Page 3 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

CHAPTER TWO

Boston

“Bos! We’re out of soda!”

I sighed at the shout from downstairs and rubbed a hand over my face.

It was the end of the day and I was halfway through standing from my large, messy desk in the firehouse.

I needed to get out of there and head upstairs to my apartment, which was conveniently located on the fifth floor of the building that housed Barrington Engine Fifty-Five .

We also housed a Ladder and Rescue company, and lucky me, I managed all three of them and the knuckleheads that volunteered there.

Charming knuckleheads, but knuckleheads all the same.

“There’s another case in the non-essentials storage closet,” I called down from the loft that served as my office, heading for the tight spiral staircase that led down to the open area adjacent to both the garage and the staff lounge.

I had to twist my muscular, alpha body to make it around the curves.

The entire staircase must have been designed by an omega or a beta.

There were days when I thought it would have been easier to slide down the cliché pole at the other side of my loft space, but I saved that for special occasions.

“No,” Roscoe said as he came around the corner that led to the lounge and kitchen area, where my guys waited for a call or hung out between training sessions. “We’ve already gone through that.”

“You’re kidding,” I said with a frown, picking up my pace once I got to the bottom of the stairs and striding around the corner.

I had mixed feelings at the sight that awaited me.

The crew on duty, six young alphas with loads of potential, were seated on the beat-up old sofa Roscoe and Giovanni had picked up at some thrift store a few weeks ago.

Two of them, Danny and Dakota, who had struck up a fast friendship after the recruiting event two months ago and now called themselves the “Double Ds” without any sense of irony at all, had their hands wrapped tightly around videogame controllers and were swaying back and forth as digital explosions sounded from the TV.

The other newbie, Troy, and the only guy who had been around Engine Fifty-Five longer than me, Ernie, were watching them as they sat on either arm of the couch.

The lounge looked more like a college dorm than a place where alphas who could be called on to rush out and save lives and property at any second waited and prepared.

“Guys,” I said, holding out my arms and nodding to the pile of empty cans on the side table, and the floor, and the empty chip bags and other trash that had been strewn around the space. “This isn’t a zoo.”

A particularly loud crash and a metallic laugh sounded from the TV as the crew glanced up at me.

“Ooh,” Giovanni said. “Someone’s in trouble.”

“He’s got his big, scary alpha face on,” Roscoe added, not without amusement.

I arched one eyebrow to make that scary face even scarier.

“I need you to clean all this up right now,” I said.

“I’m about to clock off for the night and I’ve got a very important engagement tonight that I need to get to.

I’ll be out for the next couple of days, too, and I need to know I can rely on you. ”

None of the guys would be able to contact me until at least Tuesday, and they knew it.

The omega auction was tonight, and I’d waited ages to be accepted into the event.

I wasn’t about to cancel now because I had to babysit a bunch of college kids who should have been drilling rescue procedures or working with some of the virtual reality training equipment that the city government had recently given us instead of increasing our operations budget.

If I canceled, that would mean the omega I’d been matched with would be excluded from the event as well, and every member of the Dark Fantasies Club was champing at the bit to be matched up and accepted for an omega auction.

“Sorry, boss,” Troy said, hopping off the arm of the sofa and rushing to clean up the trash.

“Hey, kid, you call him ‘Boston’, not ‘Bos’, until you’ve been here long enough to earn the privilege,” Ernie teased the kid.

“Oh.” Troy said jerking straight. “I thought we were saying ‘boss’, like he’s the boss of us.”

I broke character and laughed. “I am the boss of you,” I said, moving over to help pick up soda cans for the recycling bin. “And contrary to what this old man says, I don’t mind if you call me ‘Bos’.”

The younger guys relaxed a little and laughed like they weren’t certain whether they should. They got up, though, and together we all worked on tidying up.

“Whatever your name is,” Roscoe said, moving to the fridge, “we need more drinks.”

“And snacks,” Danny added sheepishly. “We’ve eaten almost all the snacks.”

“Already?” I asked. “Don’t your mamas and papas feed you boys at home?”

The younger ones laughed. The older guys shook their heads.

