“I hadn’t noticed,” he says, lifting one brow and then smirking.
“Maybe I should flash you to see if that helps you notice,” I snark, cupping my breasts for emphasis, smiling when he laughs and shakes his head at me.
“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but I do need your help. Benson and I haven’t talked about it yet, but you can have your own rules, and we don’t have to do PDA. I doubt you’d want that,” I say, and he raises his brows at me, but my need to fill awkward tension overwhelms me, and I keep going. “I just mean, if you don’t like the idea of anyone seeing you kissing me, we don’t have to do that. We can just tell people we’re private. I mean, you don’t have to do anything. I’m just saying—” Thankfully he cuts me off mid-ramble, and I snap my lips shut.
“You think that if I’m with my omega, I wouldn’t want everyone to see us together? That I would want to hide how badly I need her? Or that I wouldn’t want everyone to know just how feral she makes me?” Nick scoffs, rising out of the chair, taking three steps closer, and crowding me against the table as I bump it with my ass. “That’s where you’ve got me all wrong, Plum. There's a reason I’ve been single for so long, and it ain’t because I can’t handle kissing my girl in public.” His words are a deep growl that sends shivers through my body, all the way down to my toes.
I’m surprised by his dominance and his willingness to show it to me.
“You just haven’t wanted anyone badly enough,” I assume, and he tilts his head, watching me as I lean back, hands planted on the table behind me. Nick drops his hands to the edge of the table at either side of my body, our faces just inches apart in a mimic of last night.
“Something like that,” he grunts. “I don’t care what rules you have with my brother,” he adds, leaning in another inch until our lips are just a breath apart. “I’m the kind of alpha who would treat his omega very well, no matter who’s watching, and I’m not going to be a shitty partner just because this isn’t a traditional courtship.”
His words sink in as his heat washes over me, his scent filled with confusing amounts of desire. My heart pounds in my chest as excitement courses through my system.
“Wait. Are you saying yes?” I ask with wide eyes, ready to start crying again, only this time from pure relief.
“Yes, Plum. I’m saying I’ll be your boyfriend.” He smirks as he says it, using the same taunting tone I always pull on him.
NICK
This is the craziest fucking thing I have ever agreed to. Not because I don’t want to help Plum. Just seeing her in distress as she explained herself was enough to sway me. Okay, that’s a lie. I was in this the second I heard the words ‘our omega’ come out of Benson’s mouth.
This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done because I just said yes to faking something I don’t know if I can actually fake.
My feelings for Plum? My desire for her? They’re already real.
Fuck, even now, as she squeals, leaping into my arms as she chants her thanks in my ear over and over, she’s threatening my sanity. Having her body wrapped around mine like she's a goddamn squirrel, and I'm a tree harboring her kidnapped nuts, is fucking with my instincts.
How the fuck am I supposed to pretend to be a fake boyfriend? If we have to make this look real, then doesn’t it have to be pretty fucking close to real? How the hell are we going to do that without falling for the lie?
I’m a damn fool.
Benson struts over, joining us, grinning like the asshole he is. He told me about the arrangement again this morning, making it pretty fucking clear that he has no intentions of faking anything until I chased him off with the hose. Thoughts of Plum already take up so much of my day, and I couldn’t concentrate on my chores. The hose was the only thing that got him to shut up.
“You said yes?” he asks like he didn’t stand in the doorway watching the entire conversation, and I roll my eyes.
Would Plum be wrapped around me like a damn snake right now, trying to squeeze all the blood out of my body and into my cock, if I’d said no? Actually, I don’t know the answer to that. There’s a chance she would have done anything, including kidnapping me, to get me to agree.
I would have said yes to anything. She thinks she’s weak, but she doesn’t even know the power she has over me yet.
Benson warned me not to scare her off by coming on too strong, like I haven’t been doing this with her for years. Like I haven’t been holding back every instinct to claim her everytime she shook her ass in my face or perfumed with slick at the slightest contact?
I can wait for her a little longer. I can be what she needs until she’s ready for me to be more, but things have shifted. She’s different. Last night when I pinned her to the wall, her scent didn’t fill with fear. There was no panic. The look she gets in her eyes whenever I’ve dared to flirt back didn’t take over.
I’ve waited years, but I don’t think it’s going to be five weeks before she finds herself giving in. We just have to help her see that we’re what she wants. That we’re what she needs. So while she calls this fake, Benson and I will be showing her how real this is.
There’s just one thing left for us to talk about, now that he knows I’m in this too.
“He did say yes! Because you two are fucking angels. Oh my god, thank you! Seriously, thank you!” She practically whines as she rubs herself and her delicious peppermint scent all over me. Plum pats my shoulder, unwrapping herself and wiggling so I can set her on her feet.
“Since we’re all here, should we talk about our hard no’s?” she asks, pulling out a chair to take a seat. Benson and I do the same, facing her as she taps her fingers across the wood. “I’ll go first, because I really only have one. No fucking anyone while we’re doing this.”
“Agreed,” Benson and I say at the same time.
“Okay, and you’ll both need to be my dates for all the appropriate wedding events as well.”
“Done,” I say.
