Heat for sale

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Heath said, hearing the need for reassurance in his omega’s voice. “You’re safe here. I promise.”

“I know. Maybe I’m too safe.” He smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

“I mean, I feel caged in.”

“What will help with that? You have your phone. There’s this garden always at your disposal. If you want to go out on the town, I can take you. Or the driver can take you. At least until you start to show, and then I think you’ll be far too uncomfortable to want to leave.”

“You keep saying that.” Adrien tugged at his jeans again, adjusting the fall of his hoodie.

“It’s just the facts. I have some books inside about pregnancy and birth.

You’ll read them,” he said, pushing command into his tone, knowing that Adrien would respond to it the same way he had from the moment they’d met.

“What if they scare me more?”

“It’s better to know what to expect than to be taken unawares.”

“I guess.” Adrien tugged on his hoodie again. “This is… It’s…” He pulled at the bottom of it, and then finally huffed, tugging it off. His skin prickled with goosebumps in the night air, and his nipples hardened into pink nubs. “There,” he sighed. “I can breathe.”

Heath said nothing. He only looked at Adrien with meaning in his eyes, and finally Adrien’s head bowed.

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what you’ve been telling me about the clothes.”

Heath put a hand on Adrien’s back, his muscles leaping underneath his skimming touch. “It will only get worse. After the baby comes, once you’re past the critical first few days, clothes won’t bother you so much, and you’ll probably look forward to wearing them again.”

Some omegas didn’t like it, though, and continued to go nude at home for the rest of their lives. He didn’t think he’d tell Adrien that. Not yet. He seemed so shaken already. Heath wondered what Adrien would think of the other changes his body would undergo—the widening of his hips and the lactation, just to start.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Heath said calmly, keeping his voice low. He could sense Adrien’s reaction to that timbre in the way his muscles relaxed beneath Heath’s hands and the small shudder of arousal that went through him. “We’re going back inside, and I’m going to fuck you. That will calm you down. Afterward, we’re going to rest together and start reading one

of the pregnancy books. I’ll help you through whatever feelings come up about that.”

Adrien shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looking around at the rose garden in the darkness. Their scent rose around them with every small breeze. “Do you like roses?”

“Yes.”

“I do, too,” he said quietly.

Heath turned to the bush next to them, which he knew was full of fat pink roses with an orangey tip. They smelled sweet, but also spicy, and he carefully tugged a blossom free and handed it to Adrien, who sniffed it and smiled.

Heath placed his hand on Adrien’s neck. “The garden is full of them.

Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, we’ll walk out here.”

“Naked?” Adrien asked in a small voice.

“It’s up to you. I’ll be clothed.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“It’s the nature of things,” Heath stated. “But we’ll be naked together in your room.”

“I’ve never been naked outside,” Adrien said, hiding his face by sniffing the rose again. “Or in front of anyone but you. Aside from when I had the pictures made for the auction.”

“Not even in the dorm showers?”

“We have stalls.”

Heath had lived in those dorms as well, having attended the university twenty years earlier. The difference was, he’d been a randy alpha, and he’d brought plenty of willing omegas up to play. He frowned at his memories.

He’d been an awful, entitled asshole back then.

“I wore a robe in the hallway. My father always said modesty was important in an omega,” Adrien said quickly, as though to prove he wasn’t acting without reason.

“Of course,” Heath said. He threaded his fingers into Adrien’s blond hair, a shimmer of rage under his skin at the thought that any alpha might have ever treated Adrien as casually as he’d treated omegas in college. He pushed it down by reminding himself that was not the case and that Adrien had never been touched by anyone but himself.

He really shouldn’t feel so chuffed about that. But he did.

“I don’t want to be naked in front of Simon,” Adrien said. “Or anyone else.”

“I see.”

Adrien met his gaze again, his eyes bright with determination. “Who do you expect me to be naked in front of exactly? Your servants? Your friends?”

Adrien really had led a sheltered life if nudity was such a problem for him. Most city omegas were content to be naked in their homes. It usually meant they were more likely to get laid, and, if they were lucky, find a mate to build a life with. But religious families were different. Clearly, Nathan hadn’t cared at all that his baby was going to be raised by a conservative, sex-shaming man of faith.

