Page 19 of Knot Now Knot Ever

Spent, I became boneless in Eli’s arms, and he carried me over to the couch in his office. He carefully laid me down and pressed a kiss to my lips, eyes, and forehead. “You stay right here until you’ve recovered.”

He started to walk away, but I grabbed his hand. “What about you?” I asked, knowing how damn hard he’d been.

“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. It’s too big of a risk to let anything more happen,” he answered, bending to kiss my hand. “I want the first time for us to be somewhere comfortable because we won’t be leaving it for quite some time.”

Groaning, the edge he’d taken off my libido flared back to life but even more demanding. “You can’t say things like that and expect me to be good,” I grumbled, watching him sit at his desk, showing remarkable self-control.

“I have faith in you. I’m sure you can be a good girl for me,” Eli teased, gifting me with the rare sight of a genuine smile. “It will be worth the wait, I promise.”

That’s it, I can’t be here anymore.

Or I’m going to lose all my self-respect.

Sitting up, I combed my fingers through my hair and straightened my outfit as best I could before standing. Doing my best to ignore Eli, I walked over to the door, grabbed my coffee, and picked up my purse off the floor. I turned to face him and found him watching me with a bemused look. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” I said, using my professional voice.

“There is a list of tasks waiting for you in your email,” Eli shared. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Remember, we’re a team.”

I nodded and tucked some of my hair behind my ear before walking to the door that led to my refuge. Oh God, if this is how day one was going, I could only imagine things getting more and more intense before no level of self-control could keep us from tearing each other’s clothes off.

When I finally managed to get my head in the game and focus on work, my body settled down. Situations like what happened between Eli and I were what a certain group of people used to prove Omegas shouldn’t be in the workforce. In their mind, all we seemed to do was become a distraction, so it was better to keep us at home where we wouldn’t bother anyone. What they seemed to be missing in their thought process was Omegas weren’t mindless sex fiends desperate to hump whoever was closest. While there’s always an exception to the rule, most Omegas didn’t become hypersexual until meeting their scent-matched Alphas.

If Eli weren’t my scent match, we would have no issues. However, that wasn’t the case, and I would need to find the best solution for us to work together. One thing I had on my side was the internal drive to prove just how worthwhile it was for my boss to have me. If I made myself invaluable, they couldn’t simply write me off when I needed to take time off for my heats a few times a year.

Working with my previous pack was easier, but we still ran into issues with personal and professional butting heads. Specifically, one Alpha in our pack didn’t know how to separate matters and leave problems at home when we got to work. It created some tension between the others and left me in the middle of trying to make peace. Occasionally, when arguments got heated, this led to being told I should stay in the nest where I belonged.

Of course, I didn’t think that would ever happen with Eli, and he already assured me he didn’t plan on asking me not to work. Yet it didn’t keep my anxiety from pointing out Eli could change his mind if I made things too hard for him. These intrusive thoughts were something I battled every damn day. I’ve worked through many of them with Dr. Barnett, which was helpful but didn’t prevent new ones from popping up. Dr. Barnett believes they stem from survivor’s guilt, and I feel the need to prove my life has meaning and purpose, but deep down, I don’t think I should have lived.

“Miss Clark,” Emily called.

Yanking the pen I’d been chewing on out of my mouth, I looked up to find her in my office doorway. “Yes?”

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I tried to ring back, but you weren’t answering,” Emily apologized. “There’s a Lester on line three who says he’s from customs and is returning your call.”

“Thank you so much. I’ve been trying all morning to get ahold of this guy,” I said, snapping back into work mode. “Line three, you said?”

Emily nodded and waited for me to pick up the call before shutting my office door.

“Hello, this is Lyra,” I answered.

“I’m Lester Day. I believe you left a few messages regarding a shipment of oil we’ve held back?” Lester inquired.

“Yes, thank you so much for calling me back. I was on the phone with another person in your office, but we got cut off when a storm took out our power. Can you tell me if the shipment has been located and what exactly about the paperwork isn’t meeting standards?” I questioned.

“Let’s see…” Lester mumbled as the slow clacking of his keyboard filtered through the phone. “Ah, here it is. Seventy thousand barrels of oil headed for Ethea were delayed due to not having the correct tax code.”

“The tax code for us here in Preidon or for Ethea?” I pressed, tapping my pen against my desk as I heard more typing.

“Ethea has restructured their import-export regulations, rendering the code you entered useless. We’ll need a new form filled out that matches the new regulations. Unfortunately, you can’t get that online, but I believe if you contact the consulate in Windermere, they should be able to give you what you need,” Lester explained. “The shipment will be held here for another five days since this was an unforeseeable issue and won’t accrue any fees or penalties as long as it’s rectified by the end of the week.”

“Thank you so much. I will get on that right away,” I said, typing into my web search to find the consulate’s location.

Lester mumbled some farewell, but I wasn’t listening, and it wasn’t until the line went dead that I realized he’d hung up. Returning the phone to its cradle, I pulled up the map with the consulate’s location marked. Before moving here, I knew Windermere was a large city, and many large companies chose to keep a main office here, but what I was discovering was how multicultural it was. According to the map, I didn’t need to go far, and it would take me roughly a half hour to get there and back.

Calling the number on their website, I confirmed they would indeed have what I needed and someone could walk me through the process. “Yes, we can certainly help, but we close the door for an hour at noon for everyone to have lunch. I would suggest coming by after that break as it might be cutting it close now.”

“Sounds logical to me,” I agreed. “I’ll be down later this afternoon, and I truly appreciate how quickly you could get me an appointment.”

“We’ve been instructed to ensure all import issues are dealt with promptly since it has a rather large impact on our economy,” the woman shared. “If I’d been in charge of all this, I would have given companies plenty of notice that things were changing. It certainly would have saved us a lot of extra work.”