“Hey, Linus.” We were interrupted as Tina marched through the door, her face lit up like she’d heard some particularly juicy gossip and was dying to share it. “What’s this I hear about you bonding with an alpha during your heat?”
My face went bright pink as I stood, but more with pleasure than embarrassment.
Roger glanced from Tina to me with a grimace. “Wait, you? Bonded? To an alpha?”
“That’s generally who omegas bond to,” I said in a deadpan.
“He’s been keeping it really quiet, but third-grade Emily, not fifth-grade Emily, said she saw you getting out of some alpha’s car and that she could see the aura around the two of you.”
I caught my breath a little at that. Alphas and omegas who were bonded themselves could see the connection between other bonded pairs. I’d been noticing it all of a sudden since coming back to school after my week off, too. I wasn’t trying to hide mybond with Saint, but I knew how my colleagues were, so I hadn’t announced it to the world either. Saint and I still had things to work out.
As if thinking about him called him to me, Saint appeared in the doorway to my classroom a second later.
“Hello?” he asked with a smile. “Am I interrupting something?”
Roger and Tina turned to him, and both of them gasped. I knew Tina well enough to know exactly what she thought of Saint’s massive size, his sculpted body, and his gorgeous face. Roger probably gasped because of the scar cutting across Saint’s forehead, even though I no longer thought it made him look mean or scary.
“That’syour alpha?” Tina asked, clapping a hand to her chest. “Hubba hubba!”
I laughed, half as a release of tension and half because Tina cracked me up sometimes.
“Now I know why you can’t cover for me next Thursday,” Roger said, clearing his throat and inching to the side as Saint walked forward.
“Hi, I’m Saint Boscoff, Linus’s alpha,” Saint introduced himself as he reached us, offering his hand to Roger.
I nearly swooned at the way he called himself mine. I was so proud of him and so in love with him that I must have looked like a smitten fool as I looked up at him.
“Hi,” Roger squeaked, shaking Saint’s hand quickly.
“Well, hello,” Tina shook his hand next, flirting with him.
It was all so funny to me, especially when both of my colleagues glanced at me like I’d won the lottery, or maybe the man Olympics. They’d always just thought of me as boring old Linus Cahill who would never in a million years end up with an alpha like Saint. Heck,Ihad only ever thought of myself as boring.
I definitely knew that wasn’t true now.
“You ready to go?” Saint asked, a spark in his eyes that was a dead giveaway to some of what we had planned for later.
“Yeah, let me just tidy up here a little,” I said, stepping back to my desk to gather up the homework I could finish grading at home.
“Damn,” Tina said as she and Roger headed for the door. “Have fun this weekend, Linus. I didn’t think you had it in you.” She stopped by the door, snorted, and said, “I guess you’ll have it in you as soon as you get home.”
“Tina!” Roger scolded her, then laughed along with her as they ran out into the hall.
“They’re nice,” Saint said with a grin.
I rolled my eyes as I hefted my satchel over my shoulder, then took Saint’s hand as we crossed the classroom for the door. “God only knows what my reputation around the school will be like once those two start spreading gossip.”
“I like the idea of everyone knowing you have a big, strong alpha to keep you warm at night,” Saint said, lowering his voice to a purr and sending hot feelings through the bond.
I nearly couldn’t walk, my body reacted so strongly. It was a good thing omegas didn’t produce as much slick when they weren’t in heat as they did during, but I was still in danger of ending up with damp trousers.
We chatted about ordinary things as Saint drove us back to his house. He’d dropped me off that morning, so I didn’t have to worry about my car. I mentioned what Papa had said about selling the beach house and splitting the profits, and he reacted well to that.
“We could put that money toward a downpayment on a house of our own,” he said as we walked into my apartment. “Although I’m assuming the value of that property is high enough that we might be able to just buy a house in the suburbs.”
“Possibly,” I said, distracted with what I had planned.
I put my satchel down and moved to the kitchen counter, where I’d left some rope I’d laid out there earlier. I grabbed it subtly and hid it behind my back.
