by Piper Scott
Sir.
Everything was disjointed. The heat came on like a fever dream, and it robbed Gabriel of his senses. He rolled onto his side to gaze at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was just before six in the morning. The heat must have come on in the early morning hours, after he’d come again and again remembering Sir’s firm hand and the beautiful things he’d said.
Gabriel was glad his heat was here. After last night, Sir would breathe him in and fall to his knees in want. He’d bury his tongue in Gabriel’s slick and lap him up, and then, when he was high off Gabriel’s pheromones, they’d breed like they were supposed to, and Gabriel would enjoy every second of it. In the sparse moments of lucidity his heat-addled mind afforded him, he would take full advantage of Sir’s body and ride him like he’d wanted to all along—because if he was being truthful to himself, he’d wanted Sir since the very first time he’d seen him, even before his conscious knew what his subconscious had known all along… that Garrison was no good for him, and that he deserved an alpha who would live up to his promises.
Sir would keep his word. Sir was kind and merciful.
They’d make wonderful babies together.
Gabriel’s body urged him to stay in bed, but his mind wanted him to seek out companionship. He peeled the sheets back and crossed the room on wobbling footsteps, uncertain of himself. In his sleep, he’d kicked off Sir’s loose boxers. They’d been drenched in his cum, anyway. He couldn’t wear them out of the room. Instead, Gabriel freed his favorite pair of panties from his duffel bag and shook them out.
Navy blue. White polka-dots. Cheeky.
Sir wouldn’t even have to take them off to get to his slick—all he’d have to do would be to push them aside.
Gabriel stepped into them carefully, but he still came close to losing his balance. The world was a lot less stable than he remembered it, but the risk of falling was worth it—he was going to have sex with Sir, and then they would be a family.
Trembling with excitement, Gabriel slid his hands over his ass to make sure his panties were sitting just right before he crossed the room and opened the door quietly. Sir’s bedroom door was open, and that meant he was already awake. Gabriel would have preferred to surprise him in bed, but it didn’t matter. If they bred in the living room or if they bred in the bedroom, the results would be the same. It was the action, not the location that was important.
One hand braced on the wall to keep him stable, the other toying with the hem of his panties, Gabriel headed down the hall. He heard noise in the kitchen—a mug being placed in the sink.
Sir.
The double-wide doorway was within reach, its white trim a beacon. Gabriel bit down on his lip in anticipation, knowing that as soon as he crossed the threshold, he would belong to his alpha at last. A few more steps, just a few more steps…
Gabriel’s bare foot met polished wood. A shiver ran down his spine. Sir stood at the sink, hands braced on either side like he might be sick. He was still in his pajamas—a loose t-shirt that only partially hid his full tattoo sleeve, and a baggy pair of sweatpants that concealed the body Gabriel remembered so well.
Another step forward.
Sir looked over his shoulder, tired and wistful. That look didn’t stay for long—as soon as he saw what Gabriel was wearing, his eyes widened. On the inside, Gabriel beamed. He was desired. He was loved.
He would have what he wanted most of all.
Sir turned. He took in a breath to speak, but before he could, realization dawned on his face, and his eyes clouded over. The alpha protector from last night was back, and Gabriel wanted him more than he wanted anything else.
“You’re in heat,” Sir murmured. He took a small step toward Gabriel, even as Gabriel advanced through the kitchen to reach him.
“Need you,” Gabriel replied. He arrived in front of Sir, his mind already starting to lose itself to the swirling steam starting to fog his thoughts. “Please, Sir, I need you. You need to help me. It burns.”
Sir set a hand on Gabriel’s wrist. Gabriel curled his hands in the t-shirt Sir wore—an old band shirt Gabriel didn’t care to investigate. He pulled himself forward and tilted his chin upward, and Sir did the rest. Their lips crushed together, and Sir’s hands slipped down to squeeze his ass.
