Page 23 of Roommates' Alpha
He flushed. “I… kinda… demand too much of them. Sexually, that is. I have a high sex drive normally, and my heats can get insane. In the beginning, they’re usually all in. Sex is hot during that honeymoon period. But in a few months, they’re exhausted from work, and want to sleep, while I want them to fuck me into the mattress.”
I blinked, the answer wasn’t what I expected.
He sighed and snuggled against me. “Hookups give me what I need sexually, but are lacking emotionally.”
“Why not try to find something like Ryan has? Several alphas.”
“I think it would be easier to find a unicorn.”
“Maybe not. One of my other cousins, Jace, also has four alpha mates, and his coworker is also an omega with multiple alphas.”
“A man can dream…”
“Is that what made you move out here?” I teased. “Did you go through the potential dating pool in Chicago?”
He opened his eyes and lifted his head, his gaze meeting mine. For a moment I thought my joke had been a step too far, but a slow smile spread across his face. Then he relaxed against me again with a soft laugh.
“My job there was the absolute worst,” he started. “It was great in the beginning. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I was working as a receptionist in the editorial department at a national magazine instead of cobbling together a bunch of service jobs. I could make my rent and still have a few dollars left over at the end of the month…”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “New management, what else?”
“Ouch.”
He nodded. “Somebody up the ladder decided that the magazine wasn’t making enough money, even though all the earnings statements indicated that everything was fine. So they fired the old editor-in-chief and brought in a new man. That was when everything went downhill.”
He shuddered, and I held him a bit tighter.
“It started from the top,” he continued. “Department heads were increasingly on edge, then next-level managers. They’d walk past my desk into meetings, grim expressions on their faces. And when they left it was almost always with a look of embarrassment and rage.”
He shook his head. “And the yelling. I might not have been able to make out the words, but it was clear that the new editor-in-chief was quick to temper.”
I hissed in a breath.
Micah nodded. “Yeah.” He blew out a long breath. “I was oblivious for way too long, but eventually I realized that mistakes were being made, and the man at the top would do anything to shift the blame away from himself.”
“Yikes.”
He shifted slightly, and my cock threatened to perk up again, but he settled quickly and I was able to keep it under control.
“A lot of good people left,” he explained. “People considered some of the best in the industry. They saw the writing on the wall long before I did, and they got the hell out. But instead of seeing it as a sign of bad management, the people in charge started acting as if they’d been costing the magazine too much anyway. Things only got worse from there. People with less experience were put in positions of leadership, and under a narcissist who’d throw them under the bus if there was even a hint that he could be seen as at fault for something going wrong.
“And when leadership is like that, a lot of people start looking to pass the blame in order to protect their own asses. Soon it wasn’t just department heads being pulled into meetings, but people from all levels looking terrified as they were summoned to be screamed at.”
“And you stayed?”
He shuddered. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Sure, I could have gone back to making coffee and waiting tables, but I’d been desperate to try to hold onto my job. It was the first time I’d felt any sort of financial security, and I clung to it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Soon everybody walked around the place like we had a target on our back, because we did. It didn’t matter how unlikely your involvement with any particular problem. If somebody could find some tiny string to connect you to it and save their own ass, they would pass the blame and keep their job for another day.”
“That’s horrible. Were you safe?”
He snorted. “Of course not. I was accused—so many times—of failing to pass on messages for calls I’d never received. Or of not directing calls properly. Maybe an email had come to me instead of an associate editor, and I took too long to forward it, even if email logs showed only minutes between receipt and my forward.”
“Oh, Micah…” No wonder he’d left.