The Proximity Contract
READING AGE 16+
Elliot signs the contract because he can't make rent, and because the alternative is worse. Being paid to be near Adrian Hale — monthly, confidential, arranged through a doctor — is a humiliation he can live with. The humiliation is the part he understands.
Adrian is the part he doesn't.
Adrian Hale is thirty-two, runs the company Elliot works in, and hasn't marked an omega in years, no matter what it costs his body. He's tired in a way that only shows when the door is shut. He gives orders in four words and then drives across the city at midnight because Elliot mentioned his apartment was cold.
Elliot wants to keep his distance and keep his job. Adrian wants the arrangement to stay professional. Neither of those lasts past the first heat, or past the first time Elliot wakes up sick in a hotel bed with Adrian's hand flat against his back and the arrangement suddenly having a name.
Careful, close, and a little aching: two people who take excellent care of each other and can't say one plain sentence about it. Heads-up — coercion, drugging, and a superior who uses his position.
Unfold
"I'll handle it," Hale said. "He won't be with the company after this. What else do you want from this?"
Blood had dried at the corner of Elliot's mouth, his right hand had gone stiff around the two fingers that wouldn't open all the way, and he had been standing on one leg since Ostrow stopped moving. Hale hadn't looked at a……
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