Blake followed.
It wasn’t that hewantedto stay close to Pember, it was that every fibre of his being told him heneededto.
Pember was breathing hard as he pulled a glass from the cupboard. Water sloshed out when he turned the tap up to max, drenching his hand. He chugged a whole glass. And then another. And was about to start on a third when Blake squeezed his arm.
“Easy,” he said, kissing the nape of his neck. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Pressing himself against Pember’s back, Blake felt drunkenly irrational. Like being separated from the omega for even a second would cause him to burst into flames. Tugging Pember’s hips back, he ran his knuckles up his sides and over both arms. The soft skin of his triceps pebbled, and he could see Pember’s eyes drifting shut in the reflection of the window.
It felt like magic, having the omega in his arms, and Blake couldn’t stop touching him. He couldnotstop touching him.
Pember let out a quiet whine, the fabric of his tennis shorts bunching around his arse as he pressed back against Blake’s groin. Blake’s chest rumbled, his hand sliding down Pember’s belly until it was between his legs. He was hard. They both were. In fact, Blake had been hard all night and nearly all morning.
“Blake…” Pember moaned, and it was the most sensual thing he had ever heard. It took his breath away, making him shiver as he tugged his hand from between his legs and planted it on the worktop.
Dipping his head, he pressed his face into Pember’s hair. He smelled like sex, like heat, like laughter and silly conversations in the middle of the night. He smelled likehis.
“Come back with me,” Blake whispered.
Pember groaned and turned his head, their cheeks sliding together. “What?”
“When the doctor arrives, will you come home with me?”
Pember huffed out a laugh. “What about work? There’s still a murderer on the loose.” His voice cracked as his hips tipped back, arse grinding against Blake’s cock.
He grinned as he bit Pember’s earlobe. “I’m sure Mark can handle it.”
There was no way in hell he’d be able to explain his absence to the inspector. They were unmated, and they were colleagues, but he was willing to try any number of different cover stories if it meant he could have Pember to himself for a couple of days.
Pember let out a breathy laugh and dropped his head again. “Are you doing that on purpose?” he whispered.
Blake planted kisses all across his shoulders, inhaling the omega’s scent. It was growing stronger by the second, sticking to his nostrils and coating his lungs. “Doing what?” he groaned back.
“Th-that. With your voice. It’s—” Pushing onto his tiptoes, Pember arched his back. He was breathing hard, and whenBlake’s hand drifted to his thigh, his fingers slipped beneath the hem of his shorts. He palmed the curve of his arse, the pad of his thumb brushing over the slippery wetness of Pember’s slick as it dampened his underwear.
“It’s stroking my brain,” Pember continued. “You were doing it in the night. I-it feels really good, and I—oh, fuck—” The words turned breathy, and his wet pink tongue came out to lick his lower lip. “Blake I… I’m going into heat.”
Blake stilled. “Yeah.”
There was a moment where they both held their breath, and Blake could practically hear the cogs in Pember’s brain working. Like he was strategising his next move in a game of chess.
But then, his body stiffened and the seductive scent took on a sharper edge. Pember gently placed the glass on the draining board. His hand was shaking a little, which could have been mistaken for arousal, but the way his eyes darted around the room suggested something else entirely.
Anxiety.
Blake tensed, the haze of lust melting away in the face of Pember’s unease.
Unease because of me.
It was difficult to disentangle his brain from the blanket of desire, but, letting out a long breath, Blake removed his hand from Pember’s arse and detached the other from the countertop. He lingered behind him for a moment, eyes drifting shut as he took one more long inhale of his hair. Then, he stepped back.
Tension was written in every line of Pember’s body. His back, his shoulders, his arms. Even as he turned, the rigidity in his jaw was at odds with the flush of his skin. The animal part of Blake only registered the biological tells—Pember’s dilated pupils, the way his lips darkened, how his shorts strained over his engorged cock. But that was the omega part of him. The Pember part, the part Blake cared about the most, looked worried as hell.
“It’s okay,” Blake whispered, slowly backing away. “It’s okay, Pem. I’ll—you?—”
The back of Blake’s legs bumped something, and he almost fell backwards into Val’s glass coffee table. Realising he was still standing between Pember and the front door, he quickly rerouted to hover next to the fireplace.
“Can I do anything?” He mentally berated himself. “I mean, do youneedanything?”
