SoCal Cuties Box Set: An MMM, Shifter, Mpreg Romance Read online

  Roberto was from Tijuana and had crossed the border for a better life. His family had been killed by the cartel after his father got mixed up in their business. Roberto had never gone that way, and we’d met a year ago by chance one night at a bar. We’d both felt the attraction instantly, but were both hesitant about any kind of real relationship.

  I’d been burned before by an alpha promising me the world, who was just in it for a quick fuck. He left me broken and battered (emotionally) and pretty much unavailable for anything remotely considered “love.” Roberto had basically sworn off anything resembling family after what had happened with his back in Mexico.

  So we’d decided to be friends with benefits and make sure things never got too serious. “Just have fun.” That was our motto, and so far it had been working well for us, but there was something lurking in the back of my mind, something telling me that I was missing out—missing out on something more.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” I said with a smile, looking up at his beautiful eyes. “Two more hours?”

  Roberto smiled. “Two more hours!”

  “Okay, folks!” a loud, gruff voice came from the back office, startling me and causing me to jump. I looked down the hallway as Chad, the branch manager, came marching towards us, obviously something uncomfortable up his ass.

  “What’s eating him?” Roberto whispered. Without hesitation, he stepped right up to us, pointed a finger in my boyfriend’s face and growled.

  “You! You’re fucking fired!”

  Chapter Two

  Jedrik

  Applying shellac to wood is something not a lot of people know how to do or even want to try. It’s a delicate process—an old one, which involves dissolving shellac flakes in denatured alcohol and using a brush to spread it over the surface of whatever piece of furniture you are finishing. It’s beautiful, natural and absolutely glows when the light hits it, but one wrong stroke or one twitch of your hand and the entire thing is ruined. Then you’ve got to sand the whole thing down and start over. Do that enough times and your piece is ruined. So why do I do it? Because the end result is worth it and I love a challenge.

  Breathing through my handkerchief to avoid getting the smell of the alcohol into my nose, I worked my brush carefully over the piece of hardwood cherry that would eventually become the top of a gorgeous coffee table, picturing it with all four legs attached, sitting in the living room of some rich guy living in Del Mar or La Jolla.

  “Almost there,” I said to myself as I carefully lifted my brush from the surface and took a step back.

  Once the shellac dried it would be time for the varnish, a protective layer that would harden and keep the table from getting scratched. I’d have to do a few of them, probably three, to make sure it stayed in good shape. After all, not all owners used coasters like they should. The shop was basically dust-free, but just to make sure, I stepped all the way back to the wall and then removed my mask.

  “Almost there,” I repeated, watching the table take shape in my mind.

  Furniture—woodworking—was my love (and yes, even the kind you’re thinking), something I’d devoted myself to after both of my parents died. Cancer took my mom and grief took my father not long after that. I’d been working a nine-to-five job as a marketing director for a small advertising firm, pursuing woodworking as a bit of a hobby, but once my folks died and I realized how short life was, I quit, saved my money and started my own business.

  Having a passion for a job is incredible, but it doesn’t leave me much time for a love life. In fact, I’d basically sworn off anything serious as far as relationships go, as the pain from my parents’ death was just too real and I had a hard time seeing myself falling in love anytime soon. The closest I ever came was with my ex, Sasha, an omega who’d ended up going completely insane on me. He was controlling, passive-aggressive and just as our relationship progressed, became unbearable. I broke up with him, blocked his e-mails and texts and decided to stay single, and San Diego was a great place to do that.

  I’m a good-looking guy, 6’3’’ with strong arms and big hands, thick black curly hair and blue eyes that drove all the omegas wild. I’m a god in the sheets, and know how to work it, but of course having a dick the size of most guys’ forearms helps a lot too. Some omegas have a hard time taking it, but once they do…

  “Yo, Jedrik!” It was Eric’s voice calling from the front of the shop. I immediately made my way to the door and stepped through, knowing that despite my warnings, if I didn’t respond quickly enough, he’d just march into the back with whatever dust and grime was clinging to him, and risk ruining the fresh shellac I’d just laid down.

