Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance

by Stephan James

  Their bodies collapsed sideways, still tangled up in each other. Breathless, neither of them said anything. Neither of them could say anything right then and there.

  Devan pulled his research assistant into his arms and pressed a much more tender sort of kiss to the back of his neck. “Mine,” he purred.

  More content and happier than he had ever been in his life, Johnathan fell asleep, glad that he finally belonged somewhere.

  Chapter Eight

  An enormous thump crashed through the entire apartment and Johnathan leapt out of bed before he even fully remembered where he was or had any idea of what was going on. “Devan!” he cried out, scrabbling around in the dark of the room because he had no idea where the lights were, or what was going on. All he could think, as it slowly came back to him that he was in Devan’s bedroom because they had slept together, was that the professor must have fallen out of bed. Maybe he was hurt, or stunned, or still asleep. From living with Mitch, he knew big burly men like that sometimes did things that would have hurt other people but had no idea it happened.

  A hand clamped over his mouth and a hot voice hissed in his ear, “Shhh! It’s just me. Quiet. Understand?”

  He nodded rapidly, and Devan let him go, but then wrapped an arm around his shoulders. His sight adjusted to the dimness, picking out small details. The perfect bed. Clear floor. The alarm clock reading 2:34 a.m. Devan’s wide eyes. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  “Just listen,” Devan hushed him, holding onto him very close. Uncertain, Johnathan pressed his side against the professor’s, curling as close as he could.

  For more than a minute, there was nothing. No sign anyone was there. Johnathan opened his mouth to speak again and right then was when there was another resounding crash. He flinched, about to yelp into the silence that followed, when a low murmur of angry voices did it for him.

  “Door’s tough as shit.”

  “Kick the damn thing down anyway! He’s in there!”

  “You sure?” A third voice pondered slowly. “I ain’t heard nothing.”

  The first voice growled, “That’s because you’re dumber than a box.”

  Another thump shook the apartment, only this time it was a splintering crack.

  Johnathan looked up at Devan, his heart pounding and his mouth dry as hell. “Who are those people? They’re coming in!”

  “Perhaps,” Devan said, seeming almost supernaturally calm. “What do you say you and I go for a walk out on the roof?”

  The professor started to loosen his grip and Johnathan clutched at him instead. “Where are you going? You can’t leave me!”

  “Just to the closet, babe,” Devan said, and loosened his grip so that he could slide his closet door open. He was obviously trying hard not to make a sound but it didn’t matter because the three –or more?- men outside the door staged another attack upon it.

  “One more kick! Do it!”

  “You do it! My leg is gonna split in half!”

  Devan rolled his eyes and whispered, “Bunch of morons,” while retrieving some sort of bag from the top shelf of his closet. One zipper later, and he held up a fire ladder. “Open up the window for me, please, babe.”

  This definitely wasn’t the time to be delighted by the fact that his lover was calling him by a pet name, climbing backwards out of a bedroom window on rickety ladder that felt like it was about to crumble to dust at a moment’s notice. He couldn’t help it however, practically glowing and beaming brighter than the moon as they landed on the fire escape and then headed up to the roof together. The night was much cooler than the day, but Johnathan was warm when Devan wrapped his arms around him. They stood near the edge, looking out over the sleeping city.

  “I guess you want to know what that was all about,” Devan finally said.

  “That would be nice.”

  “Remember that I said it’s nice to have a job to pay the bills, John? I’m the same as you. I never wanted to be a professor of any kind. Unfortunately, rock climbing and scuba diving and bungee jumping don’t do much to pay the bills unless you are competitive or else breaking records. They’re hobbies of mine, and I would rather enjoy them than do this boring educational work. No offense meant.”

  Johnathan laughed a little. “It’s okay. I think you’re boring, too.”

  “But you are anything but boring in bed. Very adequate.”

  “Hey!” Johnathan exclaimed as Devan laughed. “I’ll push you off this roof!”

