39. Resa

Chapter 39

Resa

M y cell phone taunts me.

I tucked it in a drawer, even turned it off before I stuffed it in there, wanting to bury it from view, to pretend it wasn't there.

I'm tempted to call Mom and Dad, to let them know where I am. But they wouldn't stay away, and I'd be putting them at risk. Until Nathaniel Lang and O'Brien are rotting in jail, it's not safe to go home.

I've also been thinking about calling Henry.

Not to yell at him.

Okay, maybe not only to yell at him.

It's hard not to feel betrayed that I disappeared and he just moved on. Maybe he tried to find me or he thought I was dead. That doesn't chase away the anger, though.

Did he wait?

No. That's not the first question I'd ask him.

When did he move on? Immediately? A week later? A month? Or a year?

I have the phone in my hand and I'm dialing his number before I've solidified what question I intend to ask.

The phone rings twice. I wait for it to click to voicemail so I can do the smart thing and leave a message for him or hang up instead of screaming down the phone like I'm about to.

Click .

"Hello?"

I freeze, phone clamped to my ear, heart thudding in my chest.

You weren't supposed to answer. You were supposed to be at work.

"Hello? Who's there?"

My palms sweat as I cycle through all the questions circling my mind.

When did you move on?

No .

Did you ever love me?

I open my mouth.

"Who is it, Henry?" a female voice drifts from the other line, with a soft intimacy that makes it clear this isn't just a woman stopping by.

Emily.

Henry is engaged. Did they take the day off together to plan their wedding? Is that what I'm interrupting?

I scramble to my feet and sprint across the room. As I wrench the window open, I throw the phone out, slamming the window shut the second it's left my hand.

And I stand there, hands clenched into fists.

"Don't cry, Resa, don't you dare fucking cry." But my voice breaks and I tip my head back, blinking rapidly to chase the tears away. If I start, who knows when, or even if I will ever stop?

I need to kick something. Or punch something.

I even look around. But I'm in an elegant bedroom decorated in shades of gray. The only thing worth kicking is the door or the wall and that's far too likely to break my toe than break through my need to cry.

Vaughn's offer rings out in my head.

"The drums," I whisper.

Scrubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands, I walk out of my room, head down, on a mission.

I grind to a halt in the doorway, so suddenly the door smacks me in the back when it swings shut. I barely feel it. My gaze is on the man in black drumming.

It's on the tip of my tongue to yell at him for standing me and Blaine up for self-defense practice, but I can't seem to care about that now.

My mind is in the past. It's on Henry and what would have happened if I hadn't gone to the wrong heat clinic. How different would my life have been then?

"Resa?"

Vaughn stopped drumming when I wasn't paying attention.

He knows Henry moved on. They all do. It's humiliating that they know as much as they do. No one wants to be replaceable, and that's what I am.

I swallow the lump in my throat and hope I'm doing a good enough job of hiding how close I am to crying. "You said I could?—"

He offers me the sticks before I've finished speaking.

I cross over to him, take the sticks, and I beat the shit out of the drums while perched on his lap. I don't give a fuck about rhythm or accuracy. I don't even care if Vaughn is secretly laughing at how bad I am. All I want is to get this pain in my heart out , and what better way to do that than through violence?

My cheeks are wet when Vaughn takes the sticks from my loose grip and tucks my face against his neck, wrapping his arm around me. There's no funny business or flirtatious behavior. He just hugs me.

"You're positive you don't want him dead?" he asks. "I've always wanted to take someone out with a throwing star."

Sniffing, I shake my head and lean into his hug.

"Anytime you want to come down here, the drums are yours, okay? This bit of kit saw me through one of the toughest periods of my life."

I pull away so I can look at him. "Violet died. Henry just…"

He frames my jaw, one thumb gently thumbing away the moisture from my cheeks. "Loss is loss, beautiful. And grief, no matter the reason, still hurts."

When he's not trying to make me laugh, sometimes, he has this ability to say the exact thing I need to hear. "Thanks, Vaughn."

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and his touch lingers. "Any time."

We're too close.

Way, way too close for him to be looking at me with the tenderness he is.

I push myself up from his lap. "I should go. Thanks for the drums, and sorry for making your ears bleed. It really helped."

His hand snags mine in a loose, easily breakable grip, gently squeezing. "Or you could stay?" he suggests.

"No, I can't."

I should be grieving Henry, not… whatever the hell I'm doing now.

"Okay." Vaughn surprises me with his easy acceptance.

I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved he's letting me go just like that, but I need to leave, so I walk away. Feet from the door, I grind to a halt.

Vaughn is drumming. He's also singing. His singing voice is deep, a little husky, but real. Raw . The song is cheerful and familiar. I've heard it before, only I can't remember where or even when. But I like it.

"What are you doing?" I ask with my back to him.

He pauses his singing. "Serenading you."

I briefly shut my eyes and then turn to look at him. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. "Why?"

"You're sad. Bad Moon Rising was the first song I learned to play. It put the biggest, stupidest grin on my face. Maybe Creedence will make you want to smile too." His amusement fades. "And Resa?"

"Yeah?"

