Page 30 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

On top of that, and strangely enough, watching the Winter Games with my new alpha firefighter friends made the whole experience a hundred times less traumatic than if I’d watched it at my place with just Boston and my mom.

Even though they were the two people I cared about most in the world, it still felt like watching my former life pass me by all alone at my place.

At the firehouse, I had a whole team around me who had nothing connecting them to that lost part of me. That was such a weird comfort.

“Ooh, that guy is really good,” Danny, one of the firefighters I met on the second day of staying with Boston said as we all squashed together on the firehouse lounge sofa, watching the finals of the male omega single’s competition.

I laughed and snuggled against Boston, who sat beside me with his arm around my shoulders the way I loved. “That’s Oliver Sagwa, my best friend.” And he was skating perfectly. I was genuinely happy for him.

“You’re best friends with that guy?” Dakota, the other half of the Double Ds, as they called themselves for some ridiculous reason, asked.

“Yes,” I laughed. “I have been for years. I’m actually friends with most of the skaters on the senior level to one degree or another. It’s a small world.”

“Wait,” Giovanni said, his large eyes going even larger. “Are you friends with Thomas Murphy? Can you get me a date with him?”

I laughed out loud, harder and deeper than I’d laughed in months.

I felt Boston positively glow with happiness because I was so relaxed and carefree for a change.

“Maybe?” I said, too giddy to tell Giovanni no outright.

“I mean, the skating season ends with the Winter Games, and even though Tom competes for Ireland, he lives just a few miles up the road from Barrington.”

“Really?” Giovanni looked like a kid on Christmas, despite his huge size.

“Yeah, Barrington, Norwalk, and Turnersville just up Highway Eighty have some of the best skating facilities in the world. Competitors from all over the world train here.”

“I didn’t know that,” Boston said, grinning at me like he’d found a prize and would hold on to me forever.

“It’s true,” I said. “That’s one reason my mother and father settled here when I was a kid. They were both competitive figure skaters, and they wanted to be the best among the best.”

Talking about my father threatened to put me in a bad mood, so I didn’t say anything else about him.

It was hard not to make some sort of comment, though, when Stephen ended up on the podium at the end of the night.

He’d only managed a bronze while Oliver won silver, which was incredible for him, and Wilhelm Strauss, as expected, took the gold.

There was a brief mention of me as the commentators speculated how I would have performed, if I’d been there, but they moved away from that to cut to an interview with my father and Stephen.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, standing abruptly without listening to a word my father said.

“I’ll come with you,” Boston said, standing as well.

That earned us a round of whistles and cat-calls from the rest of the guys, but as lewd as they were, I didn’t mind. More than that, I laughed, kind of enjoying the fact that they all thought things were about to get frisky between me and Boston.

The truth was that I wasn’t ready yet.

“You don’t mind that we’re just cuddling?” I asked Boston once we were tucked into bed, fully clothed.

Boston drew in a breath that was both him taking in my scent and a sigh of patience. “You know I want nothing more than to flip you over and pound you into the mattress,” he said frankly, a spark of lust in his eyes. “But I get that you aren’t ready yet.”

“I want to be,” I said, feeling stupid and self-conscious, especially as I caught myself subconsciously rubbing my scarred left arm. “It’s just that—”

Boston silenced me with a kiss. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. End of story,” he said once he had me turned into a puddle of bottled desire in his arms.

I laughed, but that turned into a painful sigh. “It feels so stupid for me to be so nervous about sex now when I have been a member of the Dark Fantasies Club for years and routinely got my jollies having alpha strangers fuck me raw.”

I felt a brief flare of possessiveness from Boston, but he let it go. We both belonged to the Dark Fantasies Club, and I definitely wasn’t the first omega he’d pounded into a mattress. I did, however, intend to be the last.

“When you’re ready,” Boston said, then kissed me again before we settled down to sleep.

I wanted to tell him I loved him. Those words were right there on my lips.

I wanted to say that I loved him, I wanted him, and that I was so much stronger when we were together.

I wanted to commit the rest of my life to him.

He was the only alpha I knew who would both love and cherish me and also give me all the encouragement I needed to take back the life I’d almost lost. He was the only alpha I knew who could do all that while engaging in raunchy, dirty scenes with me and fucking me like I was a possession.

But the time didn’t feel right. Not yet.

I waited for the time to feel right. I wanted it to feel perfect.

The Winter Games ended, the world moved on, and I continued to train with the firefighters.

