by Kathryn Moon
Cyrus turned his head to smile warmly at me, and I was so distracted by the discomfort of the conversation that I forgot to be startled by him. “It was flawless, didn’t take a single spot of touch up in post.”
I sat up a little straighter at that and then ran the conversation back through my head, turning to Wendy. “Sorry. Did you say poach?”
“Rake hasn’t gotten a chance to talk with her yet,” Cyrus said gently.
“Well, he had the chance to send me an email,” Wendy snapped back.
“He only wants her for the week until he can find a replacement for Courtney,” Cyrus said. “I heard your review of our department, Wen, I’m certainly not about to lose Lola.”
“See that you don’t,” Wendy said, offering Cyrus a poisonous grimace in the disguise of a smile.
“Umm…” My eyes bounced between the pair.
Cyrus sucked in a breath and shrugged some of their peevish war of words off his shoulders. “Right. Sorry. Rake is coming in at lunch to talk to you. He…he hasn’t had the best experience with unfamiliar makeup artists and—“
“As an omega,” Wendy cut in bitterly.
“—he’s sought after enough that as long as his artist can pick up the plan from the lead artists for the catwalk shows, he can bring someone of his own choosing. He was hoping you’d be interested,” Cyrus added gently, holding my gaze.
My lips parted in an ‘o’ but I didn’t miss the brief glare Cyrus and Wendy shot one another. There had to be some kind of history there, I just couldn’t quite piece it all together. I pushed that aside and focused on the offer and what it meant for my job.
You’re going to fuck this—I slammed the door on the voice in my head and glared down at my own hands. Could I do this? Backstage at fashion week would be no joke, and it wasn’t as though I’d spent the past year preparing for high-pressure situations.
Could I really turn it down though? Backstage. At. Fashion. Week.
“What if…what if I got permission to take close photos of the makeup looks while I was there?” I asked, turning to Wendy, whose eyes narrowed. “We could do a trend page on it. Or even a layout where we try accessible versions,” I added to Cyrus.
Wendy’s laugh was soft and her smile was genuine, changing the sharp angles of her bone structure into something classical and beautiful instead of so intense. “You know, Lola, I was really looking forward to firing you after two weeks. I’m a little annoyed with you for being this useful. Sure. Cyrus will get you a decent camera from tech.”
Cyrus was beaming again for the first time since we’d entered Wendy’s office, and she was turned away from the shine on his expression.
“Cyrus, try not to coast on this next issue, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll gamble,” Cyrus agreed with a dip of his head, which sounded like a dangerous promise to make, but it didn’t make Wendy frown.
I rose as he did, and Wendy’s form of dismissal was to turn to her phone, so I followed Cyrus quickly out of the room. We walked past Wendy’s assistants and out to the elevator in silence, and it wasn’t until the elevator arrived that Cyrus paused, frowning.
“Oh. Should I—”
“It’s fine,” I said, even though anxiety spiked as he stepped into the small space with me. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t. God, definitely don’t, not after you just sat through World War Wendy with me,” Cyrus said, sighing and slouching against the wall opposite mine.
“Is she…”
“She’s usually worse,” Cyrus said, groaning and rolling out his shoulders. His alpha scent was unfurling in the space between us, teasing a flush to my cheeks as if I’d been sipping on champagne. “But she liked your work and it softened her up.”
Cyrus laughed at my face. Shit, if that was Wendy ‘softened up,’ I’d hate to be in on the meeting where she was having a bad day.
“Are you…all right?” Cyrus asked. “I know your first week ended on a…sour note.”
I fidgeted in place, and the elevator dinged as we arrived on our floor. “Embarrassed, mostly,” I said.
“Don’t be,” Cyrus said, gesturing for me to walk ahead. “Rake’s going to show up a little after noon to sweet talk you into helping him next week. You were seriously interested in that, right?”
I nodded.
“Good. Your suggestion to catch the looks backstage was a stroke of luck too,” Cyrus murmured as we neared our office. “We’ll keep your fashion week adventure on the down-low for a bit longer though, to keep Betty off your ass.”
