Page 115 of In Control

“Why not?”

“You said slow,” Roman explains. “We agreed slow. We’re keeping to that agreement.”

“But–” We all shake our heads. It’s torture. Fucking torture. But we’re keeping our word. We’re pressing the rewind button.

“Patience,” I remind her with a wink.

She obviously decides to make us pay for our self-control, because once we’ve dropped her at Rosie’s and returned to the packhouse, our phones all ping.

Looking at one another, we pull out our phones and find Sophia has sent us a detailed account of how she has relieved her frustration.

I drag my hand down my face.

Fucking torture.

* * *

The followingweek we take her to watch a football match and buy her hot Bovril in a styrofoam cup. She wrinkles up her nose as she tries it but drinks down the lot and ends up being noisier than the rest of us when Studworth scores three goals in a row.

Sophia insists on picking the venue for date three. I half wonder, half hope it’s somewhere she hopes to seduce the four of us. We meet after another week apart on a Saturday afternoon in the botanical gardens where we first met. She packs a picnic and after strolling through the tropical flowers, we lie out on a stretch of grass in the sunshine.

“I made these myself,” she says, as she passes out neatly wrapped bundles of sandwiches and sausage rolls.

“I never took you as a domestic type,” Gabe teases.

“Neither did I, but I had a craving for home-made sausage rolls and it seems I like caring for all of you – some of the time, anyway. Don’t get any bright ideas that I’m going to move in and start washing your pants and cook your dinners.”

“If you move in with us, sweetheart, we’ll have much better uses for your time, I promise.”

“Like what?” she asks, resting back on her elbows and stretching out those long legs of hers. She’s wearing another of those short skirts and Esra has been unable to drag his eyes away from the hem.

“Let me see …” I say, “like serious debates about the current state of politics in this country and games of scrabble. Maybe if you’re lucky, we can do a crossword or two together.”

She rips off a piece of her sandwich and throws it at my head.

“Liam, mate,” Esra growls, “you can choose to spend your time with Sophia that way. I have much more interesting ways of entertaining her.”

“Like pouring over the latest copy of Physics weekly,” Gabe scoffs.

“Hey,” he winks at our omega, “I’d have ways of making it sexy.”

“I once won a game of strip scrabble,” Sophia says, tearing off another piece of bread. “I’m pretty good at it.”

“No way you’d beat Roman,” Gabe tells her.

Sophia shrugs like she could take him down easily.

“Is that a challenge, baby girl? Because I’d really like to get you out of that skirt.”

“Me too,” Esra groans.

“It’s a challenge,” Sophia says. “We can head back to your packhouse for a game after our picnic.” I exchange looks with my packmates. “Oh, come on, it’s been four weeks and–”

Gabe rolls over and kisses her nose. “Four weeks too long.”

“You’re sure?” I ask her. “You asked for slow.”

“There’s slow and there’s the chance you leave it so long I become a born-again virgin.”

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