Chapter Seventeen
Greer
I woke in the middle of the night and stretched out, expecting to find Tenn in bed with me, but instead, came up empty.
“Tenn?” I whispered into the darkness, only a light from the kitchen window illuminating his studio apartment. My muscles hurt from mucking up all the wet things and getting them out along with trying to patch up the hole in the roof with tarps.
It would take a while to get my house back to normal. Thank the gods for insurance.
“Hey, I’m here.” I looked in the direction his voice came from and saw him sitting in the chair, laptop on his thighs, typing away at something.
“What are you doing? It’s…” I checked my watch. “Two thirty in the morning?”
After flipping off the sheet, I got out of the bed and walked over to him. He set aside the computer and opened his arms for me. He coaxed me to sit on his lap, and I did, leaning my head on his shoulder.
“I was just catching up on some stuff that’s due Monday.”
I bobbed my head up, instantly guilty. “I’m sorry. I can go home so you can work.”
I made an attempt to move, but Tenn caged me in with his arms. “No you don’t, omega. I want you here. I just needed to get some things done. This time it has to be right.”
I curled back up onto his lap and stroked his chest. “Why? Tell me what’s troubling you.”
He sighed loud and heavy and lazily rubbed my legs. “I was a professor once. My mother happened to be the dean of the English Department where I worked—still is. I made a big mistake, or what she thinks was a mistake, before. I won’t make it again.”
“What happened before? By the way, I’d love to see you teach. I bet you make an incredibly sexy professor.” I reached up and kissed his neck but stopped, still wanting to hear the story.
He chuckled and then kissed my lips. “There was this kid, Angeline, and her dad was a big deal to our university. The library and every other building named after him. Anyway, she was in my class. She showed up maybe once a week and failed the tests. Never turned in her last paper, so I flunked her. She deserved it.”
“Sounds like an asshole. So you got into trouble?”
He nodded. “My mother was less than pleased and apparently flunking a class meant her father pulled funds for some new building. It was a mess. No one cared that it was the student’s fault. The only thing they cared about was the money and how I’d ruined it for the department. Next thing I know, I’ve been overlooked for a tenure position even though I had seniority. So I quit.” He inhaled deeply, and my heart hurt a little more for him. “At the time, I had no idea why they’d overlooked me. I thought I just wasn’t quite good enough, so I took the money I’d saved and flew to Paris. Didn’t come back to the States for a year. Then I worked here and there until I could leave again. I’ve been running ever since...until you.”
I looked up, concerned, straining to see his face in the lack of light. “Until me? I don’t want to anchor you, Tenn. I won’t be the reason you miss out on traveling or whatever you want to do.”
He turned his head. I barely saw the movement. “Don’t you see, Greer? This isn’t just some fling for me. I’d have you as my omega for the rest of my life. You’re not anchoring me, you’re settling me. I haven’t wanted that before, but now, there’s nothing I desire more than to be here with you, and for you, and taking care of you. That day we met walking the dogs was the best day of my life. I want to provide for you, keep you, and maybe one day…”
“Maybe one day what?” I asked, the biggest of lumps in my throat.
“One day we could have a family. A home of our own, with Shrimp, of course.”
I bet he couldn’t see the tears running down my face at the sincerity, the raw honest truth in his voice.
“Your mother was wrong, all of them were wrong to do that to you,” I said.
“You’re changing the conversation on me, love?”
I was. I had all the feelings for Tenn, I did. But did people really fall in love this fast? I’d been watching too many movies.
“We’ve only been out a few times.” I was like a teenager expressing my emotions for the first time.
He pulled me so that I faced him, straddling his hips. I heard a click and then we were illuminated by a Tiffany-style lamp at his side.
“Better. And I don’t know about anyone else. All I know is what I know when I see you. Your drive, your work ethic, the way you take care of the people at your shop. The way I come apart when you kiss me. I’ve never felt that before. I think about you all the time, even when I’m supposed to be doing other things.”
I tapped my finger on his laptop. “Like working.”
“Yeah, well, I kept looking over the screen to get a glimpse of you,” he said, shrugging.
“Well, I’m awake now and we have time to do whatever you want, alpha.” The word slipped so easily from my mouth.
“Your calling me that does things to me, Greer.”
“What kinds of things?” I played along, feeling his hardness beneath me.
“Stand up for me, omega. I want to taste you.”
I gasped but did as he asked, standing on shaking legs. Tenn reached forward and, in one move, pulled my shorts down and freed my ever-growing cock.
It bounced, begging for his mouth.
I stood there, not knowing what to do. The alphas I’d been with weren’t very giving.
“Come closer. I won’t bite unless you want me to.”
I shivered in anticipation. Tenn put both hands on my hips and guided me forward, licking his lips. Before I could process what was happening, he had taken me whole. His mouth was hot and wet, and I reached out and took his hair in my hands as he bobbed forward and back, every stroke bringing me closer to climax. His hands moved from my hips to my ass, where he kneaded the muscles. His fingers played between the cheeks until one of them put pressure on my entrance.
He pulled away with a pop. “So slick for me, omega.”
“I want you inside me,” I said, surprising myself with my boldness.
“Be patient, love.”
Before I could protest, he had taken me into his mouth again and drove his finger inside me from behind. My hips bucked with the pace of his mouth and I put one foot up on the arm of the chair, trying to get closer to him in any way I could. Tenn took advantage of the position and pushed two fingers inside me right before my sac tightened and I came, so hard my ears were ringing as I barely heard him say, “Get on the bed, omega.”