by Jayce Carter
Claire opened her eyes, having not realized that they’d drifted closed. She met his gaze, the steady gaze she trusted, at least a little. The brush of his thumb over her cheek held nothing but affection, but want, and she wanted, too.
“Good girl,” he said, low and rumbled before his shaft kicked and he pulled her closer.
She might have gagged, her lips pressed tight against his fist, but the first spurt of cum had an immediate effect. She came, squeezing down around Kaidan’s demanding fingers, Joshua’s cum and scent smothering her, surrounding her. She swallowed it, sucking even as he softened as if she could draw more out.
Kaidan pulled her back with the grip in her hair, even as she fought against it, even as she tried to continue her worship of Joshua’s cock. Still, Kaidan was stronger, and he maneuvered her so her sweat-covered back pressed against his chest. “Need more, love?”
She nodded, silent. Wait, no, not silent. Soft pleas left her lips. More, please, more.
He hushed her, lips against her ear, before he turned her head toward Bryce. He’d come as well, white painted over his hand. “There’s more there, love.”
She hesitated, fear beating in her chest. Still, her instinct didn’t care what she feared, didn’t care the risk.
Bryce didn’t move, didn’t do anything but keep his hand around his cock while he gave her the chance to decide.
That stillness unnerved her, like a snake before it struck. Even so, it worked.
Claire slid from the couch, legs weak, body uncoordinated. She crawled across the floor, around the table, until she knelt before him.
“Do you want this?” Bryce asked the question in so quiet a voice she wasn’t sure she heard him at first. What was stranger yet? The uncertainty there.
She nodded, setting her hands on his knees for balance. “Please?”
Softness melted his eyes before he offered a smile and a soft purr. “Anything, omega. Like I promised, I won’t move, won’t touch you. You do whatever you want, though.”
Claire leaned in to lick his hand, avoiding his cock. She dipped into the webbing between his thumb and hand, over the knuckles, capturing each speck of cum she found. Before long, the action had her body desperate for another release and, uncaring of who watched, Claire dropped a hand between her own thighs.
She rubbed her fingers against her already over-stimulated clit. She couldn’t stop, even though it sat just that side of painful. Her hips moved as if she could quench the thirst inside her, as though she could put out the flames these males had started, but she knew her orgasm would be empty. No matter where whatever this relationship they’d formed went, where it ended, these men had made her feel things she’d never experienced, made her understand things she’d never considered before. They’d left a mark on her she’d never wash off.
“Look at me, omega,” That softness had disappeared from Bryce’s eyes. This was the face of the alpha she feared, the one who demanded and she obeyed. “I want you to come looking at me. I want you to know you’re getting this from me. Maybe you’ll start to realize you can trust me.”
Trust? Her rhythm faltered. She couldn’t trust any of them, but least of all him. Never him.
His lips turned down at the corners. “You can trust me. Take what you need, and keep those eyes open as you do.” He opened his hand to reveal the cum still sitting on the inside of his palm and his cock, which had half-hardened already.
Claire attacked the areas with renewed fervor. It was the stroke of her tongue against his cock that did it, that pushed her over that edge. She came, her tongue lapping at his cock with tiny flicks even as she whimpered, body sore and sated.
When she closed her eyes, worn out from the orgasms, from the intensity of it all, someone lifted her. A hard chest, a bed that didn’t smell like any of them, and sleep took her.
She couldn’t trust them…but damn if right then, she didn’t want to.
Chapter Ten
A calm energy filled the house, a warmth it had lacked before.
There hadn’t ever been much tension beyond that expected of three alphas who lived and worked so closely together. Small snarls about messes, about things being moved, about schedule issues. Nothing big.
Even so, what little existed had drifted away with Claire’s presence. She slept in the guest room since none of them would have dared to place her in one of their own beds. Sharing an omega was tricky, at best. It happened more than people admitted, especially with how rare and prized omegas were, but it didn’t lack for obstacles. While they didn’t carry much jealousy over her, they also stayed mindful to keep things even. No one needed the alphas in a fight over perceived slights or favoritism.
They had enough of that issue with Bryce.
That entire situation sat uneasily on Joshua’s heart. Bryce was a brother to him, and even if he didn’t show it, the rejection hurt. Worse? The lines in Bryce’s face said he wasn’t sure how he would fit in, but he was prepared to step back if needed.
Which would never happen. It couldn’t happen. The three of them had had each other’s backs for so many years that they couldn’t end over something like this. They centered one another, pushed one another. Joshua couldn’t imagine a life without either of the other men who had saved his life more times than he cared to admit.
So, no, that wasn’t an option. Claire would adjust. She’d already made progress, hadn’t she? She hadn’t been accepting of Kaidan or Joshua at first, but already they had worn away the edges.
Time, he told himself. It would take time, but she’d come around. She had to.
Kaidan walked into the large kitchen, bag over his shoulder.
“Did you get it?”
Kaidan set the bag on the floor. “I’ve got enough clothing for a few days, anything that looked important, anything that carried her scent stronger.”
