“Private investment.”
“Mm.” The syllable sat in his mouth like he was turning it over, testing the weight. “I hope your investor understands that the boardwalk has a long memory. Money solves short-term problems. It doesn’t change the landscape.”
“Neither does inflating lease terms above market rate. Our attorney has the comps.”
Three beats of silence. Then Voss laughed, the sound carrying exactly as much warmth as a concrete floor. “We’ll be in touch, Lorenzo.”
Voss doesn’t concede territory, and these frozen terms are a delay, not a resolution. But the ground has stopped shaking long enough for me to look up from the numbers and see that the club I built is still standing and that the people inside it are finding each other.
This morning Wilson ate breakfast without being reminded. He cracked a joke in the staff meeting that even startled a laugh out of our head bartender. Yesterday afternoon he fell asleep on the office couch, and when Oliver draped a blanket over him, Wilson just pulled it tighter and slept another hour.
Every so often, Nicholas finds his way into the guest room with Wilson pressed against his chest. In those few nights, the nightmares haven’t resurfaced.
I heard the one before through the wall separating the guest room from our bedroom. The sounds made me tighten my hand on Oliver’s hip in the dark. When Nicholas’s low, steady voice filtered through the plaster, everything stopped. The silence that followed settled something behind my ribs.
A heavy sigh falls from my lips as I start moving through the end of Friday night’s duties. It’s been one of the best crowds in months, the register receipts reflecting the kind of night we used to take for granted before Voss started squeezing.
Oliver went upstairs an hour ago, his energy dimmer than usual all evening, his smile losing wattage by increments until I pressed my mouth to his temple and told him to rest. He argued for the ten seconds it took me to slide my hand along the back of his neck, then he went.
The staff can handle closing. I round the bar and catch Wilson’s elbow as he finishes his last pour.
“We’re done. Upstairs.”
His brow furrows. “There’s still an hour on the—”
“Staff’s got it, gorgeous. Let’s go.”
He opens his mouth to argue but I drop my chin and square my shoulders just enough to get the point across. His jaw snaps shut, his spine straightens in that automatic response to my authority he still resents but doesn’t override. “Fine.” The word carries enough grudge to fill the entire bar.
Nicholas appears in the east corridor, jacket draped over his arm. His eyes find Wilson first then shift to me.
“Heading out. Good crowd tonight.”
“Alpha.” He stops mid-stride, his eyebrow lifting behind his glasses. “You’re coming upstairs. Your Beta hasn’t slept properly in two days unless you’re physically holding him to the mattress, and I’d rather that continue tonight than not.”
His expression softens. “Yeah?” Wilson grumbles beside me, the sound vibrating through his chest, but he’s already driftingaway from my hand on his elbow toward Nicholas. His shoulder bumps the Alpha’s chest and Nicholas wraps an arm around him without hesitation, pulling him close.
I hear Wilson mutter into Nicholas’s jacket, “I sleep fine.”
“You went forty-one hours last week,” I remind him.
“That was one time.”
“That was twice,” Nicholas says, his voice carrying the smile I can almost see above Wilson’s curls.
Wilson grumbles something obscene that sends a suppressed laugh rattling through Nicholas’s chest. I grin, wave the bartender over for the handoff, and fall into step behind them.
Ignoring their banter, I climb the stairs, not at all surprised to find the door unlocked. Oliver rarely remembers that part of the whole ‘security’ thing so it’s a good thing there’s a camera up here to alert me of any other movement.
Nicholas pushes open the door, and Oliver’s scent, concentrated in a way I haven’t smelled in months, slams into us all at once. It washes over me, coats my skin, and presses against the inside of my skull. The air is thick with it, heated, carrying an undertone that spikes my pulse before I even realize what’s happening.
Wilson goes rigid against Nicholas’s side. Nicholas’s arm clamps around Wilson’s shoulders, his nostrils flaring, jaw tight. The amber of his own scent sharpens in response, slicing through Oliver’s sweetness so sharply the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Without thinking, my legs carry me through the living room to our bedroom. The nest is destroyed. Oliver’s careful layering of blankets and pillows lies in a chaotic tangle, fabric spilling onto the floor.
Oliver kneels in the center of the destruction, face pressed into the last remaining pillow, back forming a perfect arch, his hips raised high. He grips the base of a knotted dildo with whiteknuckles, rocking back onto it with desperate, uneven thrusts. Sweat glistens across his flushed skin from cheeks to mid-chest. The sounds escaping his throat scrape raw and desperate through the heated air, nothing familiar in their broken edges.
Waves of his sweetened scent wash over me until my vision blurs at the edges. Slick coats his inner thighs in glistening rivulets, pooling onto the blankets beneath his trembling knees.
