"We're maintaining a comfortable work environment for a valued team member." Dominic doesn't look up from his screen. "HR would approve."
"HR would have questions about why the valued team member's work environment smells like two Alphas' bedroom."
"HR can file a complaint." Dominic's mouth twitches. "In writing. Through the proper channels."
A stress spike rolls through me around two, sharp enough that I grip the edge of the table and breathe through it. Dominic's head lifts immediately. He's out of his chair and beside me before the cramp has fully crested, his hand on the back of my neck, the pressure grounding me through the wave.
"Breathe." His voice is low and close. "Just breathe through it, firefly."
The spike passes in under a minute with his hand on my neck. I slump forward and press my forehead against the table, my body wrung out, the slick panties doing their job beneath my work pants.
"I keep waiting to hate this," I mutter against the wood. "You moved me into your office and built me a nest and now you're standing over me with your hand on my neck."
"Do you?" Dominic's thumb pauses on my nape.
The honest answer sits in my throat for a few seconds before I let it out. "No. I don't hate it at all."
"Then stop fighting it." His thumb resumes its circle.
I close my eyes and let his hand stay on my neck. The throw blanket stays around my shoulders. Amos' scarf hangs on my chair. The nest grows around me one piece at a time, folding me into a pocket of their scent that my mother would call a cage and my body calls home.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I can hear my mother's voice calling this surrender.
"Shut up, Mom," I mutter under my breath, Dominic glancing up from his monitor but he doesn't ask.
Dominic
Mattaniahhasbeenworkingfrom my office for two days and the room no longer smells like mine. The leather and smoke that used to dominate the space has been diluted by warm coconut from the Omega curled on the window seat and pine from the scarf Amos left draped across the back of Mattaniah's chair.
The nest in the corner of my office has grown since yesterday. A second throw blanket appeared this morning, one I don't recognize, which means Mattaniah raided the linen closet while I was in a meeting. My cardigan has migrated from the chair arm to the base of the arrangement, positioned flat at the bottom, and the pillow from the window seat has been relocated to the center of the pile.
He doesn't know I watch him add to it. He waits until I leave the room, moves quickly, then returns to his laptop as if nothing happened. The precision of the additions tells me his instincts are driving the construction even if his conscious mind is still filing it under "organizing."
Right now he's on the window seat with his laptop balanced on his knees and a pen between his teeth, his feet tucked under the throw blanket, his curls falling across his forehead. The Southeast division files are spread around him in a semicircle that Amos would approve of. His focus has been locked for the past two hours. The only sounds in the office are our keyboards and the occasional tap of his pen against his lower lip.
Amos arrives at four with coffee for three and a USB drive. He crosses to my desk first, leans down, and presses his mouth against mine in a kiss that lasts three seconds and tastes like the espresso he drank on the way up. Then he crosses to Mattaniah and does the same, his hand cupping the back of the Omega's neck while Mattaniah's pen drops from his teeth and his lips part under Amos' mouth.
The sequence is natural and effortless, Amos greeting his mates in the order he encounters them.
"Found three more shell companies in the Southeast accounts." Amos drops the USB on my desk and perches on the corner. "Father's been routing funds through a subsidiary in Delaware that doesn't appear on any of the official filings."
"How much?"
"Conservative estimate, two point four million over eighteen months." He pushes his glasses up. "Mattaniah caught the first thread. I followed it."
My gaze moves to the Omega on the window seat. He's watching us with his coffee in both hands and a flush on his cheeks that could be from Amos' kiss or from the praise or both.
"Good work, firefly."
The flush deepens. He takes a sip of coffee to hide it and goes back to his laptop, but the corner of his mouth curves against the rim of the cup.
Amos stays, working from the couch with his laptop, his feet propped on my coffee table. The three of us occupy the office in a configuration that feels practiced even though we've only been doing this for two days, each of us in our designated space, the silence between us comfortable rather than strained.
Mattaniah migrates from the window seat to the floor beside the nest at some point, his back against the chair, his laptop on his crossed legs, the throw blanket pulled down around his shoulders. He's close enough to the nest that his scent feeds into it while he works, and his hand reaches back to adjust the cardigan's position without looking, his fingers finding the fabric by touch and smoothing it flat.
Father hasn't approached my office since the kitchen incident. His assistant delivered two memos today, both routine, both carrying the careful neutrality that means Father is regrouping rather than retreating. The silence won't last. It never does.
By six the office has emptied out on the floors below us and the building goes quiet. Amos closes his laptop and stretches on the couch, his shirt riding up to show a strip of skin above his waistband. Mattaniah's typing slows and his eyes flick to Amos' exposed stomach before returning to his screen with studied focus.