  “What’s up, Eric?” I asked. He was leaning back in the office chair with his feet up on the desk, as I’d told him not to do countless times, so I swatted at them with my hand, sending him clunking down hard as his chair fell forward.

  “Shit, man!” he grumbled.

  “If I’ve warned you once, I’ve warned you twice,” I grinned. “Now, what’s up?”

  “Oh, that sale went through,” he told me, reaching out a fist for me to bump. “The dude’s taking the dresser.”

  “Awesome,” I grinned, feeling a sense of pride that I always felt when a client took a piece of furniture I’d built. Normally, I didn’t let people try out pieces in their home before buying—they had to decide at the studio—but this was a wealthy man from Del Mar who’d already taken a bed and a coffee table from me, so I did him a favor. It was a big sale too.

  The piece was mid-century modern, simple with nine drawers and vertical slats on each side, with straight legs and a gorgeous flat top finished in garnet shellac and a matte finish varnish. I’d almost been sad to see it go.

  “Hell, yeah!” Eric grinned, getting to his feet and raising his hand for a high five. Eric was my assistant in the shop, apprenticing under me, but he also handled the day-to-day business operations so I could focus on my work. A sale for me was like a sale for him in his mind. I slapped his hand and laughed, pleased with how happy he was.

  “Thanks, dude,” I told him.

  “We are going out tonight!” he exclaimed.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Hell, yeah,” he smiled. I could see from his eyes that he had something in mind, so I asked him.

  “Which bar is it?”

  “Oh, it’s not a bar,” he grinned. “Nope!”

  “Okay…” I said slowly. “So, what is it?”

  “A house,” he replied slowly.

  “A house,” I repeated.

  “Yup.”

  “A house party?”

  “Something like that…”

  I took a deep breath and eyed my assistant up and down. His shit-eating grin was plastered all over his face and I could see he had something very special in mind.

  “Okay, buddy,” I told him. “What the Hell is it?”

  “Ever heard of a munchin?” Eric asked me.

  “A munchin?” I repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “No, Eric,” I replied. “I haven’t heard of a munchin.”

  “Well, it’s like a house party,” he explained. “Only everyone is naked and you can basically fuck whoever you want—as long as they want to.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course Eric would be the one to suggest something like this. I wasn’t opposed to get up to some shenanigans from time to time, but compared to the wild shit Eric got up to, I was a Boy Scout.

  “That sounds…intense,” I chuckled, trying to picture what he was describing.

  “Fucking awesome intense,” he laughed, slapping me on the shoulder. “So, you in? Or do you want to sit around the shop watching the shellac dry?”

  I thought about it for a second, going over my options. He was right. I could either sit around and watch my shellac dry and hopefully apply my first coat of varnish, or I could head out with him and at least check out the munchin, if not participate. After all, it had been a while since I’d gotten some
nice omega ass wrapped around my dick. His eyes lit up as I nodded.

  “Count me in,” I told him.

  “Oh, fuck, yeah!” Eric exclaimed.

  Chapter Three

  Roberto

  My heart was pounding as I stared into Chad’s furious face, his finger flailing at me like he was ready to hit me. I felt my panther stir within me, feeling the urge to shift threaten to overwhelm me, but Chad was a human, as were the rest of the workers at Coffee First. Shifting was the last thing I should do.

  “Fired!?” Perry was shouting from beside me. “What the Hell are you talking about?”

  “You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to?” Chad roared, grabbing me by my apron and tearing it from my neck. The instinct to shift and tear him to pieces threatened to take over, but thankfully Perry stepped in between us and put his arms up.

  “Hey, back off, Chad!” he cried out as I fought to maintain my cool. “What is this?”

  “Oh, don’t act like you don’t know!”

  “What are you talking about?” I shouted. “Know what!?”

