Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(38)
“My Lollipop,” he said, lips against my ear, tongue flicking out to taste and making me shiver.
We stayed like that for three songs, until my body burned and my chest was tight with a new kind of discomfort. Rake’s hands never traveled, although Leo’s did plenty until my skin was so hot, I was ready for him to peel me out of my dress right on the dance floor. When the third song ended and Rake leaned back, my eyes finally opened again.
His pupils were blown black and his tongue flicked out to graze over his bottom lip. I resisted the urge to lean in and steal my taste back from him, to catch some of his own. His chest heaved and he pressed forward once, let me feel the girth of his arousal against my stomach, and then he turned and dove between his two alphas. Caleb caught him in his arms immediately, and Cyrus was ready, taking Rake’s face in his hands and pulling their mouths together in the rough and demanding kiss of an alpha.
I twisted to face Leo who looked smug and aroused.
“Take me home,” I said, breathless.
Twelve
Lola
“…Yeah, but he’s not showing any of the usual symptoms, you know?” Zane mused to Betty, waving a carrot stick in punctuation. “Like, he hasn’t started wearing a pocket square again.”
“Whose pocket square are we judging?” I asked, pulling out the open chair at the cafeteria table with my coworkers.
My photos from fashion week had gone over great with the team, and we’d spent the next week replicating some of the looks—easy to do when I had firsthand knowledge. Zane and Betty pulled me into their tiny clique, completing my orientation at the magazine and digging for details of fashion week. I knew it had to do, at least a little bit, with them wanting to keep an eye on the successful new girl. Their attitudes were still supportive, rather than competitive or shady, and I probably had Cyrus’ determination to use the team as a complete unit to thank for that.
Betty and Zane exchanged a calculating look, and Zane shrugged briefly before Betty answered me.
“Cyrus’, kind of. I think his pocket square phase was just a fashion thing, but he does tend to get a little extra when he’s dating someone new,” Betty explained to me. “And now he’s about a month overdue for a fling.”
My eyebrows bounced. “You guys keep track of his romantic life?”
“Not intentionally,” Zane assured me. “Cyrus is just…totally lacking in subtlety when he’s fallen in love. He gets more than usually giddy about it all, and like…whistles? Buys us lots of lunches, brings pastries in the morning, that kind of thing.”
“Romance is his drug of choice,” Betty said with a nod.
“He’s…a lot different than most alphas,” I said, pushing my grain salad around in its bowl. The Stanmore’s cafeteria was a culinary wonderland, with several booths set up around the room, one entirely devoted to a rotating calendar of award-winning chefs.
Betty and Zane exchanged another look heavy with unspoken gossip before Zane leaned forward, pushing his tray aside to whisper across the small space to me.
“Their whole pack is totally bizarre. Like, an open relationship pack? With an omega?” Zane hissed. “Rakim Oren must get off on shutting down his alpha’s relationships or something.”
“He gave Wendy, what? Like, two months before pulling the plug on her and Cyrus?” Betty muttered, and Zane nodded.
My head reeled at the new information, this twisted up version of Rake and Leo’s pack. “Wendy and Cyrus?”
“Mmm. That was an explosive year at Designate, let me tell you. I swear I thought Wendy was going to cut Beauty altogether,” Zane said.
I tried to imagine laid-back Cyrus with brutal Wendy and was surprised to find it was kind of easy. It also explained a lot about the meeting I’d sat in on between them. And Rake’s nerves about how Wendy would paint him to me. I didn’t buy the way Betty and Zane were talking about Rake though, not after spending the week with him. Instead, I wondered what Cyrus was thinking, getting involved with his boss.
“Did Mr. Omega of the century hiss at you every time you looked at one of his alphas, Lo?” Betty asked, and Zane snickered.
I swallowed and tried to keep my expression neutral, even though I realized I really didn’t like my nickname on Betty’s tongue.
“I didn’t really run into them,” I lied, and hoped there weren’t any photos floating around of the party I’d been to on Saturday night. “And he’s…we got along okay, but I don’t know that I got a real glimpse of him in that setting and everything.” Lie. Rake was a sweetheart and I was already missing him.
“What was the pay like?” Betty whispered.
That, at least, I could boast about. I grinned at them both and nodded. “Extremely generous.”
“Well, we can’t fault him there,” Zane said, shrugging and raising his bottle of kombucha. “To eccentric omegas, and to Lola buying the first round of drinks tonight.”
“Here, here!” Betty cried.
I bit my lip as I laughed. Damn you, Leo, for being out of town. Where was my excuse to get out of this?
“You live in a shiiiiiit neighborhood, girl,” Zane cried, far too loud for the late hour. He was hanging out of the back of the ride-share we’d ordered from the club. His hair sat high on the top of his head in a ponytail I’d given him when he’d gotten sweaty dancing, and it swung forward, giving him the hysterical impression of bangs.