He had such kind eyes. He heard Nathan’s voice in his head, a little dazed with remembered bliss even all those years later. I left the baby with him because I didn’t want to raise him. And, oh, Heath, I know he’s in good hands. His father had such kind eyes.

Leave it to Nathan to think of little but himself. Typically infuriating and selfish. And yet Heath had loved him anyway. Desperately loved him. Maybe he’d been a fool all these years ago to hope that Nathan had loved him back.

Still, if he hadn’t loved Nathan, then he wouldn’t be sitting here with Adrien, who was pregnant with his child. God, what an impulsive, beautiful, wonderful, probably stupid idea that had been. Now he just needed to calm Adrien down, keep him safe, and hope that…

Hope that what?

He shut down that train of thought. It was far too early for any hopes other than a healthy baby.

“You don’t have to be naked in front of anyone. I’ll find a robe for you, something light that hopefully won’t bother your skin, and you can wear that when Simon is around. How many people you see while you’re here is up to you. As for whether I want you to be naked with my friends? That’s no

Adrien swallowed hard. “Never?”

“So long as you’re with me, I will be the only alpha to see your flesh.”

Adrien nodded. “I’m nervous.”

“You were nervous in the cabin, and that turned out all right.”

Adrien touched his stomach, shivering in the cool night air. He sniffed the

rose again. “Can people see us?” He glanced back over his shoulder at the castle behind them. “From inside?”

“The only people inside are servants—all betas. But, no, this garden is built at an angle that makes it always just out of view from any windows.”

Adrien frowned. “But why?”

“Because I like my privacy.”

“You don’t get enough of that in this giant house?”

“This part was built on when I first decided years ago to court an omega and start a family. I intended it for my omega’s nest to gestate and birth our child. It simply took longer than I expected to find that omega.”

Adrien sniffed the rose again. “You didn’t court me. You bought me. At an auction.”

Heath hesitated, but his next words felt right. The heat crush had worn off, and in its place was his urgent desire to soothe his pregnant omega, and a small vibrant thread of hope that was sewing itself into his ridiculous, open heart. “Then allow me to court you now.”

“By fucking me?”

“Yes. By taking care of you.” He touched Adrien’s chin, bringing his gaze up. “By teaching you how to get through this.”

“All right,” Adrien agreed. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

“Do you want a choice?”

Adrien chewed on his bottom lip and then met Heath’s eyes, heat blazing there, and a bit of sheepishness, too. “No.”

“Then get inside. I’m going to fuck you.”

“Then we’ll read?”

“Yes. Then we’ll read.”

Chapter Thirteen

ADRIEN DIDN’T KNOW why he was so surprised that every word out of Heath’s mouth relaxed him, or that the scent of him sitting beside him on the bench left him feeling open and agreeable. But it did.

“Am I supposed to be so willing?” he whispered as Heath led him by the hand back into the cozy living area of the nest. He didn’t let go of Heath’s hand, following him as he used dimmers on the lights to make the room not so bright. Then he let him lead him to the couch and readily sat beside him.

“Pheromones,” Heath said. “Like with heat, but different. You’re pregnant with my child. Your brain recognizes that based on my pheromones.

That calms you. But fucking you will calm you more.”

“How do you know these things?”

“They teach alphas all of this. And remember there was an omega I bred who miscarried. But, in the early stages, before it all came to naught, he went through similar feelings.” Heath sounded ashamed to bring that up.

“Oh.” Adrien felt a nasty spot of jealousy grow on his heart. What was that about? The other omega was long gone. “You built this place for him?”

“No, I had another omega in mind.” He frowned.

Adrien studied him, trying to decide if he wanted to ask or if his jealousy would make it too hard.

“I could tell you about him,” Heath offered, though he didn’t seem to really want to discuss it. “The omega I had in mind.”

In a flash, Adrien decided. “No. I don’t want to hear about another omega that you wanted to make a child with.” He touched his stomach, thinking of the life within. “Let me pretend that you had this all built for me.” He smiled self-consciously. “It’s easier that way. I won’t be here forever, and it’s a nice fantasy.”

“You’re a sweet man.” Heath pulled Adrien close. “I want to feel your skin.”

“Yes, okay,” Adrien agreed. Then he flushed hot all over. “These jeans!”

he complained, tugging at the waist of them.

“Take them off.”