Slick flowed. Gabriel’s body was ready to be penetrated—ready for however often Sir wanted to use him over the next several days while they worked tirelessly to conceive. When they were done and Gabriel’s heat had been extinguished, Sir could punish him then. He could spank Gabriel until his palm smarted and he couldn’t keep going anymore—Gabriel wouldn’t mind. He wanted it. And when they conceived their next baby, Sir could spank him all over again.
Naughty omega, not taking precautions like I warned you to. Bad boy, Rabbit. You know better. Now we’re going to have another baby…
Gabriel lifted a thigh and hooked it over Sir’s hip. He wrapped his arms around Sir’s neck, and Sir hooked an arm beneath his ass. He lifted him up like he weighed nothing at all. The kiss broke. The rock-hard erection beneath Sir’s soft pajama pants pushed into the space between Gabriel’s legs, and he knew that soon, that cock was going to be his. It would use him so much over the next few days that he’d feel empty without it. And the knot that would stretch him? Gabriel didn’t know it yet, but he already couldn’t live without it.
“Fuck me, Sir,” Gabriel whispered into Sir’s ear. “I went into heat for you. I want you.”
“You need to go back to your bedroom, Gabriel,” Sir whispered back, voice so deep, it rolled like tires over gravel. “You’re in heat and you don’t know what you’re saying. You need to go back to bed, and we’ll handle things from there.”
“Only if you come to bed with me.” It was all Gabriel wanted. He tucked his head against Sir’s shoulder and kissed his neck, ready to be taken. This wasn’t like any of the times he’d gone into heat at The White Lotus—in Sir’s arms, he was happy. If Sir wanted his body and mind, Gabriel would give them to him—and he’d give him his future, as well.
They stumbled through the kitchen. Gabriel knew they were moving, but he struggled to cling to his conscious, rational mind. Soon enough, the heat would overtake him and he’d know nothing more, but he wanted to make sure that Sir was with him in bed before that happened. He wanted to remember the best moment of his life.
The bedroom door swung open. It took a second to realize it was his own.
“Sir?” Gabriel lifted his head to look Sir in the eyes, but Sir was already setting him down. Gabriel’s feet met the floor, and he took a few staggering steps backward as he tried to find balance.
Sir’s expression was painted with struggle, his lust-softened eyes plagued with indecision.
Then the dream turned into a nightmare, and it happened too fast for Gabriel to stop it—Sir left the room and closed the door, leaving Gabriel alone.
“N-no!” Gabriel whimpered. He couldn’t find the strength to scream. “Sir! Please! No!”
The heat set in. He swayed on the spot and caught himself on the foot of the bed before he fell. Slick soaked his panties. There would be no more relief.
Gabriel couldn’t walk. Getting to the door would be an impossibility. He crawled onto the bed and fell onto his side, then let loose with a shuddering sob that snagged in his throat and rattled his bones.
Why wasn’t he ever good enough? Why couldn’t he have any of the things in life he wanted? A family wasn’t so much to ask for, was it? All he wanted was someone to love, and who would love him back.
Another ugly sob escaped Gabriel’s lips, and he curled up on the bed as his body betrayed him. Slick flowing liberally, cock throbbing, he let go of his mind and let himself go into heat.
30
Cedric
All he needed to do was push the button. One touch of his finger to the screen would solve all his problems. The call would go through, Sterling would answer, and they’d figure out a way to get Gabriel out of the house together. Cedric wouldn’t gi
ve in to Gabriel’s advances, they’d part ways forever, and he’d never see the little omega who meant so much to him again.
But Cedric couldn’t bring himself to call.
He stared at the contact information on his phone, tracing the numbers with his eyes until the screen dimmed, then went out. There was no way that Gabriel could stay, but Cedric didn’t want him to go, either. His heart hurt too much at the thought.
Business was business—at least, it had been, until he’d met his match in Gabriel. In Brittany, he’d found someone whose lust for life exceeded his own—in weeks, she’d brought him to his knees and collared him as her submissive. He’d been paraded around The Shepherd like the trophy he was, and they’d been the envy of every soul in the building. A beta Domme with free rein over an alpha male? Cedric had lived for the looks he got—the greed of men who wanted him, but who would never get to touch him. And now here he was with his own perfect, exceedingly desirable submissive, unable to touch him even though Cedric wanted him most of all.