“It’s time to ask for another funding increase,” Ernie said as he leaned back on the kitchen counter to watch the newbies do most of the cleaning up.

I sighed and rubbed my chin. “I already asked for a funding increase from the mayor’s office last week. I was turned down and told that we need to fill any funding gaps for non-essentials on our own.”

“Snacks are essentials,” Dakota said in a grave voice.

That made me smile. The newbies might have been a handful, but they were sweet.

“I heard the city is thinking of consolidating engine companies so they can stretch the budget farther,” Roscoe said with a frown.

“It’s not gonna happen on my watch,” I insisted, but I couldn’t back that up.

“Oh! I know what kind of fundraiser we could do,” Danny said, brightening. He waited for someone to ask, and when no one did, he went on himself with, “We could do one of those beefcake firefighter calendars.”

I glanced to Roscoe and rolled my eyes, but the newbies all seemed to think it was a great idea.

“I want to be Mr. January,” Troy said with a toothy grin.

“Most people put up calendars and then forget about them for the rest of the year, so I’ll be on some cute omega’s wall while they put their Christmas toys to good use all year long.

” He winked and did a slight pelvic thrust just in case any of us didn’t get what he meant.

“I don’t know about you,” Danny said, “but I think we should do one of those firefighters and puppies calendars.”

The others moaned. I would have moaned, too, but unlike them, I didn’t have time.

“I won’t say no to the calendar idea outright,” I said, starting toward the side of the lounge where the doorway that led to the downstairs hallway of the building stood, “but I’m definitely not jumping to say yes either.”

“Aw, come on, boss,” Dakota said with a wide smile. “You’d look great in a calendar. I’m sure a ton of omegas, and betas, and probably some alphas, would love a picture of you all oiled and wearing nothing but your helmet.”

The guys laughed and I laughed with them.

Little did they know that my profile pic for the Dark Fantasies Club app was pretty much exactly what Dakota had just described.

Granted, I felt a little silly about the pin-up-worthy photo I’d somehow thought was a good idea to use for the DFC app, but it meant I usually had inquiries from half a dozen omega subs in my inbox at any given time. It must have been the helmet.

“I’ll think about it,” I said as I reached the door and grasped the handle.

“In the meantime, I don’t want you all playing video games all night.

You might be volunteers, but you’re here to work.

That means training and procedure as well.

I don’t want my team to fall short if we get a serious call, especially while I’m not here. ”

“Gotcha, Bos,” Roscoe said, thumping my back. He was joined by a chorus of agreement from the others.

“You won’t be able to reach me for the next few days, so Ernie is in charge, understand?”

“Yes, boss,” the younger guys said.

I softened my demeanor and smiled as I said, “Have fun.”

“You, too,” Roscoe called after me knowingly as I left.

I grinned as I strode to the elevator and headed up to the fifth floor.

Roscoe was one of my closest friends and one of the few who knew exactly what I did during my leisure time.

I’d even taken him along to a DFC event once, when they were having a recruitment drive, but as much as he liked sex, Roscoe had come to the conclusion he wasn’t really kinky.

I definitely was. So much that I sometimes surprised myself.

I was a classic Dom. I liked fucking submissive omegas.

I liked pulling strong emotions from them, whether whimpers of pain or sobs of humiliation.

All of it consensual, mind you. I took the whole “safe, sane, and consensual” thing very seriously and I hated to see suffering outside of a scene.

But if an omega was willing to go there, I wanted to go there all the way with him.

I showered quickly, resisting the urge to rub one out under the hot water, since just thinking about the night ahead had made me hard. I liked the sense of self-denial I stepped out of the shower with. It would make the night’s scene that much sweeter.

Out of the shower, I dressed in the nicest suit I had.

The acceptance email I’d received about the omega auction a few weeks ago had included instructions for how to dress and what the overall theme of the scene would be.

The theme of this particular auction was mafia party.

All of the alphas were requested to dress like mob bosses, whatever we thought that meant, and to come up with some scenario for our play that put us in the role of mafia kingpins who were out to have a good time.

I could definitely do that. I’d spent the last week daydreaming about my character and what my relation to the omega I would “buy” would be. We were going to have a ton of fun.