by Kole, Lana
“Yes… but that reminds me, Andi picked a new tour manager.”
Relief breezed through him. Andi would pick someone who would fit with them.
“Who is it?” Nohen queried.
Lyric shook her head. “I have no idea, and we probably won’t know until we get on the bus. But Andi says he’s safe and has a good record.”
“Does that make you nervous?” Desi questioned eloquently.
“It does,” Lyric admitted with a small smile. “If you can’t tell, I don’t like being told what to do, especially not by someone I don’t know well. I was lucky I got the label to agree to Andi in the first place. But now that she can’t come…” Lyric shook her head. “It’ll be fine. It’ll all work out because I trust her.”
“That’s the attitude. And if the new manager is a total dick? We’ll just kick their ass,” Emerson said with a shrug.
The smile he got out of Lyric was totally worth it.
“So…” Emerson started once they got in the car.
“We’re so fucked,” Odd breathed. The curse left his lips without hesitation, and Emerson’s head swiveled toward him as it registered.
“What are we going to do?” Emerson asked.
Adra had gotten so used to the muted, dulled version of Lyric’s scent, it had been a shock to his system walking through her door. Surrounded by her scent, in her home, had left an ache in his body, mind, and even… more.
Instead of climbing into the car and pulling away from the curb, he wanted to run back up the stairs, fling the door open, carry her to her nest, and spend the rest of the night buried in her scent—whether it be her marked blankets and pillows or… her body.
“We aren’t going to do anything. You get that, right?” he challenged, chancing a stern look at his friend. His brows were furrowed in that stubborn expression Adra had come to know so well, and a growl slipped from between his lips. “Get that thought out of your mind. You heard her. She’s not looking for a pack. We joined a band. It’s a paid job.”
“Okay! Okay, I get it,” Emerson grumbled. “I don’t know why you’re being so adamant about it. Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”
“Maybe both. But you know I’m not one to push. Whereas you…” Adra trailed off before he could say something he’d regret. Shaking his head, he sighed. “We both just need to be careful around her, okay? Having each other around is going to come in handy.”
The familiar shape of their duplex was washed in yellow from the headlights.
“It will,” Emerson agreed. Then a dark chuckle rumbled out to fill the silence. “Speaking of handy…”
Unabashedly, Adra watched as he lowered his hand to adjust himself in his pants, the bulge showing just how difficult tonight had been.
Adra threw his door open and circled the hood of the car before Emerson had even unbuckled himself. Pulling his roommate’s door open, he grabbed him by the arm and tugged him from the car.
“Yeah, speaking of handy,” he growled, and shoved Em ahead of him gently. “Get moving. We don’t have all night.”
One of his infamous smirks curled his lips as he glanced over his shoulder, keys jangling as he unlocked their door.
“You sound like you want a lot more than a handy.”
Odd growled at him, readjusting his dick as he slammed and locked the front door behind them. Emerson turned to meet him head-on, and he reached up, framing Em’s shoulders with his hands, and reversed their positions, pushing him into the door.
“I do.”
“Thank fuck,” Emerson growled as he slammed his lips onto Adra’s.
Kissing an alpha like Emerson was probably just what you’d imagine it to be. A battle. Each gentle sip from his lips was earned by a sharp nip of teeth against soft flesh. When they pulled apart, breathless and aching, lips red with beard burn and bites, Adra shoved his knee between Emerson’s legs and ground the aching bulge in his pants against his hip. The rough friction made him groan, and Emerson rocked his waist forward for a mirrored pleasure.
They were roughly the same height, so as Adra sank his fingers into Emerson’s long, curly hair, he rested the back of his forearms against his shoulders, pinning him to the door. It gave him more leverage to rock his groin into his waist, while Emerson growled with frustration and tried to mimic him.
To help the poor guy out, Adra pressed his thigh higher up, giving him something to rut against.
“Are we—” Emerson spoke against his lips, and Adra pulled back to give him room. “Are we going to be doing this all tour?”
