Page 51 of The Omega Project

“Insatiable,” I reply, squeezing his knot and smiling at another trickle of his cum. He’s trapped in the best way, and I hum as I cover his face in kisses. “And I’m the lucky one.”

He holds me tighter, and for a while we just sit and make out. His hands roam over my skin, like he can’t get enough of me, and I squirm as he throbs inside me. “Guess it’s just as well your office hours are over,” I finally quip. “How long do you think we might be stuck like this?”

“Long enough to give you this,” he replies and opening his desk drawer, pulls out a small square box. “Courting gifts usually come before bonding bites, but… I’ll do better at Christmas,” he promises, handing me the box.

I run a finger over the satin lid, those fireworks now a soft, warm glow in my chest. “I usually make beeswax candles for Christmas. Do you think Finn would be okay if I set up a little workstation somewhere in the packhouse?”

“It’s your home, Em. You can do whatever you want, and if you need supplies, I’ve organised a credit card in your name.”

“I don’t need much,” I protest, but my eyes go wide as I remove the lid and stare at the golden bee on the bed of velvet. “Wait. Is this… anorigamibee?”

“You left it here the last time you stopped by, so I sent it to a jeweller friend who used it as the basis of the design.”

“Wow. Derek gave it to me.” I brush a finger over a golden wing and gulp past the tightness in my throat. “I didn’t know where to keep it because I was kind of between homes at the time…”

“Well, you’re not anymore.” He studies my stricken face with a flash of regret. “If it’s too much, you can leave it here as a paperweight…”

“No! I love it!” I place the gift carefully back in the box and throw my arms around his neck. Lang gives a relieved huff a second before he captures my lips and I realise it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I loved him, too. Which is crazy, because it’s way too much, way too fast. We might be bonded, but I haven’t even said it to Derek yet…

But as he cradles me in his arms and I stare down at his perfect gift, something tells me those three little words are as inevitable as a thermodynamic hexagonal grid.

Creed

While I’m all for getting down to business, as Emily puts it, Soren and I agree to hold off until she’s completely over her heat. I know she’s worried about making him feel excluded, but she has no idea the stabilising influence she’s had on him. Onallof us. I’ve watched her kiss and cuddle my mate in ways I’ve only dreamed of, and while he’s still plagued by nightmares, there’s a lightness to him that I’ve never witnessed before. Emily’s presence is like a balm to the fissures in our pack, and as soon as she’s over her heat spikes, I plan to show her exactly how perfect we can be together.

Which is why I scowl at the email I get from her father during breakfast the next day. I’d question the timing, except I’ve heard on the grapevine he’s retiring soon and going into private practice with one of his packmates. Selling PsyOps secrets to the highest bidder, no doubt, so that some CEO can brainwash his workforce into doing twice the work at half the pay. Finn might not exactly be a people person, but when it comes to his employees, most of us would take a bullet to protect him.

Brigadier Nash, on the other hand, has always considered Finn a thorn in his side. Too powerful for him to fuck with and too connected to just ignore. Finn’s clout with the army might have taken a hit since he started to dismantle Vast Horizons, but they’re not stupid enough to take him on directly. Ex-operators have always found a home either working for him or through hisextensive network of contacts, which means that if he felt like calling us up, he’d have a highly skilled, highly motivated private army at his back.

So why does Brigadier Nash want me to bring his daughter to a meeting, on base, and why is the request worded in a way that sounds more like an order than an invitation?

I wait until the others have dispersed before approaching Emily. She’s dressed for the office in a cute skirt suit and perky ponytail, and when I show her the email on my phone, a hint of hurt seeps into her sweet scent. “Why did he contact you instead of me? And how does he even know about us?”

I’d assume the brigadier has kept tabs on his family over the years, if I didn’t know he’s a heartless fuck. More likely he’s monitoring my pack, which pisses me off for both personal and professional reasons. “That’s something I intend to ask him. I can go on my own, if it’s easier…”

“Nothing is easy about my father.” She tilts her face up, a world of hurt in those wide hazel eyes. Yep, her old man is not long for this world if he keeps putting that look on her face. “I’ll go with you, but we need to do it today. I want it over and done with as soon as possible.”

As do I, in as permanent a way as I can make it, but there’s still the issue of her heat. “He’ll be able to tell you’re an omega,” I say carefully. This whole conversation is picking at old wounds given his history of designation abuse, and I scowl at the thought of him using this new information against her. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait a couple of days?”

“No, I can’t.” She lifts her shoulders and gives me a determined look. “I need him out of my head, Creed, once and for all.”

I reach over and kiss her temple, because it deserves a hell of a lot better than to be haunted by her father. “Then let’s go put that fucker in the rear vision mirror.”

Finn and Lang aren’t thrilled about me taking Emily to the SAS base in Longbeach, but one glance at her face and they know better than to try to stop her. She spends a half hour in the bedroom talking to Derek and Soren, then walks into Finn’s office dressed in tight black jeans, a Sweet Addiction tee, and one of Lang’s biker jackets. She’s taken a suppressant to mask her scent, but the wave of pheromones she sets off triggers all of Finn’s overprotective instincts, and I can tell he’s about a second away from insisting he comes along as her personal bodyguard.

But a riled-up Finn Visser on a base full of heavily armed alphas is a national incident in the making.

“You’ve been to your father’s office on base?” I ask Emily as Lang wraps her in his arms, his face buried in her red curls. She’s taken her hair out of its cute ponytail, and even suppressed, her scent is clearly amping up their mating bond.

“Only once, and it was a while ago,” she admits, rubbing her hands down Lang’s back. “He’s had a couple of promotions since then, so he might be in a different part of the base.”

“That’s fine. He’s organised access, and your clearance covers the mandatory induction. You’ll just need to show some ID.”

She nods, and Finn steps forward, his face purposely blank. “They’ll confiscate your phones and scan you for electronic devices,” he says, holding out a hand with the palm facing up, “but their tracking tech isn’t as good as mine, so they won’t know to look for this.”

Emily cocks a brow as she stares at the tiny white pill in his hand. “What does it track?”

“Everything. Your location, your vitals. I’ll know where you are and how you’re feeling at any given time.”

---