Page 126 of Captive Omega

“Just fling it in the fire.” I hide my smile as I cross over to him. “If it’s stubbornness stopping you, you can always pretend you tripped.”

The muscles in his cheek pull, a sign he might be smiling, though he doesn’t lift his head. “Ah, the accidental trip. Good idea.”

I take the armchair opposite him. Despite my determination to watch him, I gather a small handful of red puzzle pieces into my lap and start figuring out where they go.

We spend the next ten minutes figuring this puzzle thing together. Or at least I do. Garrison puts down three pieces as I’m still working out whether the piece I’m holding is upside down, someone’s elbow, or a piece of a desk.

“You didn’t have to do what you did.” I stare at the puzzle in my hand. “I’m sure it was a lot of work.” In fact, I know it was. I had plenty of time out there to really take in the details I had missed when I first entered the room.

The smell of paint was very faint. The closer I moved to the wall, the more I got the sense they hadn’t just emptied out towels, storage boxes and whatever else they’d been keeping in the pool house. They’d painted.

Someone had hung one of those hanging hammocks from the ceiling, and I’d promptly tipped out of the thing onto the cushions beneath when I’d climbed into it wrong.

After I’d stopped laughing at myself and checked to make sure no one had seen, I found a small wine cooler filled with more of that addicting apple juice and a hamper with bags of chips, candy, and chocolates to snack on.

It was perfect. I couldn’t have made a better nest for myself.

“We’ve been meaning to clear out the pool house for years.”

“And turn it into a nest for an omega?” And not just any omega. Me.

“Work has been quiet recently.”

I look down, fighting my smile, which isn’t easy. I hadn’t thought I liked dry. I like cheeky and charming, but I’m learning to appreciate a dry sense of humor and quiet kindness just as much.

“Whose idea was the music?” I ask, thinking I already know the answer.

“Vaughn. Of course.” He lifts his head for the first time, and I was right to think he was hiding a smile. Hazel eyes flecked with amber sparkle with mirth. “He wanted to drag his drum set outside to serenade you.”

The smile I’ve been desperate to keep hidden sneaks out. “With drums?”

His gaze dips to my mouth.

A slightly hungry look makes heat coil in my belly as he refocuses on my eyes. “Count yourself lucky I told him I wasn’t helping him carry it out. Blaine also opted out.”

Try as I might, I cannot imagine someone serenading me on the drums.

“That would have been some experience,” I say wistfully.

A log in the fireplace crackles.

I only meant to stop in here for a moment to thank Garrison for a nest I never could have dreamed up for myself. Yet here I am, making no move to leave.

“You need to explain the pink flamingo to me, because I cannot imagine why you would have that.”

His response steals the air from my lungs.

Garrison Brewster knows how to grin, and he looks good doing it. He shakes his head. “You don’t want to know about the pink flamingo.”

“See, now I have to know everything about it.”

“If you tell anyone, no one would hire us. The Lucas Security reputation would be ruined,” he warns. “Though it might take some time before they stopped laughing.”

It sounds so juicy I nearly fall out of my chair. “Tell me everything.”

Garrison studies me for a beat, as if he’s not sure he can trust me to keep my mouth shut.

He’s welcome to come after me for running my mouth. I won’t, because I need to know this thing that put a grin on Garrison’s face. I have to.

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