Page 50 of Laurels and Liquor

“Not since last night,” she responds evenly.

I hum, thinking back to my last conversation with my absent alpha. When Lydia and I tried to initiate a video call Saturday night, he’d declined with a flimsy excuse of being too tired from working out. We’d both known it was bullshit, but decided not to press. Rhett is trapped in an apartment with only a treadmill for exercise equipment. Rhett is a bit of a gym rat, but he’s not a runner. So when I’d called him again the next day, I didn’t let him off the phone until he fessed up.

And that’s when I found out that Jason, Lydia’s brother, has been staying with Rhett for the last few days. Rhett’s loyalty to this pack is unshaking, so it’s not like I suspected anything untoward, especially considering that Jason is painfully straight. But I didn’t like that he was trying to hide it. But Jason insisted that he wants to talk to Lydia in person and explain everything. So he’ll be heading our way this week, and they made me promise to not tell Lydia.

They failed to make me promise I wouldn’t tell Lex. Because like hell was I going to let her be caught unaware in this mess.

“Rhett promised to tell me when Jason leaves,” Lex continues, words almost patronizingly calm.

“I don’t like Lydia being kept in the dark. We all know how well that went over last time,” I throw back.

“I know. I said as much, but Jason said he’d take full responsibility for us not telling her.”

Good. I don’t want Lydia to think we’re backsliding. Not after all the progress we’ve made.

Lex struts out of the bathroom in nothing but her short silk dressing gown, heading toward her extensive collection of clothes. I follow her movements with my eyes, licking my lips as the curve of her ass peeks out from the bottom hem when she reaches for an upper shelf. Her scent is everywhere in here, but a fresh wave of spicy orange notes hits me when she catches me staring.

“Has Lydia mentioned of any heat symptoms?” Lex asks, turning back to her clothes.

I have to make an effort to ignore the growing hardness in my sweats as I clear my throat. “Not to me. But she’s been… extra eager for attention, and not just sexual attention.”

Lex hums thoughtfully, pulling out two dresses and making a show of trying to choose between them. The one in her left hand is an eggplant-colored vintage style wiggle dress, with a square neckline and little cap sleeves. The other is a more modern sheath dress, black with a sheer illusion neckline.

“Go with the black one,” I rasp, the words spilling out of my throat before I have the chance to catch them.

Lex throws me a look, a knowing twinkle in her eyes. Lex could wear a literal potato sack and still be the sexiest, most powerful woman on the face of the Earth. But seeing her in black, like she’s already dressed for your funeral before she’s even laid a finger on you, makes the wires in my brain cross. I can never decide if I should kneel at her feet in submission, or if I should bend her over the nearest horizontal surface, pull her hair, and make her scream my name.

“I’ll need your help with something. Do you mind?”

Lex’s purr pulls me from my fantasies and back to reality, only to make me question if I’ve died and gone to heaven. She’s slipped into her usual garter belt and lacey underwear, along with some black thigh-highs attached to the end of clips. But she’s holding a long-line bra to her chest, a demure expression pulling on her red-painted lips. I sit up straighter and try to adjust my raging hard on as subtly as I can, nodding. Her smile is pure deviousness as she slowly spins to give me her back, pulling her hair over one shoulder. I can’t help myself; I let my eyes wander down her back, over the fully exposed cheeks of her peachy ass and…

Fuck me, she’s wearing the tights with seams.

I’m throbbing in my pants now, and the situation only gets worse as she drops to sit on my lap, wriggling a little to get comfortable. I know she can feel me through the thin material, but she declines to comment. I’m taking several deep breaths to try to control myself when she clears her throat pointedly.

“I do have to get going soon, Luc,” she comments.

I growl a little in my throat. Oh,nowshe suddenly remembers she has to work.

I start on the little hook-and-eye closures, which are God’s curse unto men. I hope whoever invented this type of bra closure is burning in their own private pool of lava in Hell.

“With Lydia’s heat, I know we haven’t really talked about it in a while, but…”

My hands pause as Lex trails off, suddenly hesitant. I stay quiet, knowing my silence will do more good than trying to question her. I'm rewarded when she sighs and looks over her shoulder at me.

“I still want you as my bond mate. You and Lydia are… you’re my whole world.”

Her eyes are bright, the hazel reflecting olive green in this light. The naked emotion in the depths startles me for a moment, but I mentally shake myself.

“I still want you, too, Lex. I know we’ve been through a lot, but that’s never changed. I love you just as much today as I did when you asked me the first time,” I reply emphatically.

Her answering smile makes my whole body flush with joy. Alexandra’s smiles are as rare and precious as diamonds to me. She turns back around, and I finish with her bra. She adjusts it slightly, and I expect her to get up and finish getting dressed, but she spins until she’s straddling me. I automatically put my hands on her hips to hold her steady, and she rests her hands on my neck, thumbs stroking the stubble on my jaw.

“Do I need to look into the logistics? I want to make sure we’re prepared before we go in, so we don’t get lost in the heat of the moment,” she starts seriously.

I blink, and it takes me a minute to figure out what she means. But then I grin as I grasp her meaning.

“Lydia has been spending a lot of time with Caleb’s mate, Sylvie, getting omega lessons. They’ve told me what we’ve got to do to make a bond stick between us,” I say, voice dropping to a husky purr.

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