King
This is emotional blackmail
I angrily sipped my latte as I crossed the street. My frustration only grew when I stepped into the shop,or, rather,disaster zone.The large room was filled to the brim with cardboard boxes, bolts of fabric, and those headless mannequin things with dresses on them. The walls were pink and covered with what looked like kids’ drawings of a cat, and a large checkout counter sat at the back of the room, but it was empty.
How could someone run a business like this? I was ready to leave when I breathed in, filling my lungs with an intoxicating mix of flowers and strawberries that instantly calmed me. I took another sip of coffee, but the strawberry flavor paled compared to what I was scenting.
Just then, a woman popped her head out of the back room. She was wearing a flowing pink dress, and her blond hair was held back by a matching pink headband, but a few gold strands still fell in her face.
“Hey! How can I help you?”
I froze. She was the prettiest woman I’d ever seen. As she got closer, the mouthwatering sweet scent that filled the shop intensified. My heart raced. She was an omega.
She stopped in front of me and I realized how tiny she was—barely coming up to my shoulder.
“I need a tux.” My head spun and I felt completely disoriented, something that hadn’t happened in…
Ever?
I took a small step back, trying to clear my head. I was used to being in complete control.
“Oh!” Her blue eyes lit up. “Are you King? I’m Lucy. I literally just got off the phone with”—she glanced down at a ripped scrap of notebook paper—“Caroline. She said you’d be in soon, I just didn’t realize she meant ten seconds later.” She laughed, and the sound was so perfect it made my chest ache.
“Like I told her, I mostly do tailoring. There’s a shop in Briar’s Landing that sells formal clothes, but it sounds like you won’t have time to get there and then to your event. You’re in luck, though, because I actually have an old tux that someone donated that should fit you. I can do some speedy tailoring to get it to fit in time for you to leave for your event.”
I held back my grimace. The chaotic shop and the promise of speedy tailoring didn’t inspire much confidence. While I didn’t want to go to this event, there would be cameras and I didn’t want any humiliating photos to end up online. But I didn’t have a choice but to follow Lucy as she led me into the back room, which was somehowmessier than the front of her shop. There was a long clothing rack filled with rows of garment bags, but it was half blocked by a stack of cardboard boxes.
Boxes the omega was currently climbing on.
I let out a strangled noise and lunged toward her, my arm automatically banding around her waist and pulling her off the precariously stacked boxes.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was high-pitched and breathless, and her sweet scent thickened in the air. I quickly released her and stepped back before I did something ridiculous, like press my face into the graceful curve of her neck and lick her skin.
That would be inappropriate.
“Those aren’t safe to stand on,” I grunted. “You need to clean this place up and get a step stool.”
Her smile stayed in place, but her shoulders slumped. “Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “I can never seem to keep it organized for more than a few hours.”
Shit. I didn’t mean to embarrass her. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll grab it for you.”
With a bit of maneuvering, I snagged a black garment bag from the back of the rack and handed it to her. She partially unzipped it. “This is the one.” Her eyes ran down my body, and I felt her gaze like a tangible thing. My cock twitched. Did she like what she saw?
“I think this will fit pretty well, actually. Put it on in the dressing room, and we can see what we’re working with.”
The dressing room ended up being a tiny corner of the shop, blocked off by a floral curtain. I gritted my jaw as I adjusted my half-hard cock to conceal it before getting dressed.
The tux was a bit old-fashioned, but I had to admit that Lucy had a good eye. It was baggy in spots, but at least I didn’t have to worry about my thigh and arm muscles popping the seams, something that had unfortunately happened before.
Lucy clapped excitedly when I pushed the changing room curtain aside.
“Oh, it looks so good already. This is going to be a breeze.” As she walked over to a side table, I noticed a flash of white on her ankle. It was wrapped with a bandage, and she was slightly favoring one leg as she walked.
“Did you hurt your ankle?”
She shoved a pile of fabric off the side table and let out a soft “Aha” as she found a weird pillow thing and strapped it to her wrist.
“It’s just a slight sprain. I’ve been icing it.”
