Page 31 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Boston

Istarted after Lucien, but faced Mr. Monteverdi as I did to say, “Get out of my station, now!”

“I have every right—”

That was as far as the bastard got before Roscoe and the guys stepped in to physically escort him from the premises.

I would have enjoyed watching them give Mr. Monteverdi what he deserved, but I had much more important things to focus on.

“Lucien!” I called out as I stepped into the chilly, early-spring morning. “Stop! Please!”

Lucien did stop and whirl back to face me, but fury was in his eyes and flushed his face. “Was it all a lie?” he demanded, taking a step back toward me. “Was this all some sort of act organized by my father so he wouldn’t look like the asshole he is for tossing me aside now that I’m broken?”

There were about fifty things wrong with what he said and the way he said it, but that wasn’t what struck me hardest. Lucien was flushed.

He was emotional and not thinking rationally.

And as he stepped back like he would get up in my face and argue with me, the rush of his strawberry ice cream scent nearly bowled me over.

I quickly counted back. The omega auction had been roughly six months ago. Right on schedule, Lucien was going into heat.

“Stop,” I said in an entirely different, calm and commanding tone. I moved close to him and grabbed his upper arms, holding him firmly. “Take a deep breath. Center yourself.”

“Get off me!” Lucien snapped, trying to pull away. A second later, he blinked as realization hit him. “No!” he groaned, trying to wriggle out of my hold for an entirely different reason. “No, not now. It can’t happen now. I’m not ready.”

My heart ached and twisted inside me at the sudden shift in Lucien’s emotions. Panic rushed in where anger had been before, and along with the instinctive lust in Lucien’s eyes as he looked pleadingly up at me, I saw way more fear than I wanted to.

“You’re going to be alright,” I told him, tightening my grip on his arms so he could feel I had this. “We’ll go upstairs and handle things. The guys have already escorted your father out. They can take charge in the firehouse while we take care of you.”

“I don’t want this,” Lucien said sagging and trembling slightly in my grasp but not yet turning to me for comfort. “I’m not ready. I…what if I can’t with my scars. What if it changes everything.” He looked down instead of up at me, which was even worse than seeing pain in his eyes.

I wasn’t having any of this. A part of me thought I should have pushed the issue of intimacy in the last couple of weeks that Lucien had been staying with me and sleeping in my bed.

I knew we’d both been horny for each other, more often than not, but I hadn’t truly understood that Lucien’s fear and self-consciousness were bigger than his desire.

Now he was in heat, and whether he liked it or not, heat trumped any kind of fear.

I made an instant decision and ran with it.

“I don’t want to hear another word out of you, boy,” I said in a deep, almost threatening voice, leaning closer to him. “You’ll do as I say and you won’t talk back to me.”

Lucien snapped his head up and stared at me. I could see the conflict in his eyes as his skin flushed hotter. He wasn’t going to gleefully slip into playtime the way he had when I’d taped him up and taken him from his house, but there was a spark of acceptance in his eyes.

“I’m scared,” he whispered, eyes going glassy.

The man was going to break my heart. Every protective, alpha instinct in me roared that he was mine to protect and love and take through this heat as smoothly as possible.

My only regret was that Lucien had run out onto the sidewalk in front of the firehouse, and because of that, there were a decent number of people around who might have been alarmed if I’d scooped him up, thrown him over my shoulder, and carried him inside.

“Come,” I ordered instead, switching to take his hand.

Lucien gasped and lurched after me as I headed back into the firehouse, possibly because I grasped his left hand. I could feel the rough scar tissue against my palm, but it didn’t phase me at all. I’d already seen every inch of Lucien’s scarring, and I didn’t care.

As soon as we crossed through the station and into the stairwell that would take us up to my apartment, I startled Lucien by dropping his hand and pushing him up against the wall.

He let out a cry as I clamped my hand around the top of his neck, just under his jaw, and forced his head up as I pinned him to the wall.

“You are mine,” I told him, as in character as I could get with the possibility that someone might come down the stairs at any second.

“There’s no getting out of it, no escape.

You will spread your legs and show me that greedy hole of yours as soon as I tell you to.

No hesitation, no backing out of things. Do you understand?”

