Chapter Seventeen Jamie
Jamie
Jamie is no stranger to waking up under, over, or beside someone he loves.
He’s been so lucky and blessed to know love in the past nine years that during the past week, he’s had a few minutes of panic about maybe having taken more than his share. More than he deserves. More than anyone could ever deserve.
It’s usually followed by wondering what he might have done to earn it because, as far as Jamie is concerned, he lives no more an exemplary life than anyone else. But Gideon is always sure there’s a bigger picture, and for someone so mired in the details, his mate has always had an eye on the big picture. It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that Gideon really trusts no one except their pack but still puts his unwavering faith in the Goddess.
Yeah, that’s the dichotomy that is his love, Gideon Carnell.
Jamie is certainly faced with the result of Gideon’s faith this early Monday morning, the sun streaming in through the curtains he’d forgotten to close.
His first love— beloved —is lying on his tummy, hand tucked under his perfect chin. A smooth, pale thigh is bent slightly, and the navy sheets are pulled down over the curve of his tiny, bouncy butt. He’s fast asleep, smelling like the best vanilla dessert Jamie can imagine.
His presence in Jamie’s bed is surely a sign of a higher power, if ever there was one.
A sudden burn of unshed tears pricks behind his eyes as he thinks about how much his life has changed in the past week compared to a month ago. Where there had been a perpetual ache of loss—one that easily turned to agony if he allowed himself memories, fantasies, or even lost dreams—there is now hope, pleasure, and so much joy.
Someone once told him that hope is a double-edged sword, poised on the edge of success and ruin, leaving you to pray it will tip one way and not the other. Finding Nix has been such an exercise in hope.
They had almost lost him, and when he had survived the transition, they have perpetually stood on the brink of some disaster, some revelation, and it’s been fucking exhausting.
Even last night, when Nix claimed the last of them, it had stretched Jamie’s emotions—and his desire—to the limits. Jamie is too practical not to acknowledge all the ways last night could have gone wrong, but here in the quiet of his personal space, Jamie thinks that he can turn the tide toward love and success for his pack—for his Nix.
Finally, Jamie can find a moment to keep his promise and do what he has wanted to do since the moment he met Phoenix Rena at that beach house a decade ago.
He can claim him for himself and his pack, and maybe then Jamie’s enigma can settle.
From the first moment when his love was unconscious in the ICU—until this very minute—his enigma has been obsessed with the fear that someone will take Nix from them.
Jamie thinks he’s not alone in this feeling—that his entire pack is aware of the same simmering urgency, along with the subsequent strength he exerts in holding back his enigma from picking Nix up and biting him in every place a wolf can receive a claiming bite and then some.
He tries to let his Nixie be—he really does—but now that the idea has settled in and he’s acknowledged that this is it , an eagerness simmers beneath his skin.
He can’t resist reaching out, running a lone finger over Nix’s shoulder, down the plane of his back, detouring over freckles here and there before tracing the curve of his ass. He follows the edge of the sheet, then drifts back up along a new path. His mate glows, a light seeming to shine from every pore.
His omega sighs and shifts his hips forward, pressing them down and into the bed. Jamie stops until Nix settles into sleep again, but this time with pinker cheeks and the musky, sexy scent of aroused vanilla.
The next touch is over his tiny nose. He’s so still, and Jamie is reminded of a time not so long ago when he allowed himself similar touches to a face virtually unchanged by time, unsure if—or when—he might wake.
The flash of Nix’s hospital time in a coma makes Jamie hesitate—but no, he’s not going to let those memories in here—they have no place in this bed. With a heavy breath in, he lets those sweetly pink cheeks distract him with their constellations of honey-brown freckles sprinkled like stardust, but it’s the heart-shaped one high on his cheek that catches his eye in particular.
Jamie moves on to the full, slightly parted mouth. Nix’s full lips always seem such a deep shade of pink that it’s almost red. It’s distracting, and he knows he’s not the only one in the house who gazes at that mouth, still or in motion—making him think of kissing and sucking, wondering what it tastes like or what it might feel like wrapped around his cock.