“Do you really think she’ll stay here?”
“No, probably not. But, at least she won’t leave just because she doesn’t have her things. Any word on her files?”
Joshua set open the file he’d studied. “Some. First of all, he’s met her. Seems they’re new business associates, planning on setting up a system for her.”
“You don’t find that odd? That he knows her?”
Joshua shrugged. “He’s one of the best in the city, so he knows about everyone. Anyone looking for networking will see him first. He’s worked his way through her history under this name.”
Bryce entered the room, sitting on a barstool by the large kitchen island. “What did he find?”
“Claire Jacobs fell into existence eight years ago. Since then, she’s paid her taxes, never caused trouble and had no reason to come under scrutiny. The name belonged to a beta who was officially added to the beta registry at sixteen and died at twenty, but the death was never properly noted in the county where it happened. Pretty common way of selling names.”
Joshua had sat for a long while with the file alone after it had been sent over. Eight years under that name? It meant after that long, she still had demons plaguing her. What had happened to send her running? That would cause her to leave everything she’d known and start over?
“Is that it?” Bryce asked.
“That’s all we have that’s concrete. Less substantial, she was listed as the beneficiary of another woman, another fake name, who left her the money she started the store with. There are a lot of ties to people, most of them with the same fake names, and a few to some of our own less reputable friends. Mostly forgers and a few drug dealers.”
Bryce sat forward, elbow on the table. “Forgers for the documents and identities, dealers for the suppressants. She’s running an omega ring, isn’t she?”
Joshua snorted. “I doubt that girl runs much of anything. I’d guess a local ring got her set up eight years ago, and she does errands for them now and then.”
Kaidan pulled one of the pages toward him. “Do we have any local contacts? Any way to find local rings? Maybe we can figure out what she�
�s trying to do through them.”
“Not a chance. Omega rings are tight-lipped, especially around alphas. If any of us show up asking, they’ll clam up.”
“What about someone we’ve helped? Hailey? Samantha? Maybe an omega could get information,” Bryce said.
“We can’t ask them for that, not after what they’ve been through, not even for Claire. Besides, without lying, there’s no way they’d find anything out anyway, and those girls can’t lie worth shit.”
Kaidan pushed the page he’d been reading back toward the open folder. “So, we’ve still got nothing? No idea what Claire is after, no idea what might be after her and no closer to her telling us?”
Joshua lifted the final page. “Not quite. Kieran pulled the files she searched for on the computer. Still don’t know exactly what she was after, but whatever it was, it was on the schedule for this day.” He tapped against the list of twenty names. “She wanted to know about someone we met with this day, about every client we saw, every install we handled. It’s not much, but it’s more than we had before.”
Bryce took the paper and scanned the page. His frown said the same thing. It wasn’t enough, not really. Twenty different people who might have something to do with something Claire needed. “It’s got to have something to do with the omegas. Maybe she’s looking for someone who disappeared? Maybe she’s after someone who attacked one?”
Again, Joshua shook his head. Bryce really thought Claire would go up against some unnamed alpha? That she’d track down one for, what? Revenge? “I doubt she’s some avenging angel, but she could be trying to find a lead on someone who went missing. We’re just guessing, though. It’s all a guess until she just admits it.”
The three went silent, but it wasn’t an easy silence.
Leave it to Kaidan to have the bravery to break it. “So, what are we going to do about her?”
Joshua kept his gaze down. Talking to Claire was one thing. He could convince women of anything he wanted to. It was different to tell the truth, especially with the two who knew him better than anyone else.
Bryce picked up the conversation when Joshua failed. “What we’re doing, I guess.”
“She could be pregnant already.”
That gnawed at Joshua, had his lips pressing together. The idea of losing another mate…
No, she wasn’t his mate. They hadn’t made anything official, and he refused to admit the bond might have formed. Besides, there was still a good chance she wasn’t pregnant. It often took omegas a few times before it happened-
A snap had Joshua lifting his gaze, drawn back to the moment by Kaidan. “I was wondering if that would throw you.”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. It doesn’t change that it’s possible, though, and that if we keep her, if she keeps us, if we make this official, that’s probably where it’s headed. If she didn’t conceive this heat, she might the next.” Kaidan rubbed his fingers against the corners of his eyes. “Look, I get that this started fast, that instinct had us doing a lot of things we weren’t expecting, that we didn’t think about, but we need to make some choices here. We keep asking her to trust us, keep telling her we want her, but do we? It’s not fair to ask for something we can’t offer.”
Bryce spoke from his place at the island. “I want her. I can’t say she feels the same, but it’s an easy answer for me. I don’t want her to walk out that door and not see her again. So, for me? I’m in wherever this goes.”
The answer didn’t surprise Joshua. Bryce had been wanting to settle down for a long while, despite the fact he never seemed to mesh with anyone long enough for it to be possible.
Kaidan answered, as if he’d asked himself the initial question. “I want this. She’s special. She works in a way I’ve never seen before, like she matches each of us in a different way. We’ve mentioned finding someone, but I have never seen someone who sparks this in each of us, who could honestly be a mate to each of us. I don’t think we’d find this again.”
