Fuck mylife.
A hesitant knock sounded at the door. I lifted my head far enough to gently beat my forehead against the couch cushion. Which was, of course, completely ineffective, because it was so soft.
I knew without having to call out that Gage and Heath were on the other side of the door. And, in the end, trying to put this off any longer was pointless. Dragging myself upright, I crossed the room to open it.
“Can we come in, kitten?” Gage asked from his wheelchair.
I’d been wrong; it wasn’t just him and Heath. They’d brought Tony, too.
“Okay,” I said in a whisper, and stood back to let them in.
“Do you want me here?” Tony said, uncertainty lacing the words.
I hesitated, and then nodded. I’d told Heath the absolute truth when I’d said I needed Tony in the pack as a buffer against my own fuck-ups. And now, here we were.
Heath wheeled Gage inside, following Tony to the sofa where I’d been trying to suffocate myself a minute ago. Tony and I sat down facing Gage, while Heath hovered nearby.
“So...” Tony began. “Do you, um, want to talk about it?” He looked as out of his element as I felt.
“No,” I said. “But you all need to know what happened, assuming Knox didn’t already tell you over the phone.” I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and looked up at Heath. “You know how I told you that I fantasized about clawing Paolo’s eyeballs out when he called Knox ‘Matthew’ to my face?”
Silence settled over the room.
“To be fair,” Tony said. “I kind of fantasized about ripping his throat out, just because he’s generally an asshole.”
“Omega instincts, kitten,” Gage said, although there was a speculative light in his eye. “Knox is your scent match, too. No surprise that you’ve got some feelings around that.”
I covered my face with one hand. “Some beta bitch at the driving school tried to come onto him while I was sitting right there,” I muttered. “And I might’ve... um... lost it, a bit. In public. In front of him.”
“Oh,” Gage said. “Shit. What’d he say afterward?”
I sighed and let my hand drop. “You know. A bunch of Knox stuff. ‘She was rude, don’t give it another thought, I’ll get you private driving lessons, blah, blah, blah.’ I nearly swan-dived into a manhole and disappeared into the sewers to get away, so I could go and live with the rest of the city’s trash.”
Gage scoffed. “Then I would’ve had to send Heath into the sewers after you, and he’d get all irritated when his nice shoes got dirty.”
“Gage, I wanted tohurl myself at him in the back of the limo,” I said, with more than a little desperation. “I already tried to kill him! Am I supposed to add sexual assault to the rap sheet now?”
Tony looked deeply uncomfortable, but he cleared his throat and asked, “How sure are you that it would have been assault?”
“Isn’tthatan interesting question,” Gage said.
“He told me ages ago that he couldn’t mate me after what I did to him,” I replied miserably. “And, I mean...no kidding. You don’t mate your attempted murderer.”
Heath had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. Now, he shifted uncomfortably in place.
“You don’t mate your prisoner either,” he said. “And yet, here we are. I want to talk to him about this, if you’ll let me. Let’s just say that I’ve got a bit of a different perspective on things, these days.”
I ought to protest. Tell him that if anyone should be talking to Knox about this, it should be me. Letting Heath fight my battles just because I was an omega was a coward’s way out.
“Okay,” I said weakly, crashing head-first into my coward era.
“Good,” Gage said. “Now, let Heath hold you for a bit. You look like you’re about to collapse. I’d do it myself, but...” He gestured one-handed at his cast and sling.
I got up, zombie-walked into Heath’s arms, hiding my face against his chest. His long arms closed around me, his scent enveloping me as I breathed in deeply. I hated myself just a little for the fact that my pussy still throbbed with need. The rest of me only wanted to turn everything off for a bit, though.
“Help me onto the couch, Tony,” Gage said. “Sleeping together like that was really good yesterday, so let’s do it again.”
“It’s, like, three-thirty in the afternoon,” Tony protested.