"You're worth waiting for. You have three men under this roof who would wait forever for you." He salutes me with a stick before he resumes serenading me.

I mean to walk away .

I even take two steps and then I stop.

The thought of walking away from a man who has made it his mission to make me smile, and who is serenading me on the drums—something I didn't even realize was a thing until now—is a man I don't think I can walk away from.

I swing back around.

His expression is amused as I walk back to him. It becomes heated the closer I approach. As if he knows exactly what I intend to do. I'm inches away when he surges to his feet and tosses his sticks aside.

I walk right into him, grip him by the front of his shirt, and kiss him.

Maybe I shouldn't, but I don't care. I slide my arms up his chest and around his shoulders, my eyes slamming shut as I part my lips for his tongue to sweep in.

Vaughn groans, arms winding around me a split second before he drags my body flush against his.

I lose myself in sensation, rising to my tiptoes as each sweep of Vaughn's tongue against mine chases away all other thoughts but need. His hands rove my back, my hips, my waist, and my ass. When I feel him hardening against my belly, I break away, breathless. My lungs are starved of air, but my fingers itch with the need to drag Vaughn back for more.

"This is not a good idea," I gasp.

"No," he agrees, one corner of his mouth kicking up in a grin, "What is a good idea is me carrying you up to your room, laying you out on your bed, and showing you how that jackass should have been treating you all along."

I lift my chin. "And how is that?"

His turquoise gaze skates over me, and his smile is pure, carnal need. "Like you deserve the best of everything."

"I shouldn't let you."

His smile grows as his hand cradles my right hip and he pulls me close, his cock nudging my belly. "Shouldn't or don't want to?"

I hesitate.

He dips his head to kiss me. I put my hands on his chest and lean back. "The alphas might have a problem with this."

Hell, I should have a problem with this.

"The alphas do not have a problem with this," he assures me.

"I don't believe you."

Holding my gaze, he plunges his hand in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. He stabs a button and flips the phone so it's between us. The ringing is so loud, he must have put it on loudspeaker.

"Vaughn." Garrison gets right to the point. "Problem?"

"Resa is under the impression that you'd have a problem with me carrying her upstairs, stripping the clothes off her beautiful body and making her come apart. Literally."

My breath catches in my throat at the hunger in his eyes.

Garrison's tone was serious before. Steady. In control.

"How would you do that?"

It isn't any longer.

At his soft growl, my heart leap in response.

"Probably something involving my tongue." Vaughn steps closer, and I jump when he brushes his finger up my bare arm. "Me on my knees. Her hands in my hair and her pretty thighs open." He doesn't blink. "Something like that."

Garrison swallows. Hard . The sound is overly loud, though not as loud as the creak of his chair. Is he getting as restless as I am? Is the thought of Vaughn doing those things to me turning him on?

I'm ungluing my tongue from the roof of my mouth when Garrison's chair squeaks again.

"I might want to know that you were taking your time to make her feel good," Garrison says quietly. "That you weren't rushing, and you paid careful attention to every single part of her. And I would want to know how she tastes."

Why is his rumbling voice like waves crashing into rocks so fucking hot?

Vaughn's fingers go on another slow journey down my bare arm, brushing my hip.

I'm angling my head up as he lowers his, and as we kiss, his hand strokes down, cups my ass and holds me flush against him as he rubs his cock between my thighs.

There's no silencing my moan from that delicious friction.

A heartbeat later, there's that creak again.

Garrison is still on the phone. Still listening. Still… restless from that leather squeaking.

Vaughn's mouth crashes on mine in a deeper, wetter kiss as I wind my arms around him, our tongues dueling, lips hungry. The taste of him overwhelms all the reason in my mind that warns me nothing good can come from letting things go any further than they have.

I don't realize I'm moving until the backs of my thighs hit something cold. Hard. Leather? I break the kiss.

He winks at me. "Didn't want to wait any longer."

I turn around, taking in his drum seat as he urges me down onto it.

As promised, he drops to his knees in front of me.

"You can't be serious," I breathe, making no move to actually stop him. And I am positive Garrison is still on the other end of the phone that Vaughn set aside.

"Me on my knees." Vaughn grips my thighs, pressing them apart. "These open." He rolls the fabric of my skirt up my bare legs as his gaze dips. "And hands in my hair. You have permission to yank if I'm not doing enough to please you."

My breath is in my throat. Stuck there. Absolutely refuses to go any further as Vaughn's head lowers and his lips touch my inner right knee.

"Vaughn," I whisper.

I should not be letting him do this to me.

Deliciously slowly, his hands stroke up, palms brushing fabric aside, and lips trailing after.

He presses a hot kiss through my panties. My hands are in his hair. Tight. Not dragging him away or moving him closer. Yet. I want to see what he will do next.

He walks his fingers up my outer thighs, and I nearly laugh when his fingers tighten. He pulls. My ass slides forward across the hot, black leather and he drags his tongue over my pussy.

"Oh, God." I pant. "Do that again."

He's smiling as he drops another kiss on me right over my panties as a gruff voice, hoarse and a little pained, demands, "Do what again?"

My eyes fly to the phone on the floor as Vaughn nudges the edge of my panties aside and his tongue flicks.