The brief flash of just that scenario has the member in question hard against his thigh, pine-scented forest burgeoning in the morning sun.
When he rubs along Nixie’s full lower lip, it’s so soft Jamie can’t almost feel it, but then he pulls the lip down to get at the wet insides. He’s met with a sudden gentle bite from sharp white teeth, a flash of smiling gray eyes, and a quiet giggle.
The tiny hand gripping his wrist pulls his fingers back up for a kiss. “Morning, Jamie.”
“Morning, Nix.” He responds in kind, just to see his love grin. He leans in for a proper kiss, sucking that smiling lower lip in and then nibbling, letting his enigma rumble deep in his chest.
“Oh, I see. That’s how it is.” Nix flips over onto his back, legs sticking up and arms out wide. “I’m ready.” He’s laughing, and he is oh-so-beautiful that Jamie’s heart clenches.
Jamie sputters, “What? No. That’s not…uh.”
“No, I’m serious, Jamie. I mean it. I’m ready. Do it. We’ve waited long enough. Dooooo itttttttt.” He’s waving his arms up and down like he’s making a snow angel, pumping his legs up and down, feet kicking maniacally.
Nix is so happy that Jamie wants to eat him alive. “Oh, really? You’re ready? Okay.”
He pounces. His fingers dig into lean muscles as he rolls over onto his still-wiggling, now giggling and shrieking love.
“No. No!! Oh my god. Stop. Argh!”
Jamie stops, so his mate flops back from his jackknifed position, breathing heavily.
“I win!” Jamie revels in how ridiculous he must look, arms up high, kneeling naked on his bed, cock hard. “Woot, Woot! I’m the winner! You’re the loser!”
“Oh, you’re in for it now.”
Jamie should have expected it from his tree-climbing, door-smashing mate, but he is still surprised when he’s flat on his back, his omega on his chest, with an audible oof forced from his diaphragm.
The resulting wet ass parked on his belly and the hands holding his wrists down on the bed bring Nix’s face almost as close to his as he could dream.
“I’m in for what, exactly?” Jamie manages to growl out from his chest.
There’s that sex-in-a-bakery smell, and Nix wiggles his ass. It feels like he’s being marked when his mate slides his slick butt backward until he can feel the head of Jamie’s dick ride up between his cheeks.
“Nix. Slow. Down.” Jamie has to wrangle his enigma so hard in that moment that he is surprised he can get the words out.
“No, Jamie. No more slow or later or soon. Don’t you think we’ve waited too long already? We should be married already, with a dog and two kids—and six mates.” Another rolling of his hips has him riding along Jamie’s shaft in a slow, slippery slide.
Jamie groans at the mention of the children he’d always imagined they’d been adopting in those fantasies, not the new, incendiary thought of making them themselves. Fuck.
“Baby, you can’t just climb on; you need prep, and I haven’t even really kissed you. Please. I can’t be the one to hurt you.”
It’s his biggest fear.
Nix tilts his chin down so he can look him dead in the eye. “You would never.”
Jamie wants to say I did, but that doesn’t have a place in the here and now either. “I won’t let you hurt yourself, either. Now kiss me, or lose me forever.”
Nix grins at the old movie misquote and moves his hands to Jamie’s chest. He hardly weighs a thing, and as soon as he can, Jamie grips his mate around the hips and flips them over with a whispered, “Ha.”
There’s only a small but serious smile, though, and not the giggle he’d expected. There are gentle hands in his hair and then down around his neck, and one finger sliding over his lips. “Kiss?”
There will never be a moment where James Rhodes denies Nix Rena a kiss ever again. It’s not an uncertain kiss, not at all. It’s possessive and crazy and wet. Nix grabs his hair harder in one hand, and the other goes to Jamie’s ass, holding him still so he can wrap his soft thighs as high around his waist as he can. Jamie just holds on and lets him lick and suck and eat at his mouth.