“Probably,” Adra confirmed, nodding without really knowing what he was agreeing too.
The lingering sweetness of Lyric’s scent was still strong in his nose, making his blood pump faster and his cock swell more at just the memory.
Being surrounded by her every day, living in the same small quarters—it would be hard. But thankfully Emerson was harder.
Adra dropped a hand between their bodies to unzip his pants. They’d done this so many fucking times, working out their frustration with one another, it was muscle memory.
Unfastening the button, tugging the zipper down, he shoved his hand past the waistband and took a handful of hot, hard cock and stroked. Emerson released a puff of warm air to ghost across his lips, and Odd leaned in to swallow the next one.
Em’s hips rocked forward, sliding his cock through Odd’s grip and pressing his hip into Odd’s length, still separated by the barrier of his pants.
As if Emerson realized it at the same moment Odd did, his hands dropped down through the tangle of arms and hands and fingers, and Emerson managed to free him. He pulled back from the kiss, lips chapped and parted as Emerson gripped him tight and tugged, sliding his hand up and twisting at the head before stroking down.
“We’re going to have to be quiet when we do this on tour,” Odd said, and planted his forehead on Emerson’s shoulder.
“Why?” Em groaned, not trying one bit to muffle it. “Maybe she’ll hear us, get curious, and—fuck.” He hissed as Odd shifted their hips together, knocked his hand away, and took them both in his grip.
“And what?” Adra challenged. He tore his gaze away from the view, Emerson’s dusky red cockhead peeking out of his tight grip alongside the flushed dark head of his own.
A shiver worked its way up Emerson’s spine, sending his body bucking into Odd’s touch, and he choked on a moan. Adra slowed the strokes and loosened his grip, though it made him clench his teeth against the need for more.
“Finish what you were saying,” he demanded in a rocky voice.
Even though it was a bad idea, envisioning tangling their lives more with Lyric’s, he couldn’t resist imagining. Maybe it wouldn’t be different if Emerson voiced it instead of him.
“If we’re loud enough, she’ll get curious,” he breathed. He rocked his head back against the door and met Adra’s gaze. “Maybe she’d be in her nest, crack open the door to ask us what the hell’s going on.”
Adra stroked a little faster as he kept talking through the hitch in his chest and the tense of his abs.
“We’d stop her in her tracks. Do you think she’s ever watched gay porn?” he asked randomly.
Adra choked on a laugh, swallowing it for a moan as he envisioned her teasing herself, drenching the room in that sweet honey scent as her moans mixed with those on screen.
He didn’t bother with an answer, but Emerson continued with another groan. “What if she wanted to join?”
“Fuck,” Adra bit out.
Emerson chuckled darkly and leaned his head back against the door, eyes slanted down to hold Adra’s gaze as he continued speaking, throat bobbing with each word.
“Imagine if she was right here, between us.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “Her fingers wrapped around us instead of yours.”
Odd huffed. “She’d have to use two hands. Like when she sings and—”
“And she holds the mic.” Em swallowed, as if he hadn’t considered it.
“Keep going,” he prompted, leaning in to run his lips up Em’s throat, the coarse hair of his beard rough against his kiss.
Heat simmered in his lower back, making him tighten his hand around them, stroke a little faster. But instead of his own hand, he felt Lyric’s lithe fingers wrapped around them.
“We’d tower over her, like when we were dancing.”
Odd floated in the web of the scene Emerson spun. Her long, wavy hair tangled between them, her soft skin brushing against theirs. Her touch. Her scent.
“I want her,” Adra growled, confessing his sin in Em’s flesh, muffling the words into his throat, but not the desire. As he admitted it aloud, it flamed hotter, and he couldn’t stop the whispered admissions. “I want her here, between us. I want her in her nest, I wanted her in the goddamned practice room that very first day. And—”
“How?” Emerson asked on a powerless breath. “How do you want her?” Em knocked his hand away and took over. “Tell me.”