  Chad was red faced and raging, his floppy belly swinging as he took a fighting stance in front of me. “You’ve been stealing from the storage!”

  “What?” I shouted, unable to believe what I was hearing. That explanation hadn’t even occurred to me. I’d never stolen anything from anyone, and sure as Hell not from my employer. My parents had been criminals. I had sworn to never go down that route, no matter how small the crime. “That’s bullshit, Chad!”

  “Oh, I’ve seen you,” Chad grinned angrily, shaking his head. “Snooping around out back. Being sneaky! You think I haven’t noticed!?”

  “What are you talking about, Chad?” Perry cried out, still standing between us to keep me from losing my cool and to keep Chad from doing something that would set me off. “He hasn’t been stealing anything!”

  “Yeah? Then where’s all the coffee been going?” he growled.

  “I don’t even like our coffee, Chad!” I bellowed. It was true. Coffee First sold some kind of local beans that were supposed to be fancy and flavorful, but they just weren’t for me. In fact, I wasn’t even a coffee fan in general. I drank it from time to time, but Perry was the real coffee drinker between us.

  “So you’re selling it then!” Chad raged. “Who gives a fuck what you’re doing with it! You’re taking it!”

  “I’m NOT!” I snarled, turning away before I lost control. Despite being an omega, I’d be able to take Chad with ease. He was a human. If I took panther form my teeth would sink through his flesh and tear him apart. But that wasn’t the right way to go. Not by a long shot.

  “You can deny it all you want,” Chad snapped. “But you are fired. Both of you!”

  “Chad!” Perry protested. “You—you can’t do that!”

  “Oh, I can’t?” Chad all but laughed. “I’m the boss! I can do whatever the fuck I want! And right now? I’m tossing you two scam artists out of here!”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Chad already had his back turned to us and was marching towards the screen door that led out to the parking lot. Perry spun around to face me, put both hands on my cheeks and stared into my eyes. They were green like the grass sparkling with morning dew, and as I inhaled his coconut scent, I felt a calm begin to come over me.

  “Stop, Roberto,” he whispered to me. “Don’t get upset. It’s not worth it.”

  “We need this job, Perry!” I replied anxiously. “We were just talking about it—”

  “If you freak out now, he’s gonna call the cops,” he told me. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”

  “He’s a racist piece of shit!” I hissed, doing my best to keep my voice down as Chad kicked open the screen door and held it open for us. There was a ball of sadness swelling up within me and I felt the tears in my eyes threatening to spill down my cheeks. I fought it, but when I thought about what kind of a terrible situation Perry and I were going to be in without our jobs, I lost it.

  Streams of tears poured down my cheeks and I braced myself against the wall, feeling Chad’s horrible eyes bearing down on me from the door.

  Yeah, I’m going! I thought as Perry put his hand on my arm. He was always the more stable one out of the two of us—more in control of himself and always talking sense into me when my emotions would threaten to take hold of me.

  “I’m waiting!” Chad called from the door. I clenched my fists as Perry massaged my arm, doing his best to make a horrible situation bearable. I wasn’t a violent person, but this was beyond upsetting.

  “We’re going!” Perry snapped back before I could respond with anything that would make the situation worse.

  As I made my way towards the back door, I could hear the hustle and bustle in the front of the shop, and knew that without either of us working, the place was going to be slammed. Chad was going to be pissed, and it would take him a few weeks to find two employees as reliable as us that he could depend on. And despite how upset I was, that tiny realization allowed a flicker of a smile to creep across my lips.

  “Maybe this will teach you,” Chad added as we stepped outside. “Fucking thieves.”

  “Fuck you, Chad,” I replied without looking back, taking Perry’s hand as we walked to our car. “And your whole shop.”