  “You did very well for your first time,” he said, smiling. “Anal is more difficult than straight sex. We’ll practice more later.”

  “So, why do those guys want to beat you up? You owe them money?”

  “A great deal of money, actually. I’ve racked up quite a bit of debt recently. Teaching doesn’t quite make enough to support my hobbies, unfortunately. I’ve had to take out quite a few loans from…places. But they will all be repaid in full as soon as this paper we are working on is finished!”

  “How?”

  “We are not very far into the appropriate chapter yet so you wouldn’t have recognized the differences there between that and the documents we’ve been reading. But, I believe there is a great deal of difference in the development of human behaviors between current theories, and this current theory I am developing. It will be groundbreaking. If it gets published, I will never have to work another day in my life. All my travels, past and future, will be paid for.”

  Johnathan could only watch in awe as his professor spoke, so caught up in what he was talking about that he became alive and vibrant. If only his lectures went like this…

  “In any case, that is why this paper must be written, and why Dr. Brown is so adamant upon it as well. Just think of all the good things a groundbreaking paper would bring to any college, and you can see why.”

  “I guess so,” he said, and then suddenly hugged Devan really tight. “I’mso happy you confided in me. Thank you!”

  Devan lightly touched the back of his head. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? We’re in this together now, after all. If I don’t succeed, you don’t graduate!”

  Chapter Nine

  The end of the semester was quickly approaching and there was a lot of work to be done. Johnathan slid through the rest of his classes, putting in just the right amount of minimal effort to pass them, but he no longer actually cared about passing. That was all just for appearance, now.

  There was nothing more he cared about than Devan. Everything else was only secondary. Sure, maybe the professor hadn’t been so smart to get a whole bunch of debt that he couldn’t pay off, but the time to question those life choices was past and instead it was time to fix them. And if that meant working their asses off on doing their research and only stopping to eat and sleep, and have sex, then Johnathan was going to do exactly that. And he did.

  Never before much of a reader, now it was all he did. He didn’t party, or go out to movies, or even talk to Mitch. If it was anything less than life-threatening, he had a pen in one hand and papers in the other. His back began to ache and it seemed like there was a permanent crick in his neck, and his wrist was sore, and his eyes were always sore, but sex with Devan gave release to all those aches and pains and let him pick himself back up off the floor –or bed. Or counter. Or desk. Wherever they were doing it at the moment- and get back to it.

  Only once did he try to voice his pains out loud. It was to Mitch, both of them in their customary perches in their room.

  Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, “Man, I could never be an academic.”

  “No, but you sure can fuck one,” Mitch snapped, and then stormed right out of the room, leaving him baffled. Whatever was eating at his friend, he had no idea what it was or how to fix it. Maybe it couldn’t be fixed at all. But after that, Johnathan stopped trying and snuggled even deeper into his nest made of papers and sex.

  Soon enough, the outline was finished and they were left with a bunch of scraps of new and startling information –or so Deva
n said, anyway- that then needed to be woven together into a cohesive argument to turn everything the scientific world knew on its head. Johnathan sat in a chair beside his professor, shuffling through their notes and reading off the sources, listing the quotes necessary for a particular support. Rough at first, they soon fell into a rhythm of sorts together until they were like a well-oiled machine.

  Then, a week before the end of the semester, with finals looming fierce and shadowy overhead, Johnathan popped into Devan’s office with a smile on his face because he knew that today was the day! Last night, Devan told him that he was so close to finishing the paper that it would be done like morning.

  “Devan!” he said, smiling up at his lover. Every part of him was aching for celebration sex, and maybe dinner out. Or a super greasy pizza. Something he’d been denying himself to make this work, anything at all. But one look at the torn expression on Devan’s face told him that this wasn’t going to be a cause for celebration. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “It’s gone!”

  Horror struck him like a bolt of lightning. “What’s gone? You, you don’t mean the paper?”

