I rolled my eyes, fighting to keep my smile off of my face and failing entirely. “And I’m a giant brat, hope you don’t mind,” I shot back.
Rex’s silly grin softened as he spoke again.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he murmured and I found myself silently agreeing. The journey to get to this point had been long, but I wouldn’t change any part of it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
WiththestartofJune came the first signs of summer. The rain was lessening by the day and the days were long and warm.
But summer wasn’t the only thing bringing heat to the pack house. It seemed that Pack Steele had been holding themselves back while I was a guest in their home, keeping theiractivitiesbehind closed doors.
Those doors had been kicked wide open after my heat and I was finally getting a taste of what life would be like as a permanent member of the pack. For instance, it wasn’t unusual to walk in on Podcast with one of the alphas in the living room in the middle of, well,activities.
It might have made me uncomfortable if it wasn’t one of my favorite things to stumble upon, especially because upon seeing me, Podcast would immediately reach for me.
In 1915, sex had been a faraway concept to me. Best to be read about, but never experienced because it came with strings to alphas I was not interested in.
I was most definitely interested in the strings that came with playing with Pack Steele on what seemed like every available surface in the house.
“Were they always like this?” I asked Bat one day as we washed our hands in the outdoor sink near the pigeon coop. We’d spent the afternoon caring for the freshly hatched baby chicks. They were ugly little things, but I found myself fascinated with staring at them screaming soundlessly for the food we offered.
Bat gave me a sideways glance, his lips turning up into a grin. “Not when the BBs are around, they know they’ll get scolded. But other than that, yeah.”
“Did it ever bother you?” I was genuinely curious. Bat had never shown any interest in the other alphas or Podcast, but there had been several times that he’d walked in on the rest of the pack mid-sex and he’d been unfazed. Well, except for when I was in the mix. Then he’d stay and watch, his dark eyes only on me.
I loved being watched by him, almost as much as I loved actually having sex with him.
Bat shook his head. “Not really. I never understood the appeal of it to be honest. I figured that I wasn’t capable of feeling that way,” he said with a shrug. “But it turns out I was just missing a very important puzzle piece.”
He leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to my cheek before he finished drying his hands. “You also make it worse, sugar, your presence makes them all hornier than a bunch of thirteen-year-olds staring at porno mags.”
I only understood about half of what he was saying. “What’s a porno mag?”
“Books full of pictures of naked people,” Bat said, always honest with me. “I’ll show you mine sometime.”
“You have a collection of pictures of naked people?” I asked, suddenly jealous.
Bat just grinned. “I like jealousy on you, sugar, it’s sexy as shit. I don’t actually look at them anymore, why would I do that when I have something much, much better to look at,” he tapped my nose with one of his fingers before he turned and headed for the main part of the backyard. He sat on his favorite bench underneath the giant oak tree.
I followed him, flopping down onto the bench next to him. “If you have something better, why do you keep them?”
“They’re vintage! I can’t throw out something vintage,” Bat was clearly enjoying teasing me because his dark eyes sparkled with laughter as he spoke.
I snorted, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you think about it, I’m more vintage than those,” I pointed out.
“Indeed you are,” Bat murmured and cupped my face in his tattooed hands before pressing his lips to mine. “And what does my little vintage omega think about having a little fun outdoors?”
At first, I was scandalized. “Outside? But what if the neighbors see us?” I asked with a gasp, my eyes sliding over to the nearby houses. Just the thought of someone seeing us made me… I thought about it for a moment, the vision of Bat spreading me wide on the bench for everyone to see.
Heat pooled in my core and my perfume flowered in between us.
“I’d say you aren’t that against it at all, sugar,” Bat growled, his jaw clenching as he inhaled my scent.
I nibbled on my lower lip, my face warming. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to be careful then, won’t we?” Bat said as he stood and drew me around the side of the tree. It was situated in the corner of the yard, so we’d be obscured from the house, and it had tall fences to hide us from everyone else.
“I’ve had a hard on ever since you walked out of the house in that dress,” Bat said as he pressed my back against the rough bark of the tree and molded his body to mine. “Makes me think you did it on purpose.”
