"Can't. The chair is squeaking." His eyes close again. "Also I can smell both of you from here. You smell like a bad decision in a hospital room."
"Noted." Mattaniah's voice is muffled against my skin. "We'll debrief later."
"Looking forward to it." Amos' mouth curves without his eyes opening. "Now call the attorney before I lose consciousness again and miss the legal strategy, too."
I shift Mattaniah off my lap gently. He settles back into his chair with his cheeks still flushed and his scent still thick in the air. His eyes carry something that wasn't there twenty minutes ago.
I step into the hallway and dial the attorney. She answers on the second ring.
Dominic
ThePercocetnegotiationisin its eighth minute when I come out of the kitchen with coffee. Mattaniah is kneeling on the floor beside the couch with the pill bottle in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Amos is propped against his pillow stack with his laptop open and his jaw set in the expression that means the pain is bad enough to medicate but his pride won't let him admit it. He's been home from the hospital for three days andthe bruising on his left side has spread from his ribs to his hip in mottled purple and green.
"The color in your face is gone." Mattaniah holds the pill out. "Your breathing has been shallow since you woke up. Take the Percocet."
"My breathing is fine. The shallow pattern is protective, not symptomatic." Amos adjusts his laptop without wincing, which means the morning dose from six hours ago has worn off completely. "I have three documents to review before the end of the day and Percocet turns my analytical capacity into oatmeal."
"Your analytical capacity is already compromised because you're in pain." Mattaniah sets the water glass on the coffee table and opens the pill bottle. "Take it or I'm sitting on you."
"You're welcome to try. My ribs would like a word with you first."
"Then take the pill and I won't have to."
Amos looks at me over Mattaniah's head with the expression that used to work when he wanted me to intervene. I sip my coffee and lean against the kitchen doorway.
"Don't look at him." Mattaniah puts the pill on his own tongue. "He's not going to help you."
Mattaniah shifts on his knees and moves between Amos' legs at the edge of the couch. The position is deliberate, his thighs pressing against the inside of Amos' calves, close enough that Amos would have to physically push him away to create distance. Amos can't push anyone away right now. His ribs won't allow it and Mattaniah knows it.
"Open." Mattaniah says it with the pill balanced on his tongue, his mouth parted just enough for Amos to see it sitting there.
"That's not how medication compliance works, Niah."
"Open your mouth, Amos."
Amos opens his mouth. The surrender is visible in his jaw before Mattaniah even leans in, the resistance giving way tosomething his body wants more than his pride wants to fight. Mattaniah closes the distance slowly, one hand coming up to cup the back of Amos' neck, tilting the Alpha's head to the angle he wants. Their mouths meet and Mattaniah controls the kiss from the first second, his lips parting Amos' with a patience that has nothing to do with medication. His tongue finds Amos' and pushes the pill across, but the transfer takes longer than it needs to because Mattaniah doesn't pull back after the pill is gone. He deepens the angle instead, his fingers tightening on the back of Amos' neck, his mouth working against Amos' with a slow thorough heat that makes the Alpha's good hand fist in the fabric of Mattaniah's shirt.
Amos' breath catches and the catch turns into a wince because a sharp inhale moves the broken ribs. The pain doesn't stop him from kissing back. His hand drags Mattaniah closer by the shirt, pulling until the Omega's chest is pressed against his right side where the ribs are intact. His scent shifts from the flat medicinal smell of someone managing pain into something warmer, cedar deepening beneath the surface, his body responding to Mattaniah's mouth with an arousal his injuries can't suppress.
Mattaniah swallows the sound Amos makes against his mouth. His hips shift between Amos' knees and I watch from the kitchen doorway with the coffee mug growing warm against my palm, my grip tighter than the ceramic requires. Mattaniah's scent has gone thick and sweet in the space between them, the coconut undertones rising through the pregnancy notes into something that reaches across the room and makes my bond mark throb. The Omega kneeling between my mate's legs with his hand on the back of his neck and his tongue in his mouth is not the same Omega who flinched at a thumb on his lip a month ago.
Amos swallows the pill. His hand stays fisted in Mattaniah's shirt. Mattaniah pulls back slowly, his lower lip dragging againstAmos' as he withdraws, and the thread of saliva that catches between their mouths breaks when Mattaniah sits back on his heels. His cheeks are flushed from the collarbones up and his breathing is uneven and the look he gives Amos from between his knees carries a satisfaction that his body wears better than any expression his mother ever trained onto his face.
"That's cheating." Amos' voice has gone rough and his pupils are blown wide behind his glasses. His breathing is shallow but the shallowness has nothing to do with the ribs.
"That's problem-solving." Mattaniah picks up the water glass and holds it out. "Drink."
Amos drinks. His eyes stay on Mattaniah's mouth while he does it. On the couch his hand has finally released the Omega's shirt but his fingers are still curled in the shape of the grip, slow to let go of what his body doesn't want to surrender.
My coffee has gone cold in my hand. I drink it anyway because the alternative is crossing the room and putting my mouth where Mattaniah's just was, and the three documents Amos needs to review aren't going to survive what would happen after that.
My phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. I set the coffee down and check the screen. The forensic accountant I hired last week.
"She's been skimming." I say it from the kitchen. "Three accounts tied to the household operating budget that Father gave her access to when they got together. She's been siphoning between two and four thousand a month into a personal account under a different name."
Mattaniah's hand stills on the water glass and Amos' laptop lowers an inch.
"How much total?" Amos asks.