  Devan tossed his hands into the air. “Of course I mean the paper! What else would it be? My socks?”

  Johnathan glanced down and looked at the professor’s feet. “Well, one sock.”

  “I had my door replaced and got an extra lock since that night but I came home to it today during a break because I forgot my graded papers. John, the door was kicked in. Everything is a mess! My computer is destroyed and they took the flashdrive with the paper on it.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Of course I did but there’s no use. I don’t know who wanted that drive or why, but there’s no use. There’s no point at all. There’s no way we can recreate the paper in time.”

  “There has to be!” Johnathan insisted. “We did it before. And now we know how it goes so we can do it again. It’ll be even better. Come on!”

  But, his words fell on deaf ears and all Devan did was shake his head. “It’s not that easy, John. You should just go back home for now. I need to think.”

  “But…” Johnathan swallowed hard, and then shook his head at himself. This wasn’t the time to argue. “Okay. Be careful, okay?”

  Devan didn’t answer, sinking down at his desk to put his head in his hands. Johnathan scurried over to kiss his cheek, and then he left the office again.

  There was literally nothing else for him to do today, so he really did just have to go home. Damn. What a bummer. All his plans, ruined in the blink of an eye. That was a pretty shitty way for things to turn out, but what else was he supposed to do? There was nothing to do.

  Staring dejectedly down at his feet, he realized that he wasn’t looking forward to heading back home and having Mitch taunt him about his boyfriend kicking him out or something, so he turned down the next path to take a bit of a longer walk back.

  And suddenly, there it was. A flashdrive on the path, looking abandoned and cold. Curiously, Johnathan bent over and picked it up to see if it had a label.

  Then, his heart stopped.

  There were initials written on the drive in silver marker. D.M.

  Devan Magnus.

  “Holy shit. Holy shit!” he yelped, and snatched at his phone. With trembling fingers, he dialed Devan’s number. It rang twice, and then was picked up. However, instead of a voice greeting him there was only silence. He hardly noticed. “Devan! Devan, I found it! I found the flashdrive! It’s right here, I found it.”

  In the background, he heard scuffling, and then a shout. Devan’s voice yelping his name, but not anywhere near the phone at all. Angry tones from another person that he couldn’t identify, and then there was only silence.

  Those guys must have found him! he realized. Shit! I have to go back!

  He whirled around and ran straight into the broad chest of a football player. Not just any football player, either. It was Mitch, looking distraught. His hair was wild, like he’d been raking his fingers through it. “Johnny, we have to talk.”

  Johnathan shook his head and tried to run past him, only to find his stomach ensnared in a huge pair of arms. “Mitch, no! This is important!”

  “No, this is important!” Mitch yelled, and the shrillness in his voice brought Johnathan’s head snapping around with shock, staring at him. “You’re throwing your life away for that idiot professor, man! He doesn’t appreciate you and he’s just going to push you away when he’s done with you. You’re so stupid!”

  “You don’t know anything about him,” he snapped, wriggling around frantically. “You’re wrong!”

  “Maybe I haven’t fucked him, but I know lots about you and he doesn’t! He won’t be able to appreciate you like I can.”

  What?

  His insides went cold with dread.

  “What are you saying?”

  Mitch swallowed hard and lowered his head, hiding his eyes. “I…really care about you. Like, more than just bros. I wanted to…but he got to you first and I can’t forgive him for that.”

  “Mitch, I, I had no idea you felt like that,” he whispered. His thoughts whirled. He’d gone from being an unwanted virgin to having not just one but two hunky men wanting him? But he only wanted one of them, and it wasn’t Mitch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But…we’re friends. And that’s all we are.” Something occurred to him and he gave a wobbly little smile. “But no matter what happens, we’re always going to be bros. And if Devan hurts me, I give you permission to punch his face in.”

  Mitch tried to smile, but it hung crookedly and didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be waiting. You were supposed to be going to see him, right?”