Lucien trembled under my grip, his skin hot and his eyes starting to glaze over. “Yes, Sir,” he croaked, squirming slightly against the wall.

An inner part of me relaxed. This would work. Playing would help Lucien get through his fears. We could deal with everything else once his first heat wave was done.

“Move,” I growled, pulling back and peeling him from the wall.

I pushed him in front of me, shoving him up the stairs.

Lucien scrambled up, and once he was a few steps ahead of me, I noticed a growing wet patch in the seat of his sweatpants.

I couldn’t help but grin hungrily. Emotionally fraught or not, knowing my omega was in heat had me hard and eager.

I wanted to strip him naked and worship his ripe body with my own, blasting any worries over his scars that he had away.

I wanted to mark him with my hands and teeth and paint him with my cum, and then I wanted to fuck him so full of me that there wouldn’t be room for anything else.

“Strip,” I told him in a dark voice once we were alone in my apartment.

“But I—”

“You heard me,” I said, pushing him from the main room into my bedroom. “I want every inch of your sweet omega skin exposed to me.”

“Please,” Lucien said, tears forming in his eyes that may or may not have been part of the scene.

“Do you want me to do it for you?” I demanded, moving in on him and cornering him by the side of the bed.

Lucien whimpered as I grabbed a handful of his shirt and wrenched it up over his head. There was as good a chance as any that he actually did need me to help him get naked so he could work through his fears.

I played along, diving deep into character, and tore his clothes from him.

The way he burst into tears and tried to shield his body from my view was only half part of the scene.

I hadn’t realized how coy and careful he’d been about not letting me see him naked for the last few weeks, but that was all over now.

“All of you,” I demanded once his clothes were off and he stood cowering in front of me in nothing but his pressure bandages.

“I…I can’t,” he sobbed.

I had to think fast, assess what was really going on in my omega’s head and heart and whether I would be helping or hurting by demanding he reveal everything. It had to be done. Lucien’s scars were a fact of his life now.

“You can and you will,” I said, reaching for him.

Lucien panicked and fought a little as I pulled the sleeve on his arm off, then as I shoved him onto the bed and tugged at the bandage around his thigh.

For a few seconds, I was worried I had taken things too hard, but Lucien’s cock stood up rigid and dripping, and the wet patch that formed on my bed told me that we were heading in the right direction, one way or another.

“When I say I want you naked, I mean that I want you completely exposed,” I said, tossing his thigh bandage to the floor.

Lucien wept and squirmed, making a feeble attempt to get off the bed. Through the haze of whatever proto-bond surrounded us, I could feel everything from shame to lust, fear to determination, radiating from him. More than ever, I felt like he needed me to take complete charge.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said, grabbing one of his ankles and pulling him toward the edge of the bed when he flipped over and tried to scramble away.

He cried out and gripped the bedcovers tightly, but it was too late for him. The way I’d yanked him put his gorgeous ass on display for me. The left side had a bit of scarring, but the rest of it was a smooth, juicy treat that I couldn’t resist.

I smacked the right side of his ass hard, leaving an instant, red handprint.

Lucien yelped, his entire body jolting. My cock jerked against the front of my trousers.

Only then did I realize I was still wearing the thick, fire-resistant trousers that were a part of my firefighting kit.

That had me grinning as I smacked Lucien’s ass hard a second time. Didn’t everyone love a man in uniform?

“You will not run from me,” I said, slapping Lucien’s ass again. I loved the way it jiggled and shone with slick.

Slick now poured down Lucien’s thighs as he muscled through the last of his resistance.

I kept spanking him hard until he gave up his efforts to escape me and just lay there, face down on my bed.

It probably wasn’t a mistake that he’d naturally fallen into the omega mating pose with his hips up and his head down, his knees spread, and shoulders pressing into the bed.

He was a gorgeous sight, all red and pink and messy with slick. That sadistic part of me even loved the fact that he was weeping openly now as he lay there in surrender. Knowing everything Lucien was battling inwardly, it really was surrender, which just made it sweeter.

“That’s better,” I said, pushing my suspenders off my shoulders, then unzipping my trousers. “That’s the way I like my omegas, defeated and dripping.”

“Please!” Lucien wept and panted, moving his hips a little in invitation. “I need—”