I snorted and glanced back, blinded by Cyrus’ gleaming grin.
Cyrus artfully maneuvered the rest of the team out of the office for lunch while I double-checked some copy for Corey. I caught a whiff of Rakim from the hall before I even saw him walking up the mirrored glass hall to the office. His big alpha was with him, broad in his black suit, squared features arranged somberly. They exchanged a soft word, and then the alpha returned in the direction they’d come until he was out of sight. Rakim caught my eye as he stood in the doorway, holding a bouquet of plum and pink blooms in one hand, and a takeout bag in the other.
“I come bearing bribery,” he said, eyes vivid under the bright natural lighting of our office.
My mouth curved into a smile without my permission. Rakim Oren had charm down to a science.
“Full disclosure, when Leo helped me pick out the flowers, he said to tell you they were partly from him too,” Rakim added, walking through the room, an aimless eye scoping out our product counters before he came to sit in the chair next to mine.
When his knee grazed mine, I slid back an inch, and he glanced down to the spot, eyes narrowing. He looked up again, smiling brightly, but I thought there was a hint of curiosity or dissection in his gaze, and I forced myself to stay still and not try and lean away from the aura of omega perfume that hovered around him.
“I thought I probably couldn’t go wrong with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” he said, dropping the flowers and paper bag down on the counter. I scooped up the bouquet as if it might act as a shield, while Rakim folded down the paper bag and brought out two foil-wrapped sandwiches.
“You say peanut butter and jelly, but I feel like you mean it in an artisanal way,” I said, watching him unwrap a hearty looking coarse bread that oozed with fresh strawberry jam.
“Guilty,” Rakim said, smiling. “Cyrus texted to say that my surprise was kind of spoiled?”
I nodded and looked down at the flowers in my arms. They were deeply fragrant, but they still didn’t stand up against Rakim’s rich perfume. Omega perfume didn’t have quite the same effect on betas as it did alphas, but I did find myself with a soft aching in my stomach, almost like hunger.
“Wendy told me this morning that you wanted to borrow me. I’m not sure I’m qualified, honestly,” I said.
“Wendy hates me, so I’m sure she did the worst job ever selling the idea,” Rakim said, waving his hand through the air as his tongue slipped out to lick away jam from the corner of his mouth.
He hadn’t shaved recently, and his beard was growing dark and dense and soft looking. He had the effortlessly casual and stylish look down—a weathered leather jacket on his shoulders over a t-shirt and wool pants rolled up slightly to show off his dark, laced boots. It was meant to look approachable, but I had a feeling that the price tag on even the t-shirt would’ve made me gape.
“Here’s the honest truth,” Rakim said, setting his sandwich back on the foil and sucking his thumb clean in a way that made me clench my thighs, his own good looks entirely to blame instead of his scent. “I never used to bring my own crew to these kinds of events, but I was getting…not harassed exactly, but…”
“By alphas,” I said.
He looked up and met my gaze. “No. Betas, actually. Like I said, not harassed, but I was dealing with a lot of people getting into my space, trying to cultivate relationships to find an in with one of my alphas. Sometimes it was physically uncomfortable, but mos
tly it was emotionally exhausting.” Rakim shrugged.
“To have people trying to take your alpha’s attention?”
Rakim frowned and shook his head. “No, it’s not…We’ve all had relationships outside the pack, myself included. That’s how Leo joined us. I just don’t like being used. The men in my pack are all grown-ass adults, they can find their own fuck buddies. And someone pretending to be my friend isn’t going to automatically find their way into our home.”
I looked down at the bouquet in my lap again and swallowed hard. Did he think I was—
“Oh, shit, no! I didn’t mean it like that,” Rakim rushed, reaching out and grabbing my wrist before I could pull away. “Sorry, no. Look, I’ll be professional now. I was already considering asking you to jump in for fashion week before…um…”
“Before you knew for certain I wasn’t chasing your alphas,” I supplied for him, knowing he would’ve heard the full details from the rest of his pack by now.