My fingers clamp in his hair, my hips roll, and I moan. " Oh ."

All thoughts about phones, about eavesdropping alphas, and about how Vaughn eating me out on his drums is something I should not be letting happen go out of my mind.

I simply let myself feel.

"You taste," Vaughn's tongue drags over me, and I whimper, "like sweet ambrosia, wild honey and so fucking perfect, you are making me want to feast."

I angle my head up, eyes fluttering closed, soaking in pleasure.

Some soft, unidentifiable sound reminds me of the phone. Of the alpha listening. Of the creak of leather as he moves about in his chair. What is he doing? Is he listening with the phone clamped to his ear? Or has he put his phone on loudspeaker to do… other things?

My mind flashes back to the dream I had of him and the reason I couldn't look him in the eye during breakfast.

"Do you know, bloodthirsty omega, that you have an alpha listening to those delicious moans with one hand on the phone, and another around his cock wishing he had his tongue where I have it?" Vaughn murmurs his soft question over my core, his breath hot.

The phone is quiet. Vaughn is just saying that.

"No," I deny with a gasp.

"Yes," Garrison's voice comes a split second later.

Vaughn licks and sucks, groaning as he drags my pussy closer to his mouth. All I can do is dig my heels into the ground with my legs splayed open as he inches me closer to release.

Vaughn lifts his mouth and flashes me a grin. "Garrison would take his time, drawing this out." He kisses my inner thigh. "He'd take you right to the edge." Another soft kiss lands right beside my clit. "And he'd hold you there."

His head lowers. Warm air brushes my clit. "And hold you…" His eyes find mine and he winks. "I've never been the patient kind."

He sucks my clit right into his mouth, and it shoves me right over the edge into a climax so violent my head goes back as a scream pours out of me.

I come back to myself long minutes later. Vaughn is sitting in the drum seat and I'm straddling his jean-clad legs with my head on his shoulder. My panties are soaked. Vaughn's cock is a thick, hard ridge nudging my inner thigh, and it is taking everything in me not to rock.

I must give some silent sign that my brain is no longer fried for him to stroke a hand down my back and kiss the top of my head. "You okay, beautiful?"

I lift my head to look at him. My first thought isn't to kiss him, but the second my gaze connects with his softer one, I'm leaning toward him for a deep, luscious kiss, fusing us together. He breaks the kiss and looks at me.

His long blond hair is all mussed and disheveled from my hands in them, and he's the one looking lazy and satiated like he just came, not me.

"What?" I ask, when he doesn't speak.

"Just appreciating this feeling of having you in my arms. Watching you come like that was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life," he muses.

Snorting, I move to get up. "I bet you say that to every girl you?—"

His palm tightens on the nape of my neck, preventing me from rising. "I have said that exactly once before in my life. Just once. To you."

I knew this beta would be dangerous for my hormones.

Shit. The phone.

My eyes snap to the floor, and I struggle to believe that wasn't the first thing I thought to check after my climax.

The screen is black.

Amusement warms Vaughn's voice. "There's only so much a man can take of listening to the moans you were making. I imagine he's standing under a very cold shower right about now, trying to get the image of you coming on my tongue out of his mind."

"And do you think he's succeeding?" My mouth is dry, a counterpoint to how very wet my panties are.

"You think any man in the world can get an image like that out again? That's ingrained." He kisses me. "Core memory kind of stuff."

I laugh. "Core memory?"

"Ten years from now, ask him. He'll remember."

Ten years.

My entire life changed so completely in two years, it's terrifying to think what my life could be in ten.

Vaughn kisses me again, distracting me from the dark thoughts circling my head. "Want me to carry you up to your room?"

"You keep trying to carry me around," I complain, looping my arms around his shoulders, in no hurry to move. "I'm not a bag."

"I do not intend to carry you around like a bag. I promise you that." He winks and I smile.

I search his face, conscious he made me climax but hasn't done the same. "And will you stay in my room after you carry me up?"

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "If you want me to."

"And if I don't?" I do, but I'm not sure I should be jumping into bed with anyone in this house when I'm not planning on staying. This isn't home.

"Then I won't." He gathers me in his arms, and I yelp in surprise when he stands. "I said three men would wait forever for you, beautiful. You need to learn to listen."

"I can walk."

"But you don't always have to. You have me."

I look away, pretending that soft admission didn't just arrow right into my heart. "I don't need you to function as my legs, Vaughn."

He hums as he walks out of the gym, his hold on me secure. "Are you sure? I see a happy future as your?—"

I kiss him because he makes it impossible not to.

His steps slow as he returns the kiss.

Breaking it far sooner than I want to, I meet his gaze. He looks at me like someone just gave him the thing he wanted for Christmas. Not spoilt kid on Christmas morning. This is something else.

"Okay," I say softly. "You can carry me up to my room. This time."

"I won't drop you if that's what you're worried about," he promises. "I told you I'm good with my hands and what I'm carrying is priceless."

This man…

It would be far too easy to fall for a man like Vaughn.

"I know you won't."

That isn't why I'm against it. It's about not wanting to look weak. And it's about not wanting to get used to this treatment when it won't last.