Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(64)

I pushed up off the couch and headed for the kitchen before I accidentally planted myself in her lap.

This was the issue. Lola might not realize it, but she thrived under care. I’d seen the way she responded to Leo and Rake’s attention, even the little brief attentions the rest of us were brave enough to offer. And as an alpha, I thrived in offering care. It was starting to drive me a little crazy not to pick the woman up and carry her into a nest for a good cuddle.

She’s not an omega, I reminded myself for the thirtieth time this week. And even if she were, I already had an omega. It maybe didn’t help that Rake and Wes were out of the country for a quick international photoshoot.

“Want one?” Leo asked, waving an ice cream coated spoon at me and nodding to the bowl.

I released a low purr as I surrounded his back, wrapping my arms around his middle and dropping my forehead to the back of his neck. I sucked in a deep lungful of my beta and released my breath slowly, resisting the urge to groan as I found Lola’s slightly tart flavor on my tongue.

“Hey,” Leo soothed in a whisper, stroking his hand over the back of my arms. “You miss me?”

“You know I do,” I said.

Leo sighed. “I’m sorr—”

“No, no I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, kissing his pulse and then releasing him, leaning against the counter to face him. “I miss you, but I don’t begrudge you or her the time you spend together. I just…”

Leo smirked and looked down at the ice cream carton. “For the record, I think you could be a little less careful around her.”

My eyes widened. “I don’t want to ruin this for you.”

Leo nodded and smiled. “I know. I appreciate that, honestly. But if this is going to work, it can’t be a lifetime of you guys walking on eggshells.”

“A lifetime?” I whispered. My heart gave a happy thump. Leo was thinking of Lola long term? Long long term.

I didn’t mind my pack’s tendency toward dating around; it didn’t change how we felt about one another. I was just less inclined to pursue physical gratification with strangers when I didn’t already have emotional groundwork laid down. Rake and Leo had been dating for three months before I got to know him well enough to realize I was as attracted to the beta as my omega was. And it had been Leo who’d given Rake and I our real introduction to one another. Rake had been afraid I’d try and tame and domesticate him, and I’d been afraid his emotions were too flighty for me to weather. We’d both been wrong.

With Lola, the attraction at the moment was more of a biological impulse. Take care of the vulnerable, nurture the one who needed tenderness. There were signs of a woman I wanted to know tucked away in the shyness—her wit, the moments of intense sensuality she revealed when she didn’t realize the rest of us were watching. If Leo was thinking of her as a permanent part of the pack, then I might have a chance to explore the interest.

“I…” Leo blushed, but he looked giddy too. Maybe he hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.

I swallowed hard and folded my arms over my chest to resist the sudden inclination to go running back into the den and start petting the poor girl and purring in her ear. I needed to be the opposite of a pushy alpha.

“I’ll try and be more…natural around her,” I said, and Leo beamed at me.

“She wants to be comfortable around you all. It’s happening.”

I nodded. “It just takes time. I know.”

Leo slid spoons into the prepared bowls and then wrapped his arms around my waist, our noses brushing. “Love you.”

I sighed, and my hands cupped his jaw, our mouths grazing softly together. I wanted more, but with Lola in the next room, it was not the time to start something with my beta that I wouldn’t get to finish.

“I love you too,” I rasped.

Leo leaned back, lips parted like he was about to speak, but instead he smiled and nodded, slipping away and taking dessert to Lola in the den. Cyrus walked into the kitchen as Leo left, his eyes slanted in a private smile as he moved to me.

“Struggling?” Cyrus asked.

“I don’t know why. It’s not like they haven’t had their share of relationships I wasn’t a part of, didn’t need to be a part of.”

Cyrus nodded. “Yeah, but Lola’s not taking them for a ride. This one’s more serious. I do okay with it at the magazine. She’s different there. I don’t see the cracks while we’re working.” Cyrus looked me over with a slower stare. “You need to get out for the night? We could go…for drinks? Find some music maybe?”

I shook my head and combed my hair out of my eyes. “No, I…I prefer to be here. Is that perverse?”

“It’s a little masochistic,” Cyrus said fondly. He stepped in close and I accepted his full kiss. “But I understand.”

I grabbed my own loaded bowl of sugar and cream and chocolate, and returned to the den with Cyrus close at hand, my eyes immediately turning to the bundled young woman in the arms of my beta.





“Can I help you?”

My head whipped around to find Lola hovering in the doorway of the formal dining room. Her hair was damp from a shower, but there was no mistaking the scents. Rake and Leo had kept Lola to themselves all afternoon. She was dressed in something a little sleeker than the usual woman’s standard of a Little Black Dress, a more contemporary and boxy silhouette, but the fabric leaned into her curves, giving away hints of her shape.