He’d like to say he was still thinking about slow and careful , but he absolutely was not. The fire he’s always kept tightly under control around his omega bursts into a conflagration. Breaking away, Nix whines and opens his mouth so Jamie can get a look at his pink tongue, trying to lure Jamie back into his kiss, grinding his hard little dick up into Jamie’s belly.
Jamie runs his hand along the soft thigh high on his hip and then down under the curve of his ass so the tips of his fingers slide right through his omega’s wetness and smooths it up over his tiny, hairless balls.
Circling his thumb and forefinger around it, he gives his mate’s dick a slow pump. It’s hard and leaking, and it’s so pretty Jamie could probably fit the whole thing on his tongue at once.
But Nix has no patience for that today.
“Alpha, please.”
Nix could be asking for anything, but Jamie only circles his hole again, feeling the hot slick coat his palm.
He wastes no time before pressing two long fingers inside, sinking them up to the second knuckle.
He’s rewarded with a high-pitched keen.
The vanilla musk scent is mouth-watering, and his wolf wants to put his tongue right at the source.
“Come on, baby, roll over. Let me see,” he growls, and Nix is quick to roll over, up on knees that are spread wide, ass up, forcing his back into a deep arch. It’s not what Jamie is expecting, and it hits him like a gut punch. Ratcheting his arousal levels up, it’s all because his beloved’s hole is leaking slick—vanilla-sweet, shiny, and trickling steadily down his perineum and onto his balls.
He’s so fucking pink, that Jamie wants him covered in come. His come.
“Fuck, Jamie. Do something. Please,” Nix moans, all exposed and reaching behind to push two of his tiny fingers in his hole. “Not enough, please. Come on. You promised.”
He did, and Jamie always keeps his promises.
Gently removes his mate’s fingers—he’d worked up to four in the time it took Jamie to get his brain up to speed—Jamie has to admit it is impressive. Omega biology must lend itself to minimal prep. Thank the Goddess.
“Alright, baby boy. Here.” He slides three of his longer, broader fingers in with zero resistance and pulls them out to add a fourth, watching as Nix gets wilder and makes wounded noises that drive his enigma insane.
The noises soon turn to begging, and Jamie even has to pull his mate’s hand away from his pretty dick. “No, baby. Mine.” Jamie has waited too long to let his beloved’s first orgasm in this bed belong to anyone but him.
He’s thinking about putting his tongue in alongside his fingers since that taste he’d had last night from Luca’s fingers had not been near enough to satisfy, when his mate moans, “Fuck me, Daddy.”
Later, he’s sure he’ll contribute to Luca’s red-ass campaign—because surely, the “daddy” is all his doing.
But moaned in Nixie’s raspy voice? Fuck.
The leash Jamie has on his enigma instincts snaps. He growls deep, bending over to sink blunt teeth into a round cheek, watching as Nix jerks, shudders, and squeals, “Yes, fuck, Jamie.”
But when he grasps his narrow hips, his omega goes pliant. Kneeling close behind, he slides his cockhead over his omega’s leaking entrance. Using his fingers to scoop up as much of the vanilla slick from the mess on the inside of Nix’s thighs as he can gather, he slicks up his cock and then sucks the rest of his fingers with a moan.
Holding Nix up with one hand on his hip, he uses the other to push his cock slowly but resolutely into that pink winking hole.
The culmination of every fantasy Jamie has ever entertained, and all he can think is—it’s perfect.
“Jamie. Oh, god, finally. Oh, thank fuck.” His mate’s babbling, desperate to hurry Jamie along. “Yes. Come on.”
“You make me crazy, baby. Wanna have you like this forever. Can’t stop—”
Nix is hot and wet inside, all clenching walls and a tight rim, and Jamie thinks it might be heaven.
When he’s fully seated, he pulls out and slams back in, and his omega shouts. “Again!”
His wolf wants to fuck hard, but Jamie has him in hand again, and now that he knows his omega’s sneaky tricks, he won’t be surprised. He sets a trance-like rhythm that stretches the pleasure out, broken only by the moans and begging from his mate.
It’s a pleasure that burns. Burns away anything else but the man beneath him—his beloved.