It wasn’t just the power trip. It wasn’t.
Gabriel meant more to him than that.
Gabriel, with his gentle eyes and his sugar-sweet innocence, reignited the part of his soul that Brittany’s death had extinguished. He’d stitched him back together and reminded Cedric that it was okay to be vulnerable—being broken didn’t mean that he was weak. The strength it took to look down at all the broken pieces of his psyche and pick them back up one by one was a testament to his perseverance and his endurance. Gabriel wasn’t weak because he’d been tricked down the wrong path in life, just like Cedric wasn’t worthless because his grief was long-lived. In Gabriel, he saw that there was more than one way to heal.
And one day, in retrospect, he hoped Gabriel saw the same from him.
Cedric woke the screen. Sterling’s contact information was still there, the call one tap of his finger away from connecting.
He closed his eyes, said his goodbyes, and called.
“Hello, Cedric.” Sterling was already awake, by the sounds of it. It didn’t make what Cedric had to say any easier.
“Good morning.” Neither man spoke, but this time, Cedric didn’t have the stamina to hold out. He crumbled. “There’s been an incident, and Adrian needs to come for Gabriel.”
“Is everything okay?”
“He’s fine. We’re fine. I…” It was his last chance to lie and explain away the truth, but Cedric couldn’t do that. The only way he could hope to apologize was to make sure that Gabriel was removed from his care and given a fair chance at normalcy. “I kissed him last night, and he went into heat this morning. I managed to get out of the house before anything could happen, but I can’t go back inside. Right now, he needs Adrian. He can stay in my house for the duration of his heat, but once it’s over, I think we should end the contract. After what I did, I don’t think it’s right to see it through to completion.”
There it was, all of the unembellished details laid out for Sterling to see. Cedric would not hide the truth, and he would not pretend he was innocent—but more than that, he refused to muddy Gabriel’s name. The trauma he’d been through meant Gabriel didn’t understand what he was doing by coming onto Cedric, or how wrong it was. If Sterling was going to be disappointed in anyone, it would be Cedric. The blame was his, and his alone.
“A kiss?” It was hard to get a read on Sterling’s voice.
“In the last few weeks, Gabriel has taught me what he really needs.” Cedric tried to keep his voice from shaking, but it proved impossible. “What he says he wants and what he actually wants are different. I know it, and I think you do, too.”
There was no comment from Sterling.
“I want him. I want to care for him body and soul, but I can’t. I thought that I could coax him out of his mindset and convince him that his imagined path in life isn’t the right path for him, but… but I want him too badly. I can’t get him out of my head, and I know that even if I wait this heat out and take him on again, that’s not going to change. If you don’t take him away, I will fail in my role as Dom, and I will put him into a position that doesn’t benefit him. I’ll take him to bed, Sterling, and I can’t do that to him. Not with how he is now.”
All along, Cedric had been convinced that he could hold the pieces together for Gabriel while he put himself back together. He’d thought they’d become whole together. Instead, Gabriel had started to take him back apart. He’d opened up Cedric’s soul and left Cedric to bleed for him.
And Cedric suffered it gladly.
He took another breath and spoke slowly and calmly. He couldn’t show weakness now. “If you would be kind enough to notify me when my house has been vacated, I’ll move back in and we can both go on with our lives. I’ll refund you the money you paid, and you can invest it toward better care for Gabriel.”
“The call is breaking up,” Sterling said. “I’ve heard enough to know to send Adrian over. After he arrives, I want you to come see me at The Shepherd, and we’ll have a chat face-to-face.”
There hadn’t been so much as a grain of feedback on the call. What was Sterling going on about? “I’ll be there, but—”
“See you soon.” Sterling’s voice was the same kind of unreadable that it had been after learning about the kiss. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
The call ended. Cedric set down the phone and allowed himself a single, shuddering, tearless sob. It was over.
Goodbye, Rabbit.