Still, Joshua didn’t answer. He knew, though, that if he didn’t, if he wasn’t sure, it would go nowhere. They wouldn’t force him into anything he wasn’t sure about, wasn’t ready for.
Just as Joshua was ready to tell them no, to tell them he couldn’t seriously consider going through that again, risking it again, he thought about Claire’s smile. He thought about how she gave in to him, how she struggled against him but wanted to give in.
The words that came from his lips surprised him more than anyone. “I want her,” he whispered. “This might bite me in the ass, might be the worst choice I’ve ever made, but fuck it. I want her.”
The three sat there, having decided something that could alter each of their lives forever.
They wanted that omega for their mate. The question was, could they convince her of the same?
* * * *
Claire stared at the message on her phone. She hadn’t been out of touch long, yet it seemed that people needed her.
She’d received the plan from Kieran, and if she had any interest in the work, the quote would have thrilled her. Tiffany had sent another two text messages, the first checking in on her, the second longer, explaining how she knew Claire wouldn’t agree with her choice, but she thought she loved the alpha.
Claire set the phone down instead of responding. She wanted to shake Tiffany, but then again, did she have any room to offer advice? Claire was staying in the home of three alphas, three she’d been with, three she’d started developing feelings for.
Who was she to tell Tiffany anything? Hadn’t Claire made every mistake in the book? Hell, she still was making them, and Claire was old enough to know better.
The scent of food passed the closed door and made her stomach grumble. She’d avoided the men as long as possible, having taken an hour-long shower in the connecting bathroom and played on her phone until the low battery sign popped up.
What was she supposed to say to them?
What did they want from her? What did she want?
She missed their scent. They’d put her in a guest room, nothing carrying any of their smell, and as much as she scolded herself for it, she missed it. She wanted to leave the room and bury her face in the neck of one, then the others. She wanted to chase away the chill in her skin by curling around them.
Instead, she responded to the email from Kieran.
The quote looks good. When can we meet to sign papers?
A ding a moment later signaled a response. So, it seemed the man was punctual.
My week is mostly free. You are welcome to come to the office, or I can come to your shop after hours.
She hesitated. She didn’t want him in her shop, didn’t want him around her or her space. Still, it would ensure she could have the place to herself. She would draw the windows to prevent anyone looking in, and she already knew the business would be gone when she had to run. What did it matter if his presence sullied what had been a sanctuary for her? If she met him at his office, she couldn’t ensure they’d be alone, no way to have the advantage of planning.
Come to the office Wednesday night so you can see it in person. The next day, the cleaners will come, so scent won’t be an issue.
One more response to approve the plan, and it was done.
Claire would kill the man who had attacked Jackie. Not right away, of course. She needed to be sure she had the right man, that he’d done it. That wouldn’t be difficult, though. She could slip something into a drink to make him more talkative, to lower his inhibitions. It would also ensure she had every advantage, since taking on an alpha directly wasn’t something she was excited to do. Still, she had her old gun tucked away beneath the floorboards of her shop.
And when it was all done? Assuming she lived through it?
Claire Jacobs would be a ghost, because that life ended Wednesday night no matter what.
* * * *
Sitting at a table with the three men unnerved Claire.
She couldn’t shake the odd familiarity of i
t. She hadn’t eaten a home-made dinner with a man since running from James, and the action made her uneasy.
Kaidan handed a bowl of warm rolls to her, their fingers brushing. “Relax, love. It’s just dinner.”
She took one of the rolls before placing the bowl at the center of the table. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”
“Eaten with people?”
She picked off some of the bread with her fingers, then popped it into her mouth. “I haven’t sat at a table like this with men.”
Kaidan nodded, then passed her the next bowl with salad in it. “The plates at your home showed a lot of use.”
“I have friends over, house guests.”
“Are those the omegas you help?” Bryce asked the question, his tone hard.
Claire’s breath halted. It was one thing for them to know she was an omega, to not turn her in, but no alpha wanted to think omegas got help, that they banded together. “What?” Even to her own ears, her voice was thin and full of panic.
Bryce didn’t look at her, his gaze on his plate. “We’re not as dumb as you think. I know you’ve been helping omegas stay under the radar. The pills? That young omega we’ve seen you with twice? If I didn’t turn you in for breaking into our office, I’m not going to do it just because you were helping some people.”
She dropped her gaze to her own food in an attempt to collect herself. They knew. They knew what she did, but they didn’t seem like they wanted to ruin it.
Or maybe it was a ploy, another trick.
Joshua picked up the conversation. “You’re not going to tell us, and that’s fine. Look, sweetheart, you’re not the only one who worries about abused omegas. We’ve done some work in that area, helped those we could. You still don’t trust us, and I get it, but we’re not the enemy here.”
Clare risked meeting Joshua’s gaze. “Why do you care what happens to omegas? No alpha I’ve met gives a damn.”