Page 27 of Choosing Their Omega

Good for him. So would I.

The meeting with Jerry is a good one. We figure out how it’ll all work and how we can own the company without it taking too much time away from our work as NHL players. Our jobs are demanding, so we can’t take on the roles of CEOs, but we can appoint acting C-level executives and make sure we hold majority stock.

It’s late by the time I get back. Ben’s definitely already in bed, and dinner is finished. I’m pretty sure the others are all in bed, especially my pack mates since we almost always have to be up early in the morning for practice.

There’s still a light on in the kitchen. Must be Miles. He probably left some food for me in the oven, just to make sure I wouldn’t forget to eat. Miles tries to look after us by feeding us. Always has.

But when I step into the kitchen, it’s not my pack mate that I see. It’s Lily. She’s seated at the table, a small mug of tea next to her while she slowly turns the pages on a paperback novel. It must be one of her romances. My face stretches into a grin, and I know I probably look like an idiot, but I don’t care.

She looks beautiful, with her red hair falling down around her shoulders and framing her face, the generous curves of her body evident even in the loose t-shirt she wears. She looks the way I imagine a goddess would look, feminine and breathtakingly beautiful even when she’s not trying at all.

“Lily?”

“Ah!” She jolts in her chair, hand flying to her chest and her mouth open.

“Oh shit. I’m so sorry—”

“No, it’s fine, you just startled me, I feel so embarrassed.” She smiles. “I’m still not quite used to sharing a home I guess, I keep forgetting that there’s actually other people here who’ll, you know, walk into rooms.”

“Well, you startled me, I didn’t think anyone would be up still. So it’s all fair.”

Lily puts a bookmark in the book and pushes it aside. “Where’ve you been? Miles and I left some food for you in the oven, let me get it.”

She gets up and goes over. I sit down at the table, taking the chair next to her. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Lily sets a plate of food down in front of me and then sits back down at the table. “I was a little worried.”

I reach to grab the fork. “It wasn’t—”

Lily gasps, interrupting me. “What happened to your hand?”

I frown, confused. What… oh.

I’ve gotten into so many fights that I don’t even really notice when it happens anymore. But when I look down, sure enough, I see that I’ve split my knuckles. Ah, crap.

“Nothing.”

“You don’t split your knuckles over nothing,” Lily points out. She gets up again and searches through the kitchen until she finds the first aid supplies. “Hold out your hand.”

“I can take care of it myself,” I protest, even as I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward.

“Did I say you couldn’t?” Lily shoots back, but there’s no heat in her voice. She smiles gently as she sits back down at the table and takes my hand.

My next inhale feels like fire, and I struggle to keep my face neutral as she spreads my fingers wide so she can begin tending to my knuckles.

The salve stings, but that’s not why I’m burning.

I watch Lily’s forehead puckering in concentration as she cleans my cuts and then bandages them, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. Fuck, I want to replace her teeth with my own, I want to bite down lightly and tug right before I slide my tongue into her mouth…

I look away. She’s my employee and a Beta. I can’t ruin this for us when we only just found a solution to the issue of Ben’s wellbeing.

But the feel of her fingers on me…

“What happened?” Lily asks, and I jolt, my gaze flicking up to her face again.

“You probably won’t be happy with me.”

“You might be surprised. Are you secretly a boxer along with a hockey career?”

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