Christmas with His Omega Read online

  With Pierce’s legs wrapped around my chest, his ass on my belly, I squeezed his dick and licked off the drop of precum. Pure magic, an aphrodisiac, it went to my head. In another second, I had most of that hard length in my mouth, sucking and lapping away, grazing it with teeth while he moaned and gripped my hair. Not a mean trick with the almost buzz cut I kept it in for football season. All those stray thoughts, still mixed in with my memories of that night.

  As I recalled the salty, sharp taste of Pierce’s cock, the muscles in his legs clamping on me, the scrape of his short nails on my scalp, present-day me did what he usually did in an attempt to take the edge off. I fisted my cock, squeezing and releasing, rubbing myself off to the sensory tune of a blowjob I’d given long ago to the man I’d known that night was mine.

  Forever.

  As I sucked harder on his cock, as I palmed his balls and ran my fingernails over them, as he writhed and muttered nonsense, his cum poured down my throat, into my belly. Where I’d never before, or since, allowed another man’s cum to go. My present-day dick jumped in my hand, thick jizz spilling over my fingers and onto my abs, a sad tribute to the best night of my life.

  The night I discovered the man I was meant to be with.

  And the night before he left school, and town, never to return.

  Chapter Three

  Pierce

  I rubbed my hand over my dancing belly, dancing thanks to the gymnastics my wee one had decided to take up. Unlike when little sunshine decided to perch on my bladder, this I enjoyed. It sent this shiver of happiness and hope through me seeing my baby so energetic and, in my mind, joy-filled.

  When sunshine’s gymnastics routine for the morning had ended, I buttoned up my grandfather’s coat before heading out the door. True to my initial worry, it was ginormous on me. The sleeves needing to be folded more than once so I could actually utilize my hands, and the waist-long jacket almost hit my knees. It did button over my belly, though, with room to spare, which was a bonus since the night before had brought a coating of snow and falling temperatures.

  Grams had managed to get me in with her doctor for an initial appointment. I’d wanted an OB, but that seemed to be a nonhappening thing, the wait for new patients being almost a month. But that was fine. I’d been to Dr. Shaw in high school, so she, at least, didn’t have the stranger factor.

  The ride was a little more slippery than I had anticipated, not that I’d driven in snow in years. For all I knew, to locals, the roads were as good as clear, but by the time I got to the office, my knuckles were white from grasping the wheel so hard. Mapleville was going to take some time to get used to.

  As I walked up to the medical building, I took three deep breaths. I could already see the looks they were going to give as I told them that, DNA-wise, the child inside me wasn’t mine, and that I was unwed and unemployed to boot. Not that the looks had been any better as a surrogate. The couple’s fancy doctor had looked at me as a money-grubbing whore—neither part of which was accurate—rather than the pity-filled eyes over being the naive omega I could feel coming.

  The building’s parking lot had only a handful of spots left, so I was surprised to walk into Dr. Shaw’s office to find an empty waiting area. The nurse handed me a clipboard of more paper than could possibly be necessary. I sat down and dutifully filled the pages all out, initialing the highlighted areas and signing and dating over and over again.

  Most of the questions were easy—address, insurance info, allergies—but when it came to the questions about the pregnancy, they became less so. When the couple decided they no longer wanted the baby, many things ran through my head, like making sure they still were carrying my insurance through the birth, and if they could change their mind and up until what point, etc. Never once had I thought to get their family medical histories or even their racial ethnicity so when the papers started asking about them, I had far too many unsures to be comfortable. Although, I had a feeling if any of the couple’s background were indicators of potential issues, they would have already tested for them. Goodness knew they took enough vials of blood and had enough ultrasounds to do so.

  “Pierce,” the nurse called from the open door, my papers not quite complete.

  “That’s me.” I gathered my things and waddled to the door. “They aren’t all done yet, and I don’t know how to answer them all,” I confessed as I handled her the jumbled mess.

  She flipped through them before smiling back at me with a wink. “You did the HIPPA and the who’s-gonna-pay stuff. You’re good.”

