Page 8 of Slick Handling

He frowns as he looks at me, shaking his head before leaning back and grabbing a hoodie that he lays across my lap like it is an offering for me.

“It’s cold. You can wear this to warm up some. The autumn here feels like winter everywhere else.” And then he waits as I pull it over me and buckle back in.

I haven’t slept much in the past few days with everything that has been going on. I haven’t felt like it was okay for me to relax enough to close my eyes. But as the music plays softly and the car drives down the highway I feel my eyes start to get heavy.

For a few moments I fight the battle. Trying to win out over the exhaustion that is crashing through me but Apollo’s scent and the warmth that is cocooning me is all too much.

“Is it okay if I lift you up, Cherub? I just want to bring you inside.” The soft sound of his voice wakes me up and I make a sound as I feel his hands slide under my legs and against my back.

My instincts don’t care that I don’t know him. Instead they just lean against him as I nuzzle my face against his chest. Gosh, he smells even better now that I am closer to him.

How had I flinched away from him before and now my body had no problem with him? It had to be the exhaustion overriding the last bits of sense that I had in my body. I’m not going to argue. He’s warm and I’m tired.

I’m laid down on a bed that is saturated with his smell. My whole body melts into it.

“I’m just going to take off your shoes and pull the blankets over you. Okay, cherub? You just keep resting and I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

His fingers make quick work of my shoes and I don’t even care as he squeezes my ankle like he just had to touch my skin for a second. The blanket comes around me and he presses it around me as I reach for a pillow, pulling it against me like it’s a stuffed animal.

“Adorable.” His grumbly voice is so close I can feel it tickling my eyelashes as he speaks.

Part of me wants to protest but I am too exhausted. To wrung out from everything that has happened. Finally feeling like I can sleep and be okay feels like a chance I have to snatch up and enjoy.

And it just smells so….good….

CHAPTER 4

APOLLO

There is an Omega in my bed.

This wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card.

She’s curled up with my pillow in her arms, her body looking tiny in my bed. Somehow she managed to wiggle her way to the middle and has been asleep for two hours.

Two hours being long enough for the rest of my pack to get home and for me to find out that Vaughn is in a rut. A rut with an Omega who smells like heaven in our house.

What could go wrong?

I spray more scent deodorizer around the room before closing the door behind me. Grabbing the towel I have outside and pressing it at the bottom of the door like I’m in high school again. Shaking the deodorizer to make sure I have enough before giving the towel a liberal spray of it.

“Why is there an Omega in your room?”

My body lurches in a jump as I turn to look at McKinley. His glasses are on like I interrupted him studying. The only thing he seems to be studying right now is me as he tries to make sense of what is going on.

When my mother told me she had sent someone to stay with us there had been a thought about what I was going to tell my pack. Mostly the plan was to just FaceTime my mom and let her explain the situation so that they couldn’t argue. Now that Vaughn was in a rut the plan changed a bit. Especially since Clover was an Omega.

“My mother sent her.” His eyebrows raised, “Something happened where a pack tried to force a bond on her. I don’t know the whole story. We can call her when Vaughn’s rut is over. Hopefully this is only a day or two and we can move on. Does he have everything he needs?”

“He’s cuddling Griffin. So probably not.” I wince slightly, rubbing my hand over my face. “Why don’t you try to make a smoothie or something so we can try to get something in him and then we can do a full pile in his room? He might like having everyone close and it keeps him away from the Omega.”

“Clover. Her name is Clover.” McKinley makes a sound and smiles at me as he steps closer, breathing me in.

The Omegas scent is mixed with my own from picking her up and putting her in my bed. I’m going to need to take a quick shower and change before going into Vaughn’s room. That’s all I need. Him to scent the Omega and try to get to her.

“She smells good to me.” He runs his nose down my neck and breathes in her scent on my chest, “The two of you together. That warm tea and lemon scent. If she smells this good to me how does she smell to you?”

He’s not doing this to torture me. But talking about the Omegas scent and being reminded of her sweet Shirley Temple flavoring makes me have to take a deep breath.

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