I could tell my alpha didn’t like any of this. Paradoxically, that made me smile. I had an alpha! An actual, bonded mate who I could feel inside me. He wanted to look out for me and keep me safe, and if the episode in the garage was anything to go by, he wanted to fill my days and especially my heats with the most amazing pleasure.
Maybe I wasn’t so boring after all.
Saint growled slightly, and his grip on my shoulders tightened. I was hot all over, and my blood raced through my veins, proving that even though Lucas’s heat had ended, mine was still going strong. We didn’t have time for wild, gymnastic heat sex, though.
“That’s about the size of it,” Fenn said, turning back from the window. He paused slightly when he saw how close Saint and I were standing together. “Are the two of you in a position to be able to handle this?” he asked.
In other words, were we about to get so horny that we wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the task ahead of us.
“I’m okay,” I said, then took a deep breath to make sure I was. “As long as everyone shows up on time and there aren’t too many delays.”
“We’ll do what we need to do,” Saint agreed with me, still holding me tightly. I was certain he meant that we would sneak off to mate through another heat wave if things got too intense.
I actually hoped they didn’t, which came as a surprise. The timing for my heat couldn’t have been worse. I wanted to enjoy Saint, really savor the fact that I had an alpha who I’d bonded with. He was almost a stranger to me, we had so much to learn about each other, but I was ready to wrap my life around his and to figure out how the two of us were going to be together.
But not yet.
“Saint, do you want to help me survey the area where all this is going to take place?” Fenn asked, giving his brother a loaded look.
I knew, and I could tell Saint knew, that Fenn wanted to talk to him in private about me. I didn’t mind, though. It was nice that my alpha’s brother was concerned. I tried to send my approval and encouragement to Saint through our bond, even though I wasn’t completely sure how it worked.
Saint let out a breath, then took his hands off my shoulders. “Okay,” he said, stepping away from me. “I want to make sure everything is as safe as it’s possible to be for this whole operation. I’ll do anything to protect my omega.”
He glanced back to me as he and Fenn walked out of the kitchen. Again, I smiled broadly, despite the anxiety gnawing at me. I didn’t think it was exactly accurate to say the things I felt for Saint or that I could sense he felt for me were love. It was too soon for that. But the affection and protectiveness of our bond was as close as I thought it could get, given that three days ago neither of us had known the other existed.
Saint paused in the doorway, giving me a stern look that did nothing to help distract me from the continued pulse of heat in my womb. “Stay safe,” he said. “I don’t trust everything in this house.”
It was going to be so easy to fall in love with him!
“I will,” I said. “I’ve got decades of experience in dealing with Lucas’s schemes.”
Saint wasn’t at all certain that would be enough, I could tell, but he walked on.
I sighed happily, then shook my head as I turned toward the sink and moved to get myself a glass of cold water. It wouldn’t really help, but whatever I could do to cool down, I needed to do. My mind was already racing ahead to what would happen when this interminable night was over. I would probably still bein heat, for one. How was that going to work once the police were here? There wasn’t really much I could to do end my heat early. Stress must have been what did it for Lucas, but my body was now thoroughly invested in dragging my heat out as long as possible so I could continue to bond with my alpha.
I gulped down the glass of cold water, though it didn’t really do much to dampen the buzz of need inside me. There was another way to end an omega’s heat, of course. If I got pregnant, my heat would stop instantly.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the idea of it. At the start of my heat, I’d told Saint I wasn’t ready to be a papa, but now?
A baby. My own baby. Mine and Saint’s. I would be able to feel it growing inside me. I would get round with Saint’s child. We could be a family. There could be even more babies. I was only in my mid-twenties. That meant I had the potential to have a dozen babies if I wanted to.
Whoa. A dozen babies was about eight too many, but my inner omega sang at the possibility. We could be a family with all that entailed. Laughter and tears, Christmas excitement and summer relaxation here at the beach house. We could be?—
“Are they gone?” Lucas’s sharp whisper from the kitchen door snapped me out of my reverie.
Every sweet, good feeling I had dropped hard into my gut. I felt a little sick as I put my glass down and turned to frown at my brother. “They’ve gone outside to check a few things,” I said.
“Good.” Lucas continued to slink his way into the room, looking around like he didn’t trust that I’d told the truth by saying the alphas weren’t there. “I need to get out of here,” he said. “Where are the van keys? We can both get out of here if we go now.”
I was shocked by how angry Lucas’s plan made me. “You’re not going to steal a van full of firearms and flee from our family’shouse after putting us in so much jeopardy,” I told him with a scowl.
“You can come with me,” Lucas said, as if that would make up for everything he’d put me through. “Come on. Where are the keys?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. They were on the corner of the counter near the coffee machine.
The keys weren’t the only thing sitting out in plain sight. Fenn had left Lucas’s phone on the kitchen island. I could tell the moment Lucas spotted it that the whole plan was about to blow up in our faces if he had his way.
Lucas glanced at the phone, then at me. He held my eyes for a moment, and I stared back at him, warning him to leave the phone alone with a look.