Mom initiated divorce proceedings from Father, Marco called me a few times to accuse me of putting her up to it and blaming the destruction of our family on me, and I continued to live with Boston above the firehouse.

And I was actually happy, believe it or not. Better still, happiness came with inspiration.

“I’ve just had an amazing idea,” I told Boston one early-spring afternoon, after the guys had come back from a house fire and finished cleaning up.

“I love an amazing idea,” Boston said, striding over to me and taking me into his arms after putting his kit away.

He smelled amazingly of tobacco, smoke, and sweat.

I shouldn’t have liked it half as much as I did, but the scent was so powerful that it came close to overpowering my lingering self-consciousness about my body and sex. “Lay it on me,” Boston said.

“The firehouse needs money, right?” I asked, sliding my arms around his waist and practically rubbing myself all over him. I really needed to just then, like rubbing against Boston was the only thing that could ease the lingering itch of my healing skin.

“Always,” Boston said, his voice gruff with desire that I knew he was trying to keep inside.

The firehouse garage suddenly felt too warm. “And Giovanni keeps bugging me to set him up with Thomas or Oliver or any number of my other friends,” I went on.

Boston laughed, the sound making me feel light. “I can tell him to stop.”

“No, no!” I said. “That’s part of my idea.” When Boston looked questioningly at me, I went on with, “Firefighters and figure skaters. It’s a perfect combination. Fire and ice.”

Boston laughed out loud, holding me closer. “I never thought of it that way.” He grinned down at me like I was an ice cube he wanted to suck on and rub all over his overheated body.

I had a hard time concentrating when he looked like that, but I pushed myself on and said, “We could do a joint fundraiser, a Fire and Ice ball, or something like that. And part of that could be an auction.”

Boston’s grin was irresistible. “I wonder where you got the idea for that.”

I flushed hot. Yeah, it was definitely time for me to dive back into the sexy waters. “Gee, I wonder,” I said.

“It sounds like a great idea,” Boston said, shrugging one shoulder. “In fact—”

“You!”

Or increasingly intimate moment was cut short by my father, of all people. He marched in through the firehouse’s open garage door, ignoring the guys who dropped what they were doing in their post-call routine and followed him as he charged over to me and Boston.

“Father?” I asked, pulling away from Boston. For the first time since before I moved to the firehouse, anxiety raged through me. “What are you doing here?”

“This is all your fault,” my father said, shaking a rolled-up sheaf of papers at me. “You put her up to this.”

I knew immediately what he meant. “Mom is her own person,” I said, feeling hotter than ever. “If you’re upset about her wanting a divorce, you need to think about your own role in the whole thing.”

“Don’t you lecture me,” Father railed, apparently oblivious to the cluster of angry alphas that gathered behind him, ready to defend me. “You’re the one that stepped out of line here, not me.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said, genuinely confused.

“We are a family,” my father shouted. “We are a legacy. You’re the one who has refused to play his part.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, feeling oddly nervous.

“No? Then ask your alpha,” Father continued to rail.

Boston tensed beside me. It wasn’t a good sign.

“We were supposed to band together to be the dominant family in the skating world,” Father went on. “The fire spoiled your place in it, but you were supposed to marry your rescuer, have babies, and send them to me to train them to be champions where you failed.”

“Excuse me?” It wasn’t so much that I was surprised my father could think of something like that, it was the audacity of the way he would be so blatant about reducing my role to that of brood mare, and in front of my friends, that offended me.

“That’s all you’re good for now,” Father continued. “I know it, your mom knows it, the whole skating world knows it. Even he knows it.” He threw out a hand to Boston.

“Mr. Monteverdi,” Boston began, like he would try to calm my father down.

“Ask him!” Father shouted. “Ask him about our conversation the night of the fire, when he came to visit you in the hospital. Ask him what I offered him.”

A gaping pit opened up in my stomach. It was hot and sour and made it hard for me to catch my breath. I glanced at Boston, but along with the rage pouring off him, I felt way too much guilt.

“Ask him!” Father snapped again. “Ask him how much money I offered him to date you, marry you, and knock you up.”

I nearly threw up. “Did he?” I asked Boston, my legs feeling too weak to hold me up.

“He offered,” Boston said. “I refused.”

“And yet, here you are,” my father said.

I really was going to be sick. My entire body was hot as blazes and my insides felt all wrong. “I—” I gulped, backing away from both my father and Boston. “I need to go,” I said, then turned and ran for the open garage door.