  Glad I spent all that time worrying.

  “Let’s get your things settled into the exam room and then we can come out here and weigh you and get your sample.” She pointed to an open room.

  After I laid my coat on the exam table, I followed her out to discover that, yes, indeed, my baby was growing. Either that or I’d eaten one-too-many servings of spaghetti and gravy. And then the joyous peeing in a cup followed by the nerve-racking blood pressure taking. I never could figure out why they couldn’t do that after listening to the baby’s heartbeat, when Dad was all relaxed and not dreading all the what-ifs.

  “Go on and slip into the gown. I’ll be back in a few to listen to baby and then Dr. Shaw will be in for the rest.” She pulled the door closed behind her, and I slipped out of my clothes and climbed onto the table, using the half sheet they left on the end to cover up the rest of me. Not that I had any modesty anymore. So many doctors and nurses had seen all my bits by now that I might as well take up being a nudist.

  I looked around the room, and for the first time since I got back, loneliness slammed into me hard. I was here, alone. I mean, sure, people go to the doctor’s alone all the time, but when I first discovered I was an omega, I had envisioned I’d be doing all things like this with a mate, an alpha. Not any alpha, either. Rhone.

  I knew young love and first-time sex plays a number on one’s memory making them all feel like more than they were, but I loved him. It might have been young, foolish love, but it was deep and true, nonetheless. I hated my father for a long time for making us leave the way we did. He always had reasons for whatever crap he pulled, not that he ever shared them.

  “Knock. Knock.” Dr. Shaw spoke as she opened the door, clearly not worried about my reply. “Your grams said you were back in town.”

  “I didn’t know she had an appointment.”

  “Euchre, Pierce. I saw her at euchre.”

  Of course she did because that was how small towns worked, and there was nothing that would stop Grams from going to euchre. Nothing.

  “She does love her euchre.” I chuckled, the discomfort of being bare to my grandmother’s friend starting to flow through me.

  “I told Nurse Michelle I’d do the heartbeat today. I don’t get enough prenatal visits in here for my liking.” She came over, tugging up the front of my gown as she pulled the doppler out of some magical door I heard open and close but failed to see. “This is going to be a bit cold,” she warned before rubbing it across my belly, stopping as the thump thump became clear. It was officially my favorite sound.

  “Sounds perfect,” Dr. Shaw said before wiping the extra gel from my abdomen and setting the doppler on the counter behind her. She drew a tape measure out of her coat pocket and measured my belly from my pelvic bone up and smiled and nodded before smoothing the gown down and taking a seat on her rolling stool.

  “Things look good. Do you have any questions or concerns for me?”

  And I, being me, did. A thousand about how often to come in, how to preregister at the hospital, if she knew any doulas, which were generally a good idea from what I understood but almost imperative given the fact that I was alone, and everything in between. She was just as kind as I remembered her, and, proving my fears wrong, neither she nor her staff gave me one look of pity or disdain. Maybe a family doctor was the way to go in my situation. Not that Dr. Shaw would deliver my baby, but the on-call doctor would be the one no matter who I saw.

  �
�At this point in the pregnancy, I would like to see you every week. Who knows? Maybe we will have a Christmas baby.” She smiled to my cringing.

  I needed more time than that. Time to settle in and make a plan. Not that that was going to stop my little wonder from showing up whenever they felt ready to take on the world.

  “I’m hoping for a Martin Luther King Day baby, myself.”

  To that, she broke out in a full-on belly laugh.

  “That’s funny?” I asked, completely missing the humor.

  “Very. Given how big you are already measuring, and your height, I give you two weeks before you are begging me to induce you.”

  That was so not reassuring.

  “I’m going to leave you to get dressed and, when you are ready, you can head on out. Be sure to make an appointment for next Monday.” She started toward the door before turning around and adding, “I’m going to leave a release form on the counter as well so we can get your records. No need to redo tests you’ve already done.” And, with that, she closed the door.