Another moan crawled out of his throat as he unleashed the tight hold on his desire, slamming his hands into the wall on either side of Em’s head and nipping at the underside of his jaw sharply. Maybe too sharply, but there was no complaint.
“I just want… I want to taste her while she squeezes my head with her thighs, and then I want you to suck her taste from my tongue.” Odd lifted his head to lick across the seam of Emerson’s lips, and his rhythm faltered before he squeezed harder and stroked them to the cadence of his confessions.
“I want to fuck both of you at once. For my thrusts to send you deeper inside her.”
Emerson moaned, his cock jumping against Adra’s in the tight grip. He nodded, slamming his eyes shut and banging his head into the wall. Adra went for his throat again, pushing his shirt up and thumbing the hard peaks of his nipples, a sensitive area he’d learned long ago.
“I want to learn her as well as I know you. What makes her breath catch and her moans loud, and what makes her wet. For us.”
“For us,” he echoed, rolling his head to the left. Adra lapped at his neck, his stormy scent seeping in, and even though it wasn’t Lyric, it was Emerson, and Odd could get drunk off him too. Especially with his hand moving like that and the pictures far too vivid in Odd’s mind.
“I want her to come apart around you—”
“Fuck.”
“So I can feel you lose your damned mind.” Odd ran his palms down his sides, slipping his hands into the back of his waistband and shoving his pants to his feet. He took two handfuls of his ass and kneaded them as he spoke, arching his back away to make room for his fist working their cocks. Emerson stuck one hand between them to rake his shirt up, baring Odd’s chest.
“Feel this ass clench around me while you empty into her. Our scents mingling until we can’t tell one from the other. Marking her—” He grunted, squeezing tighter as the orgasm barreled down his spine, Emerson’s fist stroking quick and hard. Precum dripped from the heads to make the glide slick and hot and filthy. His fingers tightened around their bases—around the knots growing harder and making his spine tingle.
A groan clawed its way out of his throat as Emerson grabbed the hem of his tee and shoved it between his teeth, locking it out of the way as he gripped both their knots together with one hand and stroked them hard with the other.
“Fuck—” Emerson panted.
Pleasure struck him like lightning, arcing up and down his spine as their chaotic breaths and muffled moans filtered through the apartment. He couldn’t mark Lyric, couldn’t be with her in the same way he was letting his imagination run wild—but the visions, the confessions were enough.
He blew out a breath, releasing the shirt from between his teeth, and reached up to grasp a fistful of Em’s hair, tilting his neck to the side. He bit down on the packed flesh between Em’s neck and shoulder, and his strokes stuttered as he came. Emerson’s cock jerked against his as come pelted Adra’s stomach and the side of his arm where he dug his nails into his ass.
As his teeth marked Emerson’s neck, Adra jerked into the slack grip with another confession, this one silent.
He wanted to bite Lyric.
Heat rushed over him as he came, come spilling over Em’s fist and coating their stomachs.
Odd’s jaw went lax and he dropped his forehead to Emerson’s shoulder, gulping air down like it was going out of style.
“Fuck, man,” Emerson breathed.
“I know,” Adra rasped weakly.
Em tugged on his shirt, and Adra let him pull it over his head to avoid the mess… and then he used it to wipe his hand off.
Rolling his eyes, Adra dug his nails into his ass, chuckling when Em jerked in his hold and shoved him lightly.
Their gazes clashed and understanding washed over them like a cold shower.
“We really are fucked,” Emerson murmured.
“Yeah. We are.”
They were a pair of packless alphas with a crush on an independent omega.
What a terrible concoction.
“Oh, sugar,” Adra muttered as he stepped foot on the bus two days later. Two days of practice had passed. Two days of fighting off awkwardness and flushes, imagining Lyric would glance at them and just know what had happened. Would uncover their secrets and sins.
But she hadn’t, and now, with bags in tow, Adra was standing in his new home for the next six weeks.
The very tiny home.
