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“No.” Brooklyn, Maverick, and Hudson all chorus at the same time. Mason has leaned back against the couch and looks to be contemplating it. At least he’s back to thinking level-headedly. Though with all the others so firmly behind the restraining orders, I’m not sure his sensibility will sway anyone this time.
“I’ll call Renee.” Maverick’s phone is already back out and to his ear before he’s finished talking. He gets up, kisses Mason on the top of his head, and walks out of the room. Hudson, clearly still letting the nerves and stress eat at him, lifts me, kisses my head just as Maverick did to Mason, and follows after him.
“I’m calling Carl about the building’s security,” Brooklyn says, leaving the room as well. Carl, the building’s front desk security. Apparently, they’re on good enough terms that she’s got his number. The thought makes me snort. Not that he’s not a good man. I really like Carl. But I guess I’m finding the humor in all this that they are not.
Overprotective alphas. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
Mason and I watch all the alphas leave the room, taking the stress and tension with them. When I turn around, Wells is gone, too.
“Sooooo. Here we are. All alone… What are we going to do?” The flirting and teasing in his voice makes me laugh.
“Actually, I did want to ask you for something,” I put a seductive kind of purr in my voice, batting my eyelashes.
“Oh?” Mason’s grin is near-feral, and he leans forward again, intrigued.
I get up from the couch I shared with Hudson and walk around the coffee table separating us until I’m standing right in front of him. His hands come up and wrap around the backs of my thighs.
“Mmmhmm,” I hum, yelping a little when he pulls me down to straddle his thighs. My hands dart out and hold onto his shoulders to steady myself.
“And what does my mate want? Anything her heart desires.”
“Anything?” I purr, massaging my fingers into his shoulder-length blond hair, pulling a little to tilt his head up so his eyes meet mine.
“Anything,” he breathes, pupils blown wide with lust.
Gripping his hair hard in my fist so he can’t move, I lean in slowly toward his lips. A small moan slips from him. Centimeters from our lips meeting, I whisper, “Can I borrow your laptop.”
He licks his lips, ready for—
I practically see the record screeching to a halt in his head when he registers what I said.
“Wait, what?” He shakes his head in a daze, and when his brain catches up to the conversation, he laughs. “You’re the devil. You know that?”
I laugh and stand up. “I know. Can I, though? I want to go over some things from work, and I don’t have one.”
“Speaking of,” he says offhandedly, looking around for something, and stands. I follow him as he walks into the kitchen, muttering to himself about misplacing things. Anahamoment hits him, and he opens one of the kitchen drawers. “Of course, one of the bastards put it in the junk drawer.”
I frown and peek over his shoulder into the drawer. It’s a mess. “The what?”
“Junk drawer.” He points to it and rolls his eyes. “It’s a midwest thing. If you ever need anything: a screw, a Band-Aid, a ponytail. The most random thing you could think of for a kitchen drawer, it’ll be in here.”
Indeed, it’s a mess of random objects. Just with one glance, I see a deck of playing cards, mail, rubber bands, a pack of gum, and a singular condom. The grin he gives me is sheepish when I raise a brow at him. He just shrugs and pulls out the mail, shuffling through it before plucking out one with my name on it. “This is yours.”
“What is it?” I frown, sticking my finger under the flap and ripping open the envelope. Inside is a credit card with my name on it.
“It’s a card to the pack accounts. Didn’t Brooklyn tell you she’d ordered you one?”
“Oh. Well, yeah… She did, but–”But I’m not going to use it for a laptop,I think to myself.
“If you don’t buy one yourself, I'll just buy it for you.” Mason looks at me like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Look, I get it. I was the same way when Maverick gave me mine. You don’t feel like you deserve it. Like you didn’t do anything to earn it, and it isn’t your money to spend.”
I look away, not wanting to tell him that he just read me like a freaking book.
“That’s not how a healthy relationship works, though. Always keeping score. That’s your old pack talking, festering in here,” he says, tapping my head, “Don’t let them keep making decisions for you. You’re a part of this pack now, and even ifby lawyou weren’t required to be given access to pack accounts, the outcome would be the same.”
“I hear you, I do, but–”
“But nothing. Think about this for a minute: Brooklyn, Hudson, and Maverick have never had an omega. Never been given the opportunity to nurture someone the way their instincts are literally screaming at them to do. Maverick has me, sure, but it’s an alpha’s nature to provide for an omega. Theywantto do this for you. They need it.”