  This could be his chance, he realized. Those bad guys had no idea that Mitch even existed.

  “Yeah, but I found this on the path when I was walking.” He lifted up the flashdrive, having quickly torn off the label with his thumb. It fluttered away unnoticed on the wind. “I was thinking about seeing if I could figure out who it belonged to. You know people don’t ever look in the Lost and Found. Could you…like…just hold onto it for me?”

  Mitch shrugged and took the little drive, the slick darkness of it nearly swallowed whole in his huge hand. “Sure. Anything. Maybe when you’re done with that guy we can have a beer or something. Bros, right?”

  “Bros forever,” Johnathan said, and then he took off running the moment he was released.

  Chapter Ten

  “Dr. Brown!” Johnathan gasped, racing through the offices. He had no idea where Devan could be by now, what with that unexpected business with Mitch taking up so much time, but he thought he might be able to figure it out if he went to the office to look for clues. And there was Dr. Brown, standing right there outside Devan’s office. He had no know something was wrong!

  The spindly man jumped a little and spun around, then seemed to relax. “You! What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “I think something awful happened to Professor Devan!” Johnathan blurted out frantically. “I was on the phone with him but it sounded like he wasn’t alone, and he called for help! And then someone just hung up!”

  “I see. How…unfortunate.”

  “I think these creepy guys who tried to break into his apartment are after him or something. They stole his flashdrive for the paper, but I found it.”

  Dr. Brown’s eyes suddenly went narrow, sharpening like flint. He leaned way far over Johnathan, making him shrink back. “You have the drive? Very good. Hand it over.”

  He was about to say that he gave it to Mitch when something stopped him. It was the department head’s tone of voice, as sharp as his eyes. It was his posture, imposing and dangerous. Instead, he stammered, “I, I, uh, don’t…have it on me. Exactly.”

  “That is also quite unfortunate.” Dr. Brown scowled, his whole face darkening. “Maybe you should go get it for me. I’ll accompany you.” He reached out and grabbed at Johnathan’s wrist, snaring his skin with clawlike fingernails.
<
br />   Fear shook him to his very core. He knew he’d been right to stay silent!

  “And while we’re walking to wherever you put that drive, I’ll tell you all about your beloved professor’s favorite diving spot.”

  Johnathan opened his mouth to start screaming, and then immediately thought better of it. Holding his tongue worked last time, so he just needed to try to be a little clever. “Um…where’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s about half an hour from here. A very common little place. Affordable. For some. Not many reefs, but quite a few sharks.” Dr. Brown spoke almost conversationally as he marched back down the hallway, dragging Johnathan by the wrist. “You have to be careful when you go diving there, though. They also feed the sharks there. Get into the water with a cut or scrape on you anywhere and…well…the sharks won’t need feeding that day. Ha!”

  “I, I see. Ow!” he yelped, as Dr. Brown yanked his arm.

  “Quit squirming! Now, you see, it’s really quite unfortunate that your professor just happened to go into the water today with a papercut today. Quite a big papercut, too. Almost like he was stabbed in the hand.”

  “He’ll die!”

  “A dreadful accident.”

  Suddenly, everything was clear now. Although he couldn’t be sure of exactly how everything tied together, he knew now that Dr. Brown was working with those thugs. Maybe he wanted to publish the paper as his own! Whatever it was, Johnathan was not about to let that happen.

  He didn’t think.

  He didn’t give himself time to question it.

  He spun around, drove his knee up into Dr. Brown’s groin, and then punched him so hard in the face that something cracked. Whether it was the department head’s nose, or his own finger, he had no idea.

  But the tall, thin man dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  Johnathan took off running, quickly punching the emergency button on his phone’s lock screen.

  “911,” a calm voice said. “What’s your emergency?”

  “There’s going to be a murder at a diving spot where they feed sharks, half an hour away from here! I don’t know the name! It’s my boyfriend! Please, get the police there!”