Adrian’s silver Lexus screeched to a halt by the curb. The engine cut so quickly that Cedric winced. He climbed to his feet from where he sat and prepared to greet Adrian, but when the door flew open and Adrian stormed up the lawn, Cedric didn’t think a simple, “Hello, I’m sorry I victimized your brother, please let me get out of your life,” was going to cut it.
“Adrian, I—”
Adrian shoved his shoulders, and Cedric had to take a step back to brace himself. Adrian was dressed in full business professional, but he didn’t let a fitted suit stop him from showing Cedric exactly what he thought of him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Waiting for you to get here so I can make sure he gets the care he needs.”
“You fucked him, didn’t you?” Adrian clenched his fists.
“No.”
“I swear to god, if he ends up pregnant because of this—”
Cedric caught Adrian’s wrist in his hand. The move was instinctual, and so was the way he leaned closer to eliminate the space between them. By the time he spoke, Cedric was barely aware of what he was doing—all he knew was that he had to make sure that no one allowed Gabriel to feel guilty over this.
No one would make his omega suffer.
“I told you no.”
There was a silence uncharacteristic of the Adrian Cedric knew from high school. His face was older now, but Cedric still saw the same refined features and the same distrustful eyes. Adrian hadn’t always looked that way, but the older he became, the more jaded his expression was. Once, Cedric hadn’t understood, but now he felt that he did. Someone, or something, had hurt Adrian back in high school, even before Gabriel’s disappearance. He bore the scars of that time plainly.
It may have been the same thing that had brought Gabriel to run into Baylor’s arms.
Cedric released Adrian’s hand and took a step back. He nodded toward the door. “Gabriel is inside, down the hall, in the bedroom on the left.”
“If I smell you in his bed, so help me…” But Adrian’s voice had lost its edge, and there was uncertainty in his eyes. Cedric knew suffering, and he saw the storm inside. “Sterling gave me your number. I’ll be calling you when Gabriel is safely removed from the house so you can come back. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
Despite the guilt and disappointment dragging down his soul, Cedric managed a tiny grin. “Adrian Lowe, apologizing?”
“Don’t get used to it.” Adrian stepped around him. “You might be telling the truth about my brother, but that doesn’t mea
n that I trust you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not going to see either of you again.”
“Just… go see Sterling.” Adrian shook his head. “Is there anything I need to know over the next week? Leftovers that will go bad in the fridge? A pesky cat you need to feed? Any doors I shouldn’t open?”
“There’s nothing I have to hide.” Cedric heard Adrian twist the doorknob. He didn’t turn to watch him enter. “No matter what he tells you, everything was my fault. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
“I doubt that,” Adrian murmured. “I know my brother.”
“And now I know him, too.” Cedric headed down the path leading to the carport. “He’s a beautiful soul. All he needs is someone who can help him remember that. I’m glad that you found him, Adrian. I’m sorry this has happened to you… and to him.”
The door didn’t swing open—Cedric didn’t hear the creak of the hinges. But Adrian didn’t speak, either. The hairs on the back of Cedric’s neck stood on end, and when he arrived at the driveway, he turned to look at the front door. Adrian stood there, one hand on the doorknob, his face consumed with worry.
Worry.
Not anger. Not rage. Not hate.
“You’re telling the truth,” Adrian murmured. The sound of it carried through the crisp fall morning. There was no traffic on the street to drown out his words—their only witness was the trees. “You didn’t touch him, did you?”
“I would never do that to him.” Cedric slid his hands into his pockets. A breeze nipped at his exposed skin and chilled him, but he didn’t let it rush what he had to say. “The truth is, I’m not strong enough to take care of him the way he needs to be taken care of.” The wind stirred fallen leaves. They crinkled as they abandoned the lawn and met the sidewalk. “No matter what happens, and no matter what you think of me, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you get him someone who can help him—someone who can make him understand how precious and valued he is. I love him, Adrian. I love him, and I need to know that he’s going to get better and lead a happy life. The only way I can make sure that happens is by making sure that responsibility is no longer my own.”