Page 14 of Lion's Crossing

I nodded. “Yeah, got home last night.”

“And already grinding stuff out. Look at you go. How’s your dad?”

“Good.” I clenched my fists, not wanting to participate in small talk while Knox needed me. “Walking on his own now, so he told me to get back to work.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve returned.” Standing next to me, Buan patted my back. “What are you working on now?”

The elevator dinged just then and the doors opened. I struggled with the need to be polite and the pull to get to Knox as fast as possible. With my hand holding open the doors, I stepped into the car. “ONE’s debut. I’m producing it.”

Buan stepped inside with me. “Cool. You going down to get coffee? ’Cause the stuff in the machine is foul lately.”

“No.” I pressed the button to the first floor for Buan then the one for the parking garage. “A friend of mine has an emergency, and I’m going to help him out. I shouldn’t be long.” That was, if I could control myself around an omega in heat whom I already had an attraction to.

Buan smirked. “Oh, is this thefriendwho Cruz saw you with last night? He said he was cute.”

I snarled and he immediately put his hands out in front of himself. “Whoa. No need to be so overprotective. I was just asking.”

“Sorry.” I shuffled back into the corner of the elevator. “It’s just… there’s something about him. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the idea of having to say goodbye to him.”

Buan chuckled. “We always used to sing about finding our fated mates. Maybe you actually did.”

Fated? I didn’t know about that, but I wouldn’t say no to the idea of mating with Knox.

The elevator reached the first floor, and Buan stepped off. “Well, good luck with whatever it is you two are. Come see me in my office when you can. I need some songs for a dance showcase, and I know you can make them or find them for me.”

I nodded. “Sure.” A reminder that I had work to do, couldn’t spend the rest of the day taking care of an omega in heat. I needed to pick him up and take him back to my place before demanding he lock himself in my guest room. I couldn’t take advantage of his condition just to fulfill a need I didn’t yet understand.

Chapter Fifteen

Knox

“Come out, little omega. I’m going to help you real good.”

I cowered in the back corner of the bathroom stall, hoping the lock on the door and stall held until Linc arrived. I hadn’t wanted to call him, considered every other option, but I either waited for the pop star I barely knew, or let the alpha outside the door take me. There’d been two of them at one point, but I thought I’d heard them fist fighting only a few moments earlier. I guessed the one had left. I hoped so. The museum guard hadn’t helped me at all. Only told me I shouldn’t have gone outdoors in heat if I didn’t want alphas after me.

The thing was, I hadn’t even known I was in heat. If I was, why hadn’t Linc noticed earlier in the day? We’d been in his car and several elevators together. If anyone had noticed my heat, it should have been him. Invisible vises clenched at my chest. I thought we’d had a connection. One I’d tried to ignore, but he’d obviously felt some amicability since he’d offered to give me the code to his place. Why hadn’t he smelled it first? Why hadn’t he stopped the elevator in his building or Shifter Towers and had his way with me?

My cock stiffened at the thought, and I moaned.

The alpha banged on the door again. “I can hear you in there. Let me in and I’ll make you moan even louder.”

Maybe I was in heat, since I never would have behaved in such a manner of my own volition. I was on blockers. I wasn’t supposed to experience them.

A sudden roar shook everything around me. Voices shouted at each other, and I thought I heard someone hit the wall. Then nothing. Absolute silence. It felt almost deafening as I waited for a sign it was safe for me to leave the bathroom.

Then I heard a light knock on the door. “Knox? It’s Linc. You can come out now.”

I climbed off the toilet and unlocked the stall as fast as I could. Though at the main door, I paused. “It’s really you? How do I know?” I didn’t have the experience to grasp what a desperate alpha would say to get me to open the door.

“We’re both from Shifter Crossing, and you stayed at my place last night after our train was late and The Vista canceled your reservation. You had Pad See Ew and I had Curry Pad Thai. Then we watched a movie and you fell asleep. Please open the door so I can take you back to my place.”

“Back to your place?” Did he want to fuck me the same as the other two alphas I’d encountered earlier? While the thought of him helping me through my heat made my body tingle and my heart race, I didn’t want him to think he held any ownership over me since I’d called him.

“Yes. You shouldn’t be out in public while you’re in heat. I could smell you the instant I stepped inside the building.” He sighed and it sounded like he leaned against the wall beside the door. “I want you to stay at my place while I go back to work.”

Disappointment clenched my gut. He hadn’t even offered to help me through it. Maybe I’d imagined our connection all along, my approaching heat the only thing telling me otherwise.

I huffed out at breath then unlocked the door, slowly opening it to ensure no one else waited out there with Linc.

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