Page 1 of His Innocent Omega
Chapter One
Becks
Staring out the floor to ceiling windows of the top floor hotel room I was in for the night, I let out a heavy sigh. I felt out of sorts, like at my advanced age of fifty I had no idea what the fuck I was doing with my life. For that matter, how the fuck was I even fifty? When had that happened? It seemed like just yesterday I had been globe trotting around the world, trying to be one of the good guys, ridding the world of evil.
Only there was a lot of fucking evil in the world, and sometimes the lines between the good guys and the bad got crossed.
For years I had been one of the government’s top handlers. I’d worked missions, kept my operativessafe, while helping thousands of people. Even if most of them never knew who had a hand in getting them to safety.
When Jamie Sinclair–the man who had been on the other end of my comms more than any other agent–had left the dangerous, fast-paced, thrilling life we’d led with practically no notice, I would be the first to admit that I had floundered. For the first time in my career, I felt dissatisfied with my life.
Jamie and I had been like a well-oiled machine, and I was way too old to have some snot nosed kid questioning every order I gave him. Stepping down from being a supervisory field agent had been an easy decision, even if I hadn’t quite been ready for my own retirement. What I was sure of was that trying to do the job with agents I didn’t know–who hadn’t earned my trust–wasn’t where I wanted to be.
Since the C.I.A. hadn’t wanted to lose me and all my talents, they had generously offered me a position leading one of the best cyber security teams our government had. It had been a good move, for a short period of time. Quickly growing bored, I decided to track down Jamie. I found him in his hometown of Sweet Alps, now the proud owner of a kink club. Nestled in Northern California, Sweet Alps was a world away from the adrenaline-fueled adventures we had both known for most of our adult lives.
The three month leave of absence I had requested had quickly turned into a year. Finally, I had to admit to myself, and my superiors, that I wasn’t ever going back to the life I had known. The truth was I liked Sweet Alps. From the moment I had sat my ass on a bar stool inside Sinful Playgrounds, Jamie’s club, I had felt a kind of peace I hadn’t known in an extremely long time.
Jamie had tried to toss me out on my ass the first time he’d spotted me casually sipping a whiskey at the bar, sure I wasthere to drag him back into a world he had happily left behind. Once I had convinced him I wasn’t there for anything more than wanting to see an old friend, we had renewed our friendship fairly quickly.
Jamie, and his large extended family, had made me feel like I had finally found where I was meant to be. I felt more at home in Sweet Alps than I had ever felt in New Orleans, my actual hometown. Since my parents had passed, I didn’t have a reason to return, with no family left on either side. I had a few scattered cousins on my alpha dad’s side, but we’d never been close and hadn’t kept in touch once we’d all reached adulthood.
When I had turned in my retirement papers, my bosses had been disappointed and offered me everything under the sun and their first-born child to get me to reconsider. I thanked them but told them it was time for me to go.
If I had thought my retirement was going to be quiet nights, sitting in a rocker, I had been sadly mistaken. The Sinclairs had kept me on my toes. I’d only been in town a few months, not even officially retired, when Jamie had asked me to help his older brother, Brendan, out with a situation.Older brotherwas a loose interpretation of the word, as Jamie was the baby of a set of identical quadruplets, each born fifteen minutes apart.
Brendan’s mate had been attacked by a stalker, and the overeager sheriff in Sweet Alps had been salivating to pin the attack on Brendan. Stepping into help had given me a thrill, as had giving the sheriff my ‘fuck around and see what happens’ face. I knew I was intimidating as fuck when I wanted to be, and tossing around my glossy government business card–since I technically hadn’t officially resigned at the time–along with my Harvard law degree had flustered the man.
Things had settled down for a few months, until one of Jamieand my old cases had landed in his backyard. Literally. Well, technically it had landed in his mom, Mary’s, backyard. When it was all said and done there had been a casualty, a few dead bodies, and a clean up crew needed.
Thankfully, all the excitement had seemed to die down, and I had finally been able to enjoy being unemployed. Great in theory but boring as fuck in reality.
Which was how I found myself in Texas, staring out at the Dallas skyline lit up against the black night, contemplating my life choices.
My old boss had called me, frantic, begging me to speak at a multi-unit, cyber security conference. One of the keynote speakers had a family emergency, and they needed a fill in. I must have been feeling generous the day he had called–or really fucking bored–because I had somehow found myself agreeing and boarding a plane.
Blowing out a breath, I leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the floor to ceiling window. “What the fuck are you doing here, Becks? You need a hobby. Or to get fucking laid.”
It had been a hot minute since I’d had some pretty little omega down on their knees, submitting to me. My best friend might own a kink club, but I didn’t play there. There was no way I would take a chance of hooking up with someone I might run into on the street. I preferred my kink scene partners like I preferred my hookups. One and done, never to be heard from again. My self-imposed dry spell was making me twitchy.
Jamie was in my ear constantly to run for the upcoming sheriff’s vacancy in Sweet Alps. Sheriff Longfellow was finally retiring, and Jamie thought the job would curb some of the restlessness that had plagued me lately. I wasn’t so sure about his plan. Though I’d be the first to admit I wasquickly becoming bored with sitting around, doing a whole lot of nothing. Beyond the excitement in the Sinclair family, Sweet Alps was usually a nice quiet town. Mid-sized, it was a cross between a big city and Mayberry.
The sheriff’s job would fill up my time, but I wasn’t sure I was cut out to wear a uniform and a badge. I could blow the dust off my fancy law degree, but the thought of hanging up a shingle and practicing small town law didn’t hold much appeal to me either.
Staring hard at my reflection in the window, I wondered if I was having the mid-life crisis Jamie kept accusing me of.
Running a hand through my thick, expensively styled hair, I squinted my dark, nearly black eyes, at my reflection. Was that even more gray mingling among my dark locks? There sure as shit was more than when I had arrived in Sweet Alps, and I blamed Jamie, for every one of them.
Wanna run!My wolf snarled in my ear, restless beneath my skin. I hadn’t shifted in a few days, and he was missing the vast amounts of woods and mountains that surrounded Sweet Alps where we could shift and run to our hearts’ content.
Not tonight.
Bracing an arm against the cool glass, I continued to stare at my reflection thoughtfully. At least my body was still holding up nicely, even if my hair had decided to act its age. My stomach was as flat and toned as a man half my age, my arms and stomach rippled with hard muscles. Shifters aged at a slower rate, so I had that on my side. But I also worked really fucking hard to keep my body in tip-top shape, and it showed.
My cell phone pinged on the desk where I had tossed it after escaping the hell that was the conference meet and greet. Small, idle chit chat with colleagues was never something I cared for,and when I remembered that I really didn’t need to mingle, I had made my excuses and disappeared back to my room.
Striding across the room, I swiped over the text from Jamie.
Jamie:Did you take a look at that new app I sent you?
