Tamsin glances at me. "Find what you were looking for?"
"Shut up."
She grins and goes back to her screen.
The afternoon passes in a blur of correspondence and filing until Richard emerges from his office around three. I keep my eyes on my screen and my fingers on my keyboard, but I track him in my peripheral vision as he crosses the floor toward the break room. He passes behind my chair, his hand landing on my shoulder as he goes before heading for the coffee machine.
A spike hits me thirty seconds later. It's nothing like the bathroom incident, just a low cramp in my abdomen that makes me grip the edge of my desk, my body reacting to the threat of one Alpha by screaming for the scent of others. The blockers strain against a surge of slick that I clench against, my thighs pressing together under my desk while I breathe through the wave.
Richard returns from the break room, pausing beside my cubicle long enough for me to feel his gaze on the back of my neck.
"You look flushed, Mattaniah. Feeling alright?"
"Fine, sir. Just warm."
"Mm." He moves on.
The spike fades within ten minutes, but my hands don't stop shaking for another twenty. Richard leaves at five for another dinner meeting, but not before stopping by my desk. His hand lands on my shoulder and drags across to the other one as he passes, once again putting a possessive claim on me.
"We'll continue your review tomorrow," he says without stopping. "I want to discuss your career development. My office, eight sharp."
The promise in his voice makes my skin crawl long after the elevator doors close on him. Mom has fucked off into the new life we've been afforded, which means for once I don't have to perform for her, but Richard's attention is a different kind of cage, one I'm only beginning to understand the shape of.
I finish the last of the filing, shut down my computer, and sit at my desk for a full minute staring at the blank screen. A smart Omega would go to his home, to his room, and lock the door and take his blockers and go to sleep, despite the fact that Dominic said to come find him.
I pick up my bag and walk to the elevator bank and hit the button for the twelfth floor.
Dominic's office door is open when I get there. He's still at his desk with his jacket off, reading through something on his screen, Amos perched on the corner of the desk beside him with his own laptop balanced on his thigh. One of Amos' hands rests on Dominic's shoulder, and as I watch from the doorway Dominic's hand comes up without looking and covers it, squeezing once before returning to his keyboard.
The gesture stops me in the doorway. They look like they fit together, their scents blended, their bodies in contact without either of them seeming to notice. I'm standing here because my body told me to come, and looking at the two of them side by side I have no idea where I belong in this picture.
Amos looks up first. "Niah." His smile hits me in the chest. "Done for the day?"
"He came back," Dominic says to Amos without taking his eyes off me. The hunger in his gaze makes my stomach flip.
"I didn't come back, I just..."
"You just happened to end up on the twelfth floor at five fifteen on a Monday." Dominic closes his laptop. "Twice in one day. Without a prop this time, which I appreciate."
Amos slides off the desk and crosses the room toward me. His hand finds my elbow and guides me inside while his other hand closes the door behind us. The click of the latch sends my pulse racing, his thumb pressing against the inside of my elbow in small circles that suddenly make it hard to think.
"Have you eaten?" He asks it close to my ear.
"Not since lunch."
"Then we're fixing that." He steers me toward the small couch against the wall and sits me down, then looks at Dominic. "Order something. He's not leaving this office until he's eaten a full meal."
Dominic pulls out his phone without argument. Amos sits beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine, his arm draped along the back behind my shoulders. "How was your day?" he asks, like the three of us sitting in an office at five fifteen on a Monday is something that happens regularly instead of the latest in a series of increasingly insane decisions my body has made on my behalf.
"Terrible." I lean back and my shoulders brush his arm. "Your father hit my knuckles four times, I can't make coffee to his specifications apparently, and I spent the entire afternoon trying to stop my feet from walking me to this office."
Amos' laugh is quiet. "And how did that work out for you?"
"Obviously it didn't, because I'm sitting on your couch."
Dominic sets his phone down and looks at me from across the room. "You're sitting onourcouch, firefly. There's a difference."
My scent wavers in response to Dominic’s possessiveness. I press my knees together and stare at my hands in my lap because the list of reasons this is a bad idea keeps getting longer and my body keeps refusing to read it.