“Ye-yeah. I guess I just didn’t want you to think I was a stuck up fashion diva the way Wendy probably made me sound.”
He sounded sincere; he looked it too, holding my gaze. His fingers were still wrapped loosely around my wrist, thumb swirling over my pulse, and the touch was somewhere between intimate and friendly.
“About Leo,” I started.
“Lola, honestly, I didn’t mean it like that—”
“But he is part of your pack—”
“He is, and your relationship together won’t change that,” Rakim said, with a firm and gentle certainty.
I blinked and pulled my hand free of his. He hadn’t meant the words as a warning, but I needed to take them as one. Did I really want to get involved with someone who would always belong to others first?
“This got…off track,” I said, putting the flowers on the counter and fussing with one of the folded edges of the wrapped sandwich. “The only makeup I’ve done for you was a cover-up.”
Rakim sighed and stretched taller in the desk chair. “True. I suppose I figured if you didn’t think you could do it, you’d let me know. You didn’t seem like someone who would take the opportunity if you knew you’d bomb it. And it’s not like there won’t be teams of other professionals on hand.”
I sucked in a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. “Okay. I do think I can do it.”
Rakim’s smile wasn’t quite as bright at Cyrus’ but it went all the way to his eyes, making them glitter. “Awesome. There’s going to be a car at your place Friday morning at, and I’m so sorry about this, but the ass crack of dawn. Like four-thirty. But if you text me your coffee and pastry order, it’ll be waiting for you. I’ll talk to Wes about getting us beta security too, so you aren’t stressed out. There will be some alphas backstage, but they usually give me space anyway, out of respect to my pack,” he rattled off, eyes rolling.
I swallowed hard and stared at my unwrapped sandwich, any appetite cooling as I wondered if I’d landed myself in a position I wasn’t really prepared for.
Eight
Lola
“Look at you. Just desperate for this dick, aren’t you?”
“Fuck. Yes, Buzz, please. Ah!”
“That’s it. Hold yourself open like that, beta. Wanna see how deep I go before my knot stops. I bet you wish you could take it, don’t you? You wish you were a sweet little omega with a pussy that just ate me up.”
I whined and spread my thighs apart as far as I could, trying to prove to him that I could be good, even if I was just a beta. Buzz was on the bed beneath me, arms raised and head propped up under his hands as he watched me stretch my sex for his gaze, the muscles of my thighs screaming with exhaustion even as I pushed to prove to him that I was what he wanted. His sticky, smoky-sweet smell was so thick in the air, I had a hard time catching my breath.
I whined as his knot stretched at my opening, but I couldn’t force myself down to take him in, and he just laughed as I retreated.
“So close. You’re never gonna do it though. You think you love alpha dick, but you can’t take the knot, can you, beta? Bites and knots are for omegas, aren’t they?”
“I can do it,” I gasped, sinking down and trying to push past the stinging stretch in my core. I sobbed with frustration, and then Buzz’s hands whipped out, gripping my hips and holding me in place, pain threading out from my core as he tested my limits.
“Wait!” I cried. “Wait, please!”
“You want my bite, beta?” he growled.
“Buzz, stop!”
“You want it?”
His fingernails felt like claws in my side, and when he turned us over, the mattress was like sandpaper against my back. I tried to squirm away, to grab the edge of the bed to pull myself away, but Buzz snarled and dove down.
I screamed as his teeth sank into my shoulder, a blaze of pain sudden and boiling on my skin, the bite wrong on me. He retreated only to move to my breast, repeating the sudden snapping of his teeth in sensitive flesh, tearing into me.
“Stop. Please, please, stop!”
“Betas should know their place, Lola,” he whispered, lips crimson. His teeth bared, and he lunged—
“Morning.”
I landed clumsily inside of the town car on Friday morning, my eyes wide as I stared back at Leo.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, catching my breath.