  Chapter Four

  Perry

  I was proud of Roberto. I really was. Out of the two of us, he was the one who usually got more upset at things, but he’d handled the situation with Chad well. Of course, I’d been there for him and that was part of it, but I was happy to do it. That’s how our relationship worked. We balanced each other out, and without an alpha in either of our lives, we’d managed pretty well to maintain a relatively normal dynamic as boyfriend and boyfriend. But as I unlocked the gated metal door that led into our apartment and stepped inside, Roberto slumped down on the couch with a heavy sigh.

  “We are fucked,” he announced.

  “We’re not,” I told him, closing the door behind us and heading to the kitchen to grab him a glass of red wine. “We’ll figure something out. We always have. We’re survivors, you and me.”

  Roberto sighed again and looked over at me. “We are, aren’t we?”

  I smiled and brought him his wine. He took it from me, raised it to his lips, but before he took a sip, looked up at the ceiling.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to be?” he asked.

  “To not have to be what?”

  “Not to have to be survivors,” he continued. “Wouldn’t it be nice to actually enjoy life? To not have to worry about whether or not we’re going to be able to make rent, or whether Chad’s going to be in a good mood, or whether we’re even going to have a job tomorrow. Wouldn’t it be nice to just live?”

  I took a seat on the couch beside my boyfriend and leaned my head against his chest. I loved his sweet mango smell and inhaled it deeply. On the couch together like this, snuggling and comforting each other, was the crux of our relationship. No matter what happened, I could never see myself being apart from Roberto, which was strange among omegas.

  Most omegas were single until a beta, or preferably an alpha, swooped in and scooped them up. And of course, in the back of both of our minds, we still had that fantasy—that one day we’d find an alpha for each of us—but we’d been together for so long and had developed such a bond that I just didn’t see how it would even work. I’d been wounded by an alpha and our relationship was the closest thing to a family that I could ever see Roberto being involved in. So for now, it was just a fantasy.

  “To just live,” I mused as though speculating one of life’s deepest truths. Roberto sipped his wine and offered me the glass. I wasn’t as much of a fan of red wine as he was, but I took some anyway. “Yeah, that does sound nice. How would that look?”

  “You know—a nice big strong alpha for both of us,” Roberto joked. I instantly started laughing.

  “Yeah, that’ll happen! An alpha who would share? Good luck finding that!”


  “Shhh!” he whispered, waving his hand. “Come on, I’m laying out the fantasy for you!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” I smiled.

  “Okay, so we have a nice big strong alpha for the both of us—”

  “With you so far.”

  “And he’s like big, and strong—”

  “With a huge dick!”

  Roberto jokingly glared at me. “What? Mine’s not good enough for you?”

  Roberto was hung, but not out of this world hung, and hey—this was a fantasy, wasn’t it?

  “Yours is more than adequate,” I said comfortingly.

  He thought about that for a second and then chuckled. “Adequate. Okay, I can live with that. But this alpha—he has a monster!”

  “A monster…”

  “A stretch you open, tear you apart, stretch out your hole until it never goes back to normal-sized cock!”

  “Oh, God!” I giggled. “Do I want my hole to never go back to normal?”

  “Shhhh!” Roberto repeated. “It’s a fantasy!”

  “Sorry! Okay, continue.”

  Roberto started to go on with his fantasy, but before he could, a loud, familiar banging came from the front door.

  “Gee, I wonder who that could be?” I said quietly. Wendell’s voice rang out as he pounded again.

  “Let me in, you two sluts!”

  “No sluts here!” I shouted back, not moving from the couch.

  “Okay, fine! Let me in, you two prudes!”

  “He’ll just keep knocking if you don’t,” Roberto reminded me. I grimaced and got to my feet.

  “Why do we always get crazy neighbors?” I asked him as I unlocked the door to reveal Wendell, a scrubby, hippy-looking beta with too many bracelets and necklaces, looking at us like he’d just discovered the cure to cancer—which wasn’t too far from being a possibility, given the fact that he was a doctor. Or at least, he had been, until he’d “found his purpose,” given up his practice and decided to be at one with the world and walk the Earth.