“Jamie. Jamie. So good, god. Please make me come. Please.” The plea is hoarse, and Jamie comes back from that pleasure place, hears the wet squelch, and realizes his omega’s slick is soaking the bed beneath them.
Struck by his beauty everywhere, Jamie leans forward to lick a stripe up his smooth back—sweat and vanilla heavy on his tongue. Nix’s head is turned to the side, his fingers jammed in his mouth, doing nothing to quiet his moans.
Jamie wants to do this forever. “Don’t. Want. To. Stop.” He punctuates each word with a thrust, but in the next gasp, he stills.
Jamie has a millisecond to think before his mate growls, “Come on, Daddy, put a baby in me. Want it. Wanna be round and full of you.”
It’s filthy, and Jamie could hear it every damn day for the rest of his fucking life.
With a roar, Jamie begins a punishing rhythm, lifting his mate’s hips and pulling them back into his thrusts. It’s only seconds before his omega is shouting his name and shaking apart in his hands, untouched.
His wolf sees the wrongness of his mate’s bare throat and pulls him up so he can feel his back against his chest and his hips in his lap, forcing his fully inflated knot further up against Nix’s tight rim.
Jamie stops fighting his enigma’s urgency and tilts his mate’s head farther to the side with a hand tight in his soft hair—his only thoughts about claiming their mate. When he buries his fangs where his omega’s vanilla scent is strongest, it’s the scent of home and love and forever.
With blood in his mouth and an overwhelming love in his heart, he throws himself after him, coming and finally pushing his knot past Nix’s rim.
Nix convulses, crying out again, only to shake apart a second time. “J-Jamie.”
The bond slams home, and Jamie swears a bright, white light shoots out of his chest and straight into Nix, turning his omega’s moans into a piercing shriek. When the sound and light fade, Jamie lets them fall to their sides so he can spoon up behind his beloved as they tremble.
He hums a tune—even though he hasn’t heard it before—making his mate shudder and clench down on his knot, forcing Jamie to grunt through his second orgasm.
“So good for me, baby. So good. Ours now. Love you.”
Jamie closes his eyes, pushing his nose into Nix’s sweaty hair. He’s got his slender upper leg propped up high in the crook of his elbow so he can reach under and press his hand firmly into that bulging belly.
His enigma wolf is convinced that they’ve actually managed to put a baby in there. He’s also enjoying the feeling of connection circling from his chest to Nix’s in a never-ending infinity of white light.
Pride and contentment, thy name is Jamie.
“Jamie.”
“Hm.”
“James.”
“Hm.”
“James!” This one is accompanied by an incredibly firm clench on his still rock-hard dick and inflated knot.
“Fuck, Jesus. Yes, baby. What?”
“What. In. The. Fuck. Is. This?” Another clench.
“Uh…my knot, you mean?” His mate is clenching in tiny, rhythmic pulses, and it shoots sparks of pleasure everywhere, making it hard to focus.
“Your what?”
“My knot. Uh, didn’t you see Grayson’s? I thought you…”
“Oh. It’s the thicker part at the bottom of your dick, right?” He clenches down hard two or three times experimentally. “I don’t remember his being quite so big. But maybe that’s because it’s in my ass, ya know?”
Another clench, and every time, Jamie shivers, and those sparks fly.
“Yeah, mine’s uh…fuller than Gray’s. Yeah.” Another clench and a shimmy, and the knot pulls a bit. “If you keep doing that, it’ll never go down, baby. P-Please.”
“Oohh, so that’s how it is. Hmm. good to know.” He doesn’t tease, surprisingly. He’s quiet for a long moment, and Jamie thinks maybe he’s fallen back asleep.
“Jamie?”
“Hm?”
There’s a telling pause where Jamie knows there’s bound to be a teasing revelation, and he presses Jamie’s hand on his belly. “Do you really think you put a baby in me, or what?”
Jamie can only groan. He honestly doesn’t know. Can he do that now? Oh, God. Does Nix want that? Is it too soon? Are they ready for that? Is the pