Page 12 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

“Wh…wh….” Lucien seemed to be struggling to put his thoughts into words as he caught his breath and only just managed to squeeze out, “Why did you stop?”

I knew what he meant. “I didn’t think it would be right,” I said.

“But I wanted—” Lucien blinked and tensed. He shook his head slightly, as if sense had just crashed back into him. “Oh,” he said, then sagged against me.

He fell asleep for a few minutes, his head resting on my chest just below my shoulder. Even when my knot went down, I didn’t move. I let his worn body expel me naturally, and still I lay there, holding him as he slept and recovered.

I couldn’t help but smile, but at the same time, I wondered how any experience with any omega would ever be able to live up to the three days Lucien and I had just had.

I’d always thought that being spoiled for sex or ruined for omegas was just something people said, but in that moment, with a limp and welted Lucien drooling on my shoulder, I felt it like a fist in my gut.

As soon as Lucien showed the first signs of waking up, I nudged him to move enough so that I could shift out of bed, taking him with me.

I carried him into the en suite bathroom and sat him on the toilet for a moment while I ran a bath for both of us.

The lodge and the DFC had provided the bathrooms with several kinds of soap and bubble bath, which was just another way they knew exactly what they were doing, and in no time, I sank into a flowery-smelling, deep, warm bath with Lucien in my arms.

“This is…nice,” Lucien said, like he couldn’t think of the word he really wanted to describe it and had landed on something entirely inadequate.

“Mmm,” I said, sluicing water over his back as I checked his welts. “It’s really nice.”

I heard Lucien laugh slightly, then wince as I touched a particularly deep welt.

“Don’t worry about anything,” I reassured him. “You’re a little messed up, but I’m trained in first aid, and I’ll make sure everything is okay before I let you go.”

He was silent after that for a while. I washed the worst of the sweat and slick and cum from his body and my own, and when that was done, we just sat there in the tub for a while.

“This isn’t right,” Lucien said after a long silence. He nearly scared the bejeebers out of me with those words, since I thought they were the end of all the nice things between us. But he went on to say, “I should be writhing with post-heat aversion to touch right about now.”

I held my breath for a second. That was a good point.

Whenever omegas finished their heats, they had anywhere from a few hours to a few days where they were absolutely repulsed by the touch of any alpha, even the one they’d just mated with.

Apparently, it had something to do with the ancient omega instinct to protect a growing fetus immediately after conception.

Every omega I’d taken through heat, though there weren’t a lot, hadn’t wanted anything to do with me the second their heat ended.

“Maybe it has something to do with whatever it was we felt right at the end there?” I suggested.

Lucien glanced over his shoulder at me. “It was a bond,” he said. “My omega and your alpha wanted to bond.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t manage any words. He was right, but bonds were something huge and powerful. There were married couples out there who took years to fully bond. I barely knew Lucien.

“Why didn’t you bond with me?” he asked the same question that had been on his lips right after his last wave ended. “I wanted it. I was trying to reach for it, but you pushed me away. Did I do something wrong?”

He sounded so vulnerable and small. He must have thought so, too. He immediately shook himself and shoved a hand through his wet hair.

“Whoa,” he said in a different, more solid voice. “I’m not even sure where that came from.”

“And that’s why I didn’t reach for the bond,” I said, hesitated, then added, “Even though I wanted to.”

“You did?” Lucien asked in that vulnerable voice, turning more toward me. He jerked slightly, then said, “Damn, that’s spooky. It’s like there’s a whole other part of me that wants different things than the rest of me.”

“Yep,” I said, nodding in complete understanding. “Heat can be dangerous when you’re super compatible with the omega, or alpha, you’re with.”

“You can say that again,” Lucien said, laughing uncertainly. He paused, staring at the side of the bathtub in thought, then shook his head. “It’s never been like that for me before.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a wide smile.

My smile seemed to shake Lucien out of his confusion even more. “It is a compliment,” he said, scooting farther away from me so he could turn and face me better. “You were really good. Like, amazing.”

“So were you,” I complimented him in return. “Your dossier said you were a hard player, but you really blew me out of the water.”

“You made it easy,” Lucien said with the sweetest, cockiest smile.

He reached a hand out like he would squeeze my thigh just under the surface of the water, but before he made contact, he pulled his hand away with a gasp. Then he shifted so quickly to the far end of the tub that water splashed over the sides.

“There it is,” he said, his voice less and less vulnerable by the second. He sent me an apologetic look and said, “Sorry.”

I was bereft. I’d been having such a cozy moment with my omega, and, bam, I’d just been reminded that he wasn’t really my omega, we had just been having some fun.

“No problem,” I said, standing and stepping over the edge of the tub. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Why don’t I order us some room service and we can eat together before packing up and heading home?”

“Yeah,” Lucien said with a false smile, his shoulders dropping. “That sounds nice.”

I smiled and nodded as I reached for a thick towel to dry myself off, then left him to finish his bath in peace.

As soon as I was alone in the other room, I lost my smile.

Lucien’s scent permeated the air like a delicious fog.

I wanted to flop on the bed and wrap myself in the, frankly, disgusting duvet just so I could be surrounded by my omega’s scent forever.

Just because I hadn’t reached for and made that bond didn’t mean he wasn’t my omega.

The thought of another alpha touching him, ever, had me growling before I realized it.

It was the danger of playing so intimately with someone. I really should have known better. When you shared something as binding as a playtime with someone, it messed with your head and your heart.

At least, that was what I told myself as I dressed in simple jeans and a t-shirt, then went to order a mountain of food for the two of us.

Kincade Lodge’s kitchen was lightning fast. Which made sense, since the DFC people were the only ones in the hotel that week. They delivered a whole cart of post-heat treats before Lucien finished his bath and joined me in the suite’s main room wearing just a robe.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to check my wounds before we ate or after,” he said with more bravado than I was sure he felt.

“I’ll check them now,” I said, gesturing for him to come to me. “If you can stand for me to touch you.”

“I think I’ll make it,” he said with a sheepish smile.

It was a slightly Dom move, but Lucien followed directions like a perfect sub.

He shed his robe and stood patiently for me as I walked in a circle around him, checking his body.

He had some doozies as far as welts went, but it was nothing that wouldn’t heal and be fine within a week.

He winced and flinched every time I had to touch him, thanks to post-heat aversion, but he was a trouper in putting up with it.

Once that was done, we sat down for what turned into an all-too-solemn meal.

We chatted about mundane things. Lucien was excited about the upcoming Winter Games, especially since they would be contested on home turf.

He talked a little about his father and brother coaching him, and I read between the lines and came to the conclusion that I’d been right about the daddy issues.

There was a lot of tension there. Lucien downplayed it, though, and I trusted him to run his own life.

It felt like way too soon until we were standing in front of the suite’s door, our bags over our shoulders.

“Well, that was great,” Lucien said with a strained smile. “I had a great time.”

“So did I,” I said. “I’m definitely giving the DFC a glowing review for the auction format.”

“Oh, yeah, the auction was incredible,” Lucien said. “I’m glad they’ve decided to make it a regular thing.”

“Me, too.”

We stood there, just staring at each other. This shouldn’t have been so hard.

I cleared my throat and said, “Obviously, we both need a little time first, but, um, do you want to maybe, I dunno, go out sometime?”

“Yes!” Lucien said, blowing out all his breath like he’d been holding the question inside and desperately needed to let it go.

I nearly buckled in relief. “Awesome. Here. I’ll put my number in your phone.”

“Great.”

He handed me his unlocked phone, and I added myself to his contacts. When I handed his phone back, he called me, and I saved his number in my phone.

“Well,” he said once we finally made it out to the quiet hallway and walked down to the lodge’s lobby. “I guess this is it, then.”

“I’ll call you next week, once everything settles down a little,” I said.

“I look forward to it,” Lucien said, smiling at me in return.

We were cute and stupid. It was adorable and embarrassing.

And it was maybe the happiest moment of my life.

It was going to take a lot of self-control not to call or text Lucien way sooner than was reasonable.

It was going to take even more effort not to miss him every second of every day until I did.