Bethy rolls her eyes, but she hops off her seat, squeezing between Kade and Felix. Felix pulls both his daughter and his alpha into his arms, holding them close. They smell like home, like family, and he’s accepted here.
In return, they hug him, their arms firm against his back. Felix smiles and relaxes into their embrace, kissing them both. He’s found his home, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
Omega Teacher’s Baby
Description
Divorced and shamed for his infertility, Professor Dale Kinney has spent the past ten years proving his worth: by building a solid research lab in his field. With his tenure two years away, everything's finally going right... except he also has a secret.
Dale has a crush on his student—Greg Hastings. Sweet, straight-A alpha, and also the college president's son. Greg has been asking Dale out for coffee since semester began. And it's been taking all of Dale's self-control to turn him down.
Four years ago, Greg lost his best friend in a fire. At eighteen, he'd had ambitious plans: build a home, drive fast cars, live his life. At twenty-two, he's lost his courage to believe. How can he be there for an omega when he couldn't save his best friend? How can he promise anyone a future? The only things keeping him afloat—college basketball, and the cute, awkward professor in his classes, who sneaks glances at Greg when he thinks Greg isn't looking.
When Greg stumbles on Professor Kinney in heat, the spark between them explodes into an inferno. And despite countless failed attempts at pregnancy... Dale conceives. Dale refuses to abort the child. Greg refuses to abandon this omega. With the pregnancy an increasingly difficult secret to keep, will their slow-burning love cauterize their wounds, or burn them down?
Warnings: Discussions on death, accidents, past verbal abuse
1
Dale
Dale Kinney leaned into his seat, holding a cup of Colombian brew to his lips.
It smelled heavenly, rolling hot and bitter over his tongue. The coffee needed powdered milk and a ton more sugar—the jars were eight steps away, next to the coffee machine in his office.
But his chair was so comfortable right now, all smooth leather, and Dale would much rather relax before his heat arrived next week.
Rows of ring folders sat along the office shelves, ten full years of lab paperwork. Gold-framed academic plaques were crammed behind those folders, hidden from sight. Dale had thought about displaying them, just so he had something to prove his worth, but part of him still felt like he didn’t deserve those awards.
In the other corner of the room, a soft red couch was tucked against two walls, the sheet he’d slept on folded and hidden, so it looked as though Dale spent barely any time in his office.
He pushed thoughts of his empty apartment away, glancing at his email inbox.
Meadowfall Lions Trounced Highton Beasts. Greg Hastings named this season’s MVP! the first email subject screamed in bold, black words.
Dale’s stomach flopped. Why does he have to be in my email, too? But he clicked on the email title, holding his breath as he waited for the message to load. Surely there are pictures.
And there were.
On the very top of the email, right after the Meadowfall Lions’ logo, there was a full-color photo of Greg Hastings on the court, feet apart, basketball in hand, his black eyes fixed on something beyond the camera. He was probably about to shoot.
In that picture, sweat glistened on the tendons of his neck, highlighted the contours of his biceps. His jersey clung damply to his broad chest, his tanned skin gleaming, and Dale followed the lines of his body down to his powerful thighs, his toned, scarred calves.
Greg was twenty-two, a magnificent alpha, and the college president’s firstborn. And Dale couldn’t tear his eyes from Greg’s spiked brown hair, the intensity of his eyes, the full lips that pulled so easily into a smirk.
Dale gulped. He knew that mouth too well.
He shouldn’t be staring at pictures of his employer’s son. Especially when Greg was a student in his chemistry classes, and Dale was twenty years older than him.
But the damp valley of Greg’s pecs dipped past his jersey, and Dale remembered other pictures, when Greg had pulled his shirt up to wipe sweat off his face. His abs were beautiful, too, and so was the V at his hips disappearing behind his waistband.
Dale’s cock twitched. It had to be his hormones preparing for his heat.
Or maybe not, his mind whispered. Greg’s been trying to ask you out all semester.
Before he had time to mull on that, someone knocked on the office door. Dale scrolled further down the email, sliding the pictures off the screen. Then the door opened, and June poked her head in.
“Have a moment?” his TA asked, smiling sweetly like she wanted a favor.
Dale sighed. Since she studied under him six years ago, June had become his closest friend; she could ask him for ten cars, and he’d probably take a loan so he could buy them for her. “Sure. What is it?”
June eased into his office and shut the door. Her eyes darted over the piles of homework assignments and his cup of coffee, then the striped origami sheet Dale slid off his stack. “This is kind of last-minute,” she said. “But Cher just got laid off from her job. I want to take her on a whirlwind vacation and propose.”
Dale looked up from folding a crane. That was sudden. “Okay, and...? When is this?”
“Tomorrow. For the next two weeks.” June smiled sheepishly, running a hand through her hair. “Please? I’m sure you can handle everything just fine without me.”
He froze, glancing back at the basketball team’s email.
For the past two months, ever since Greg Hastings started asking him out for coffee, Dale had been borrowing June’s birch scent, pretending he was bonded to an alpha. It never seemed to deter Greg; Greg stepped up to his lecture hall podium every other week, asking if Dale wanted coffee, his dark