  I hurriedly yanked on my jeans and shirt, thanking all the powers that be that my wearing a gown was only protocol and not because I needed a more thorough exam.

  By the time I walked out of the office, I was feeling far more secure about the way things were going to turn out than I had since they first told me I was going to get to keep my baby. With a little beat in my steps and the ten-dollar bill my grams had slipped me, making me promise to get lunch after my appointment, I wandered back to my car and drove to the diner. The, as in, the only one in town.

  It was between the lunch and dinner hours, which made the restaurant not the packed place of my youth. Oh, the times we hung out here. No, not times, time. Sure, I’d been here more times than I could count, but that time, the time I accidentally ran into Rhone and all things changed. When we sat and talked about everything and nothing until they turned the lights out and sent us on our way. That was the day he became more—everything. Little did I know that our time was going to be so limited.

  I walked into the warm restaurant, pulling off my coat as I entered, and was greeted with the greasy hamburger smell I remembered from my youth. Some things never changed.

  “Sit anywhere you like, dear,” the waitress called from behind the counter where she was brewing a pot of coffee.

  I walked to the back, to the booth I should be avoiding, the one where Rhone asked if he could join me all those years ago. I was a freaking glutton for punishment.

  As I approached the table, a mostly empty cup of coffee sat there along with a crumpled-up napkin. Of course I picked the table that needed to be bussed. Oh well, nostalgia, even the kind that was going to hurt, was worth the crumbs of another. I slid into the booth, my belly barely fitting, and laid my coat beside me, pushed under my thigh to help alleviate the slight nerve pain from my awkward position during my exam at Dr. Shaw’s.

  “Pierce?” The familiarity of the voice, the scent of amber, all of it flooded back to me as if my memory was coming to life. I was an idiot and should have sat up front.

  “Pierce.” This time his voice was more solid, and even though I knew I shouldn’t play into my mind’s fantasy, I did anyway, only it wasn’t a fantasy. As I twisted my head, Rhone came into view, and not the Rhone of high school. No, this Rhone had filled out in all the right places, not that he was ever skinny. And his beard. God help me, his beard had my cock forgetting we were in public. “Did you want to join me?” He huffed a forced laugh. Again, I was missing the joke until he sat across from me and took a swig of his coffee.

  I was at his booth. He was sitting in our booth in an empty restaurant. It was all I could do not to connect those dots to make a pretty little picture where we picked up right where we left off.

  Only, how could that be? I was pregnant with not his baby. No alpha wants that.

  Rhone

  I sat there at least five times a week, at the table where I’d had my one almost-date with Pierce, the day before the night “of” our one close encounter and the day before he left. Standing behind him, I noted the shaggy hair needing a trim, but still leaving a couple of inches of bare, tempting skin between the ends and the collar of his plain sky-blue T-shirt. It would match his eyes, I knew. Just like I knew, before he turned to face me, that his full lips would part to reveal the straightest teeth a guy who had no orthodontia could ever possess. And white. Still gleaming white. But a few fine lines at the corners of his mouth showed the years we’d been apart. Life might not have been easy on him, but the slight edge made him that much more attractive.

  No longer a boy, my first love had grown into a man. As I stepped forward and waved him over, so I could join him on the bench seat, unwilling to have even the breadth of a table separate us in a reunion that could go either way, I noticed something else.

  Why had I always pictured him as single? Why thought that when—it was never if, always when—he returned to town, he’d be available, as I was, and we’d miraculously pick up where we’d left off.

  Before he could make the effort to shift over, I made a fast hop to the opposite side and slid onto the other end of the curved bench, leaving plenty of room between us. The guy who’d put that bun in his oven wouldn’t be happy to find us cuddling at “our” special diner table. Reaching over, I grabbed my coffee cup just as Karyn returned with my burger and fries.

  “So, is your alpha coming in?”

  Those sky-blue eyes, more vivid than I remembered, widened, and he shook his head. “I don’t…” A long pause. “I am not expecting anybody.”

