“Ah,” Jack said. “No. I shan’t do that.”
“No, of course. I am perfectly capable of telling him myself, however awkward it might be.” He patted Jack’s chest.
Jack covered his hand and held it there, over his racing heart. “I mean,” he said apologetically, “that you will need him again by nightfall.” Perhaps he should have added that, with the pair of them living here and the attraction between them all so deliciously strong, it was likely that Arden’s heats would be regular, if not as violent as the first, long-repressed one. He was glad he didn’t—Arden’s face paled.
“No,” he whispered. “Not again. Please, not again.”
Jack was startled at his vehemence.
“I’ll…if you insist, I’ll do it again—” he looked as if he’d rather die, “—but surely, now that I’ve been knotted, I can muddle through without inconveniencing him?”
“Arden,” Jack replied, exasperated. “Beckett would neither want nor expect you to muddle through alone.”
Arden blinked at him.
“You’re his omega,” Jack said.
The room was silent. Jack waited.
“But…I’m yours,” Arden whispered. “Aren’t I yours?”
“Never doubt it, sweetheart.”
Arden’s’ fingers plucked at the front of Jack’s shirt. “And…?”
“And Beckett’s. Permanently, if you choose to accept him that way. If you choose it.”
As for Beckett, he’d already chosen Arden. Every protective, possessive thing he’d done from the moment that Jack walked in on them screamed it loud and clear.
Arden looked thoughtful. “A husbandanda lover. Should I be shocked at the idea of it? Because I don’t think I am. It seems no more outlandish than finding myself married to you, after all. To having a heat, despite being so old.”
“You’re in your thirties, Arden,” Jack said dryly. “That’s hardly old.”
“Next to Beckett I must look?—”
“Next to Beckett, you look wonderful. Like everything I could possibly want.”
He kept his tone light. Let Arden take it as playfulness, as hyperbole, as flirting. It was the truth. Jack needed to say it out loud, whether Arden believed it or not.
Going on the rude scoffing sound he made, he did not.
Jack chucked his chin and lifted him up and off his lap as he stood. “Will you give me one more kiss before I have to get back to my correspondence?” He set Arden down. The correspondence could wait. He needed Arden out of the room before he gave way to the waves of sickness that had begun to batter him.
Arden nodded with enthusiasm and reached up. Grabbing hold of Jack’s cheeks, he squashed their lips together.
Jack puffed a breath of amusement through his nose and tried to gentle it, but Arden was enjoying himself so he didn’t push.
He was messily and awkwardly kissed, he gravely thanked his beaming husband for it, and he managed to wait until the door had shut behind Arden before he collapsed into his chair, heart thrashing and sweat popping on his brow. His spine felt like a column of ice; his abdomen was on fire.
He’d truly underestimated how badly he wanted to claim Arden. He should have kept his distance.
This was…alarming.
Unease as well as nausea roiled in his gut. He rested his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands, trying to breathe through it.
It didn’t help.
He stayed conscious just long enough to hear Beckett’s exclamation of dismay when he let himself into Jack’s study a few minutes later, and then all was blessed peace.
