The omega didn't need to answer, the tremble in her fingers and flush up her chest more than sufficient before she shook her head with a bounce of her pink hair. "I've never, I mean, before Halloween I'd never even…"
"Nothing wrong with being vanilla," Joon said with a shrug. "Have you done any research?"
"A little," she admitted. "And Tara is my best friend, so, um, we talk…"
“A good place to start,” Cameo praised. “Why don’t we go through some options and you can tell us your level of interest?”
“Or,” Indigo jumped in with a frown in Cameo’s direction when Eva looked like she was about to melt in her seat with embarrassment. “I can send you a questionnaire, you can look it over, and if you have any questions we can talk about it.”
“That sounds… yeah, like…waybetter…” she mumbled, continuing to push her food around her plate as she sank down in her chair.
“The offer is pretty basic,” Cameo said, either entirely oblivious or choosing to appear that way. I’d learned pretty early on that the emotionally inept alpha was more than capable of picking up social cues, but more often than not he thought they were a waste of his time. “We fuck you non-stop until you’re pregnant, you have our baby, we pay you a fat sum of money and you’re free to go.” Cameo said, spearing a fat piece of tomato with his fork. “Easy.”
Privately, I thought the likelihood of a new mother happily skipping off into the sunset away from her newborn baby was a pipedream, but that was an argument to have with him later.
“It would probably make things easier if you, um—courted me, a little…” Eva mumbled into her plate, cheeks skipping past pink and to a shade that reminded me a bit of a boiled lobster. “It’d make me feel a little less like?—”
“A human incubator?” Joon said. “Yeah, absolutely.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Indigo nodded.
I hummed, feeling vindicated in my private skepticism.
The odds that we’d spend however long it took to knock Eva up courting her, plus the time she was actually pregnant, and she’d still want to go anywhere after? Slim to none. The girl was practically panting for our entire pack as it was.
But I wasn’t cruel by any means, and if Eva wanted a bit of romance, I was happy to oblige her whims.
We already had an omega with commitment issues, the last thing my pack needed was another one.
Setting that aside for the time being, and internally cringing that Cameo was absolutely going to nail this girl on my beautiful countertop, I sighed. “Would anyone like a strawberry daiquiri?”
After dinner,I helped Marcus with the dishes.
Well, Itriedto help him with the dishes. Really, I stood there with a dish towel waiting to dry things, but Marcus kept putting them in the drying rack on the opposite side of the sink, leaving me with nothing to do.
Still, it was nice to spend some time with the alpha. It wasn't that he was particularly quiet; none of the pack were, but he was a little difficult to read. He’d seemed pretty engaged while we negotiated some basic terms for the contract, like the amount that I’d be paid as an advance for signing and then at the end after I delivered—ha ha!—my end of the bargain. But once we were having dessert and the conversation transitioned naturally to other topics, he’d become steadily more withdrawn.
It wasn't lost on me that technically, he was the alpha who'd brought me into the pack. Even though I'd known Indi first, and even had feelings for them... Marcus was the one who found me in the mirror maze.
Who’d chased me.
Who’d dominated me.
And now that I was considering his pack’s agreement, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would do it again, or if that rough, almost indifferent treatment was reserved for slutty little omega fucktoys that they picked up at Omega’s Lust events.
I wasn’t sure which option was more appealing to me, since they both had their benefits.
Marcus' expression didn't change as he scrubbed away at some stubborn baked-on cheese from a casserole dish; his tone conversational as he kept his eyes on his work. "Are you really going to do it?"
I hummed, studying his profile as I leaned against the white marble countertop, so incredibly out of place in a home that focused so heavily on warm dark wood. “I'm considering it," I said honestly, fidgeting with the hem of the dishcloth. "I want to read the contract over myself, and see but... you know, why not?"
Marcus dropped the casserole dish into the sink, sloshing water and bubbles up the sides of the sink heavily. “You’re talking about having a baby like it's getting a drink with a co-worker you don’t like very much,” he said, irritation in his tone. “This isn’t a fucking game, Eva. And if you aren’t going to take it seriously, don’t bother. The last thing my pack needs is some omega looking to make a quick buck, taking advantage of Cameo’s whimsy.”
I blinked, more than a little surprised by the change in the alpha’s demeanor.
Until now, Marcus had always been so… even.
But the look in his mossy green eyes as he stared me down was downright angry, water and soap flecking off his hand to splatter the countertop and floor as he pointed towards me.
