and seemed completely serene. But that in and of itself was tantalizing. I was always the one in control. I was always the boss, the power, the decision maker. And most of the time, that was what I wanted, but in this moment, I found a strange peace in submitting to Miles’s whims and care. Was this a mated thing? Was it a me and Miles thing? I hadn’t felt this way with him before; I’d always had to be in control. Perhaps that had been a youth thing. For whatever reason, I waited in anticipation, yearning and, at the same time, content.
I was so deep in the experience of letting Miles’s hands brush over me, tease me, take care of me, that I was completely unprepared for the glorious shock of Miles’s mouth descending on my cock, his sweet, tight mouth sucking me into his throat, all the way to the root, before sliding off with a cough.
“Are you okay?”
I asked, gasping from the aftershocks of surprise.
“Just a little out of practice.”
“I don’t remember you ever taking me that deep before,” I said.
“Maybe your memory is going, old man.”
I tried to pin him with a glare, but my brain was a little floppy. “As if I would ever forget you doing something like that.”
“Practicing a new trick?” Miles offered.
“Please, practice away.”
Miles’s mouth slid over my cock again, though not quite as deep, and he twisted his tongue around my shaft, the pressure unexpected on top of the already amazing presence of his smooth, hot mouth. He started bobbing in a stead pressure and I lightly rested my hands on his head to feel the rhythm more deeply. When Miles didn’t complain, I grabbed on to his hair and he moaned around my cock, flicking yet an another ignition switch on my go systems.
“I’m not going to—I’m going to—“ I tried to pull Miles back, but he just sped up his pace, grabbing my hands and pressing them firmly into the couch, hollowing his cheeks as he sucked my orgasm from me. My back arched off the couch as I came with a shout, each surge of pleasure more intense as Miles’s tongue massaged my cock, swallowing every drop of cum down his throat. Just when it was almost too much, he stilled his motions and slid off. His lips were swollen, and his eyes half-lidded, as if he were on some kind of high. He buried his nose against my knot, nearly making me come again in dry spurts, but he didn’t push me further, just laid with his head in my lap as I recovered from the best damn blow job of my life.
“If that’s a thank you,” I said finally, “I can’t wait to see what make up sex is going to be like.”
Miles snorted and sat up. “I feel like every time we have sex for the next year is still going to be make up sex.”
I pulled him up to sit next to me on the couch and wrapped my arm around him, his head resting on my shoulder. “Fair enough. We’ll just have to have a lot of it, then.”
Miles snuggled in with a sigh. “If we must.”
Already, I dreaded going in to work tomorrow. Unlike the last few years, I finally had something to make me want to be at home. But I knew that this, here, with Miles, it was a gift, and I couldn’t squander it. Whether or not he went on to get his license to practice law here, I would always feel the need to provide for him, and tomorrow, I was going to get back on that. But I already knew life wouldn’t be like before. I had more to live for than the next customer, the next deal, the next conquest. I had Miles. And that was worth more than anything.
46
Miles
I spent the entire morning looking up information on both states’ reciprocity and downloading the bazillion forms I needed to complete. Thankfully, it looked as if there had been no official complaint filed by my old firm, which had been the true reason I hadn’t looked into things further; a fact I hid even from myself until I hit return on the search.
I had in no way perpetrated any “moral turpitude,” as my dismissal interview said, but that didn’t matter to my old firm. Since they hadn’t filed, I doubted it would matter to the state. They would see I was no longer employed and push my application down to the bottom of the pile. Mr. Fips, my old boss, had always taken a liking to me and even if he felt he had no choice but to fire me, his non-filing told me he was still on my side.
Before I could lose my nerve, I whipped out my phone and dialed his personal number. At this point, I didn’t have much to lose. Sure, he could still decide to file a complaint, but this far away from my termination, the chances of them looking at it twice were slim to none. One ring later, before I could change my mind and hang up, Mr. Fips answered.
“Miles.” His one word reply was filled with enough warmth that I didn’t lose my courage.
“Mr. Fips,” I responded lamely.
“How are you?” Mr. Fips had taken me under his wing when I first joined the firm as an intern and it was nice to see he still considered me worthy of his kindness.
“I’m doing. I was just looking at all the paperwork for being able to practice here and –thank you.” I was choking up just at the simple thank you.
“Never thank me. I caved under the pressure of the founding partners.” A large part of me had suspected that, but to hear it said in so many words was an entirely different thing.
I pushed up from my seat, making my way to the balcony as our conversation continued.
