“It’ll fuck with the color I have for the shutters,” he sighs.
“It won’t if you add a little of this color to it,” I muse, enjoying the way his body straightens slightly.
Izzy was hunching over protectively, another sign that he’s not doing so great. ”I’ll have to test it,” he says with a nod. “Okay. I think this works.”
“Good,” Silva says gently. Her eyes are fiery though as she meets my gaze. “A word inside, Harlan?”
Izzy is busy with the paint, and doesn’t notice her tone as I nod, standing. I lean down to pick up my hoodie, but Silva steals it first, pulling it over her head and threading her arms through the arm holes.
Huh. I guess I won’t be seeing that again. She may not be happy with me, yet that’s not going to keep her from leaning into some of her instincts.
Following her into the house, I notice that she doesn’t speak until she’s inside of the kitchen.
She has her coffee on the island, and I can see the heat coming off of it still. I also notice there’s a tablet set up beside it, which must be connected to the cameras.
Well shit.
“What’s wrong with him?” Silva asks, picking up her coffee mug. “Don’t tell me nothing or that he’s fine, because that’s bullshit, Harlan. His skin is too warm. Is he in heat?”
“Does he smell like he’s in heat?” I ask mildly.
Even now, his scent is still nonexistent, even though he’s wearing my hoodie to have my scent on his skin. When we work together on assignments, he typically will wear an article of clothing that belongs to Kyren or myself, so he always smells like amber or rum.
“No, he smells like you,” she grunts. “Amber, saffron, and distinctly of alpha. I’m not going to ask what’s wrong again. Don’t gate keep. I care about him too.”
“Since when?” I laugh. “You hate my pack, and here we are scraping along in prostration to earn your trust.”
“You want prostration?” Silva asks, pulling off her sock and lifting her leg until her foot is pressed against my chest. “Kiss my foot and eat shit, Harlan. You’re so fucking dramatic. I don’t hate you. How am I supposed to feel when you said I may as well be working with sex traffickers? You hold me in really high esteem. That feels fucking awesome.”
I can see up the length of her leg and she’s not wearing panties. Her pussy is slick, bare, and beautiful. Fuck, why does the universe both love and hate me this much.
I can’t help but inhale her incredible scent, immediately deciding that she can’t be that mad at me because I can smell her sweetness. Cherries and bitter almonds. Goddamn, this fits her so well.
Moving my eyes to hers, I hold her foot and drop to my knees, kissing her foot.
“We were wrong,” I bite out, moving to her ankle before kissing it too. “The information I had was incomplete, leading me to make completely false assumptions.”
She remains frozen, coffee in hand as I drag my nose up to her thigh.
“I may have thought this interaction was going to go differently,” she whispers.
“Too bad. We’re on a runaway train, beautiful. Choo motherfucking choo.”
I mean, I’ll stop if she tells me to, but I really hope she doesn’t.
“Izzy needs to go into heat. He’s just too fucking fixated and stubborn,” I say, sucking on her soft inner thigh.
Her whimper is magical. I’m careful not to bite down, figuring her discomfort with alphas is partly due to bites.
“Why won’t he?” Silva asks, watching as I push my hoodie and her sleep shirt higher up.
“You,” I murmur. “The bed and breakfast also isn’t safe for him to have a heat, and he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s an omega. It’s his security blanket. No matter what happens after we all figure out our shit, we will still go on missions that mean he needs to go undercover, Silva.”
“I know,” she says, her hips lifting slightly as I drag my tongue closer to her pussy.
“I need you to come on my face before I go back to painting,” I growl. “You can still hate me, and I’ll go back to groveling for being a shithead. Agreed?”
I wait a long fucking beat as she stares down at me before putting her mug on the island away from herself.