The sky was still a dark shade of lavender as I’d tiptoed out of my building, concerned about waking any of my neighbors at a totally ungodly hour even while knowing that the screams from my nightmare would’ve already done a thorough job.
“I wanted to see you,” Leo said, smiling. His eyes still looked a little heavy-lidded, and I wanted to slide across the seat and burrow into the soft haze of his dark sweater, but I was still suffering the phantom bites from my nightmare. “I volunteered to get your coffee.”
There were two paper cups in the car’s holders at the center of the back seat and a paper bag sitting on the floor by Leo’s feet. I closed the door behind me and the car pulled away from the curb.
“C’mere for a second,” Leo murmured, arms extended.
I hesitated, the twisted up nightmare version of my first night with Buzz still lingering in my head. It wasn’t a real memory. Buzz hadn’t ever tried forcing his knot, that had been Indy’s personal favorite way of tormenting me. Buzz had preferred to refuse me his knot, knowing how badly I’d wanted to impress him. And no one had ever bitten me—instead, they’d used the mention of a bond like a tease and then turned it into a weapon against my own insecurity.
“Lola?” Leo asked, sitting up, eyes seeing too much on my face.
I pushed across the seat and gave into my initial impulse, nestling against Leo’s chest. He bundled me up in strong arms and hummed happily as I tucked my face under his jaw.
“You okay?”
“I think my nerves about this week kind of messed with my dreams,” I admitted.
Leo hummed and shifted us until I was perched properly on his lap, held close and securely. “I can’t honestly say I know what you’re going into with fashion week. I check out some of Rake’s runways but avoid backstage. I do know, however, that both he and Cyrus have absolute faith you’re going to crush it.”
That did make me smile a little. Working with Designate’s beauty department this week had given me more confidence in my job and my knowledge of makeup.
“I was going to try and take advantage of this alone time with you, but how about I make up for that later, and right now you and I just catch a few more minutes of the sleep we sacrificed getting up this early?”
I didn’t think I could sleep after my nightmare, especially not while being held by someone. But I did like the idea of just resting in the quiet like this with Leo.
“Did you really get up this early just to ride with me to the tents?”
“I arm-wrestled Rake for it,” Leo said, and I snorted. “I’m serious. He’s trying to play it cool, but he has a crush on you.”
I
stiffened, and Leo nuzzled against the top of my head. The omega was interested in me?
“Hey, what’s that? Alphas, I get. But Rake?” he whispered, picking up on my discomfort.
I swallowed down the truth and forced myself to relax. “I like this, between us, and I’m definitely not in it to come between you and your pack. I just need things to be…separate,” I said. “I know it’s not just us, but—”
“I understand,” Leo said, reaching one hand up from my waist to run his fingers through my hair. “Just us.”
I winced. I was totally the ‘other woman,’ which was the last thing I wanted. I especially didn’t want to be another beta in Rakim’s life who tried to wedge themselves between him and one of his pack.
But with an omega, came alphas. Even having lunch with Rakim, I’d walked around the rest of the day with a lingering whiff of his perfume.
The night Baby’s perfume had come in, I’d gotten one decent hit of her scent on my skin when I hugged her. And then I’d landed myself in an alpha’s bed. Buzz’s.
And that one had been a hard trap to untangle myself from.
So Rakim could bring me flowers and hire me to do his makeup in an emergency. He might be stunningly handsome and delightfully playful company. But it was hard enough being friends with one omega and keeping my boundaries safely in place. Rakim seemed like he was the kind of persistent that would make boundaries impossible.
“Lola, you’re so tense, you’ve got me worried,” Leo said softly, pressing a kiss into my hair. “What can I do?”
I coached my limbs into softening, my breaths into slowing. “I’m fine. Tell me about your week.”
Leo walked me to the tent security, my hand in his, but there was an awkward kind of quiet between us ever since he’d teased me about Rake. He stopped me before I joined the line, tugging me closer with a gentle twitch of our linked hands. He was frowning, eyes scanning my face, and I was almost relieved at the thought that maybe I’d ruined things between us already.