“So you believe me.” It wasn’t a question and it felt amazing to say aloud. I found the lounge charge and dropped into it, the tension falling off of me as I leaned against the soft cushions. Money might not buy happiness, but it sure bought comfy furniture.
“You’ve never given me reason not to.”
“That makes me feel remarkably better.” At some point I needed to file charges against the lying, sexual harassing alphahats, but for now being believed was enough. The same might not have been true last week when I was begging for any kind of real responsibilities at work, but nothing was going to put a hole in the bubble of joy my new mating brought. I was allowing my dad’s firm to be a crutch, falling into the role of unsuccessful son he wrote for me. No more.
“Did you call for a recommendation for a new position?”
“Not exactly, but I wouldn’t turn one down.” I still hadn’t figured out exactly what I wanted to do, career wise, not wanting to get my hopes up that I could still practice without a huge fight. Now that I knew that obstacle wasn’t impossible, I needed to talk with Miles about my plans.
“Fair enough.” There was an awkward pause before he continued. I knew Fair enough always meant more with him, but what he said next rocked me to my core. “And Miles, I’m still working on proving your innocence but I need to be delicate.”
By delicate, he meant he was risking his own cushy existence there. If he were closer, I’m be hugging the old man. As I were, my eyes were starting to fill.
“Just that you wanted to was huge. I appreciate it. The sexual harassment policies seem to favor the alphas a bit more than they should.” It was the harsh reality of it. I was already in the wrong before we began.
“That they do, another thing I’m working on.” Mr. Fips had far more layers than even I knew. He was a good man and if anyone could get things done, it was him. He wasn’t an in your face kind of alpha, he worked slowly and methodically to achieve his goals. It was why he never lost a case. Not one. In that way he was like a litigation god.
“I’m guessing if we are talking, you aren’t at work.”
“Florida.” He chuckled. “Family vacation. Beaches and laziness abound.” I highly doubted the man knew how to do lazy, but if he did, good on him.
“I’ll let you go then. And thank you. I knew you –I had a feeling –I just –”
“No need. I’m just wish I could’ve stopped it in the beginning but since you were on heat leave when all the charges were pressed.” He wasn’t wrong there. The 48 hours to respond to a complaint when you are on heat leave buts the omegas behind the eight ball. It isn’t like we keep up on our emails during our leave, even if it was alone, which mine always were.
“Understood. It was for the best anyway.” The realization hit me with full force. If none of that happened, I wouldn’t be here, mated and about to start the life I thought I lost.
“How so? You were on track to be junior partner within the year.” I had suspected as much. I would’ve been the first omega junior in that firm, the probable reason for what happened, which sucked. None of them deserved the position, expecting things to be handed to them based on their status alone. I shook my head, not wanting to let the negativity of that entire scenario fester.
“And instead I’m mated to my first love and about to start a whole new adventure.”
47
Parker
Lisa accosted me as soon as I entered the office. “We need to talk.”
“Okay, just let me—” I started to say, but she followed me in, tray of coffee already prepared. Sh
e plopped it on the table with an uncharacteristic rattle and handed me a pile of papers while she poured our cups. I abandoned my attempt to remove my jacket as I read through her report. With everything going on with Miles, I’d nearly forgotten that I’d asked her and Timothy Janis, my CFO, to look into the financial discrepancies on the quarterly report. But Lisa hadn’t forgotten.
“Is this correct?” I asked her, falling into the couch, my eyes glued to the words in front of me.
“I triple checked everything,” she assured me. “At first glance, the purchases had looked like simple miscategorizations, but when I looked at the receipts and the actual numbers, red flags started popping up all over the place. For instance, one of the specialized packing machines we use—we had apparently purchased forty new units, but unless we’re opening a new shipping facility, which we aren’t scheduled to this year, we never purchase in bulk, and never as many as forty.“
I flipped the report shut, my anger looming larger with each line, each piece of evidence that someone was taking me for a fool.
“What does Timothy have to say about this?”
“Well…” Lisa’s face said I wasn’t going to like what she had to say about the next part. “I didn’t talk to Mr. Janis about it. I have a folder of copies of all the purchase receipts and—”
“Let me guess—he’s signed every one.”
“You got it.”
I stood, finally removing my jacket and rolling up my sleeve. “Get someone up here from legal. A whole fucking team if need be. I don’t want that man on my property a moment longer than necessary. Is he in his office now?”
“Not yet. I checked with Opal, his secretary, and she said he doesn’t normally get in until about 8:45.”
I shook my head in disgust. I didn’t expect my employees to all hold the exact same work ethic as me, but I expected them to follow pretty damn close on my heels.
Reclaiming His Omega Page 15