CHAPTER 3
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Iwas spending a lazySaturday morning in bed with Theo. We were just starting to take our time waking up and enjoying each other, when the door to the bedroom crashed open and a body slammed into the space between us.
“Ouch! Matteo, what did we say about dive-bombing in bed?” Theo grunted with displeasure at the rude awakening and tugged his arm out from underneath Matteo’s bulk. He rolled over with some choice words for the other alpha and tugged the sheets aggressively under his chin. Theo hated a rude awakening more than anyone I had ever met. Of course, Theo’s grumpy attitude didn’t matter to Matteo. Our ever energetic packmate was already shoving his fingers under my nose with a proud grin.
The scent of strawberries and cream wafted into my nostrils. I took a deep inhale through my nose, letting the sweetness fill my chest. I couldn’t help the tiny growl that rumbled out of my throat as I realized whose scent this was. It was a scent that had danced through my dreams for the past year like an enchanting, phantom, presence within our little trio.
“So I assume that you accepted another rotation with that omega?” I asked, quirking a brow at him. Matteo had decided, out of boredom, to put a bid into the San Francisco Omega Academy to be one of the alphas that serviced the omegas through their heat. Omegas were supposed to be chosen at random, but this was the second time that Matteo had come home smelling like a delicious strawberry-filled dessert.
“I couldn’t help it,” Matteo told me as he flopped down between us and yawned a great roar of a yawn that could only be achieved after a seventy-two-hour sex marathon. “I’m obsessed. Can’t stop thinking about her.”
With that Matteo tucked his nose into the back of Theo’s neck and fell fast asleep, letting his exhaustion overtake him and soon the two men were snoring happily together.
I waited for Theo and Matteo’s snores to sync up before sliding out of the bed. I pulled my silk robe over my naked body and padded into the kitchen. One look at the clock made me realize that it was just after ten in the morning. I checked ‘slept in’ off of my mental list for the day.
Coffee was next on my list and as I listened to the Keurig gurgle, spitting out the sweet, sweet dark liquid that constantly battled for supremacy with the blood in my veins, I unplugged my cell phone from where it was charging on the counter. One of Theo’s ‘quality time’ rules was that cell phones were banned from the bedroom on the weekend. I unlocked my phone and began to check my messages.
One message was from Link and it was an ultrasound picture with the tagline: “Look at how big your niece is getting!” I sent back the appropriate heart-eye emojis and scrolled on to the next message. It was from my law partner, Marcus, about the potential caseload that we needed to go over and decide if our firm would be taking them or rejecting them. The message after that was from him as well and all it said was ‘SOS’. Which was the universal signal for ‘shit has hit the fan, contact immediately’.
I swiped over to his contact and hit the call button, listening to the phone ring once, then twice, before Marcus answered on the third ring.
“I was wondering when you would get back to me.” Marcus’s British accent was what could only be described as ‘posh’, as he grumped at me through the line. I rolled my eyes and tucked my phone into the crook of my neck and added heavy cream and sugar into my coffee mug. The scent of the cream wafted up to me, reminding me of the omega’s scent that Matteo had brought home with him. I was so wrapped up in the scent that I had to literally give myself a physical shake to remind myself that I was on the phone.
I took a mind-clearing sip of my coffee and nearly groaned as the caffeine hit my tongue. The only reason I was able to silence myself was that I doubted that my business partner wanted to hear me moan—at least not this early in the day. “Sorry. You know the rules: no phones in the bedroom during the weekend.”
“God forbid there is ever an emergency. For instance, the emergency that is happening right now.”
It was best to just change the subject now, or Marcus and I would spend the next hour arguing with each other rather than getting to the point of the conversation. We were lawyers, after all, and arguing is what we did best. “You sent an SOS?”
“Right. I’m at the office,” On a Saturday? This man needed to get a life. Marcus had a whole pack at home that he was neglecting in order to go to the office on the weekend. I was sure that Adair and Rio were just thrilled that their packmate was spending yet another Saturday cooped up in our office. “And we were just faxed a file last night from USP Atwater.”
Why would we be getting a fax from a Federal State Penitentiary? We were a corporate law office and, let’s be honest, white-collar crimes didn’t usually come with a federal prison stay. I quickly ran through my, admittedly small, list of clients who were currently serving prison sentences for things like fraud and laundering, and no, none of them were currently serving at Atwater.
“Whose file is it?” I asked around a mouth of a granola bar, trying to eat as quickly as possible because I had a feeling that whatever Marcus was going to say next was going to cut my relaxing morning short.
“It was the file for Hezekiah Jordan.”
And, yup. There goes my Saturday.