  “Karyn will get you whatever you want.” I gave the waitress, yet another of our high school class who’d stayed in town, a friendly smile. “Put whatever our old friend wants on my tab.” How could things have gone so wrong? I thought...I thought there’d been one of those once-in-a-lifetime things between us. Even if he hadn’t said good-bye, rumor had it his family moved suddenly due to his father’s shady dealings, and I’d always thought maybe he hadn’t had time. As to why he hadn’t tried to call, email, write… I tried not to think about that.

  Me, football player, contractor, all-around tough guy, and a romantic.

  I watched and listened as he bantered a little with Karyn, placed his order for a turkey on white and a glass of milk, and learned that she’d married Tom, the guy she went to the prom with, two weeks after graduation. She told him how she’d given birth to the first of their three kids right around Christmas that year then she noted his request and sailed back toward the kitchen where Tom, who had bought her the diner for their eighth anniversary, manned the grill. She went up on tiptoe and kissed him in the pass-through before wiping down the counter.

  “They look happy.” Pierce’s comment drew me out of myself and back into the moment. A moment when the guy I’d always thought was the love of my life sat opposite me, looking about five minutes from giving birth to another man’s child.

  I drew in a deep breath and steeled myself for small talk over a burger I no longer wanted. Pierce however, eyed it like he hadn’t had a meal in a week. I shoved it toward him. “Eat this.”

  “No, it’s yours.” But the last word was spoken around a mouthful of grilled beef. He chewed and swallowed then gave me a rueful grin. “I try to avoid greasy food. Gives me terrible indigestion these days.”

  As he polished off the burger and shoveled in the fries, I chuckled, unable to help myself. “And there we have the elephant in the room...or rather the baby.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, shoving the plate aside and grabbing the turkey sandwich as soon as it arrived in front of him. “You noticed, huh?”

  As if it was possible not to? “I’m very observant that way. When are you due?”

  The sandwich disappeared as fast as the burger, and Karyn returned with a big piece of chocolate fudge cake on a plate, topped with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, and set it between us with two spoons. “Careful you don’t lose an arm, Rhone,” she warned and left, disappearing into the
kitchen and into her husband’s arms.

  Pierce grabbed a spoon and pushed the sandwich plate out of his way. “Are they always like that?”

  “Karyn and Tom? Making out like monkeys?” I shrugged. “Well, not during the dinner rush. But they do seem to live the fairy tale. They work hard, play hard, and make out as much as possible.” He took a chance and scooped up some chocolatey goodness with the diner’s homemade ice cream. “They also buy out one of the fields around here, you know, freeze the berries and make ice cream all year long. Or at least until the berries are used up, usually around March.” Despite my emotional upset, I couldn’t turn down the richness and summeriness of my favorite combo. “April and May, I order vanilla.”

  “I thought it tasted better than the generic version the old owners used to have. The cake, too. They bake it?”

  I took another bite and savored it before swallowing. “No, there’s a bakery out by the highway now. Little place, but good. They sell to restaurants for quite a ways around.”

  “From the number of our old classmates I keep running into, you’re gonna tell me it’s owned and operated by Suzi Creamcheese, the home-ec queen.”

  “Suzi Crenshaw. We only called her Creamcheese, though I don’t remember why. Our class seems to be the one that stuck around, keeps Mapleville from dying out like a lot of the other small towns in the area. Most of us stayed.”

  “Lucky.” Finally, Pierce seemed to be slowing down, but it didn’t stop him from scraping up another bite of melted pink goodness before leaning back with a sigh. “Dammit. Gotta pee. Again.” He began to work his way off the seat, and, before I thought twice, I did what any alpha would do when in the presence of a struggling Omega.

  I leapt to my feet and held out a hand.

  Pierce took it.

  And then I did what no alpha should. Helped him to rise, steadied him on his feet, and then kissed him. Completely forgetting my true love was the omega of someone else. Because I’d waited so long for this, and it was everything I’d dreamed of and more.