Small for them, at least. He shared a knowing glance with Emerson and gulped.
Two couches, one three seats long and running into a cabinet, the other with five seats, faced each other, and left a wide walkway in the middle, which led to a closed door. Behind that probably housed the shower, the bunks, and Lyric’s nest in the very back.
Five people were going to share this space.
A chuckle tinged with panic trickled out of his throat.
It seemed their fantasy of Lyric accidentally discovering them as they worked out their frustrations just became a whole lot more like reality.
Adra thought that was the worst that could happen—for all of them—until a deep voice sounded behind them.
“Let me guess, Adra and Emerson, right?”
Adra turned to meet the sound, and came face-to-face with a tall, dark haired, gray-eyed alpha.
“That’s us,” he said slowly. “And you are?”
He stretched out a hand, the leather jacket he wore slipping up his wrist to show off his tattoos. “I’m Henry, the tour manager.”
Lyric pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, her other hand holding the phone to her ear.
“He’s on our bus?” Lyric’s shrill voice cut through the cozy den of her nest in the bus.
“Well, Andi was supposed to be on the bus. I don’t see why this would be any different,” the agent argued on the line. As soon as Lyric had seen the paper taped outside their bus door, she’d yanked it down and instantly pulled out her phone to call a label rep.
Lyric sucked in a sharp breath and released it slowly, willing her irritation to leave her body.
“Andi was not only a close friend, but she was a beta.” Safe, she wanted to add.
“Henry is safe as well. Previously employed by the omega center, he passed multiple—”
“Previously? Why doesn’t he work there anymore?” she asked, anxiety squeezing her chest like the too tight clothes her mother used to force her into.
A long sigh came over the phone. “Ms. Ceran, I’m only going over this as a courtesy, but know it was a courtesy to let your previous manager choose the current, and we don’t plan to extend much more. But since I understand your worries, just know he’s been vetted by the very best and his record is completely spotless. He simply wanted a change of scenery, and his cousin had the connections to get him into tour managing. He’s now been circling tours for two years. He’s professional.”
Lyric chewed on her lip, plucking at the fabric of her loose dress and billowing it out to counteract the heat flushing thr
ough her.
“The label trusts him enough to put the top contender for best up-and-coming artist into his hands? An omega?”
The man was silent on the other line for a moment. Then, “Yes. We do. Do you trust your previous manager’s decision?”
Despite how much she trusted Andi, Lyric hadn’t expected to share her bus with the new stranger, especially on such short notice. But even if the label was just looking at it from a business perspective, it would be plain stupid to put her in harm’s way. Being an omega came in handy in a few instances. One of those was the safety clause in the contract. If at any point she felt she was in danger, she could break the contract, and not even the corporate suits were dumb enough to put that in jeopardy.
“Okay. If I have any issues, I expect him to be replaced immediately.”
“Understood. Do you have any other concerns?”
“Plenty,” she snapped. “But I’ll let them rest for now.”
“Okay then. Good luck at your first show.”
She ended the call after a short goodbye, her stomach twisting itself into new knots at the reminder.
Tonight. Her first show. Her first live stage appearance in years.
“It’s okay. Things will be fine, and maybe—” She began a mantra aloud, but deep, hushed voices reached her ears, and she spun in place to face the front of the bus. Through two doors—one the door to her nest, and the other the door separating the bunks from the living area—waited the band. Or maybe Henry, the new tour manager.
“Oh fuck,” she breathed, and shook her hands out.
Wiping the clammy sweat on the sides of her dress, she ran her fingers through her hair and smiled at herself in the mirror hanging on the wall next to the door.
She just knew nervous energy was pouring off of her, so she opened the door to escape to avoid tinting her nest with the scent, and locked the door behind her with the electronic key. Only she had the copy, and no one else would be able to enter her nest.
As she walked through the bunk area, she tried to picture the bunks lowered and the band sleeping soundly night after night. The rumble of the road beneath the bus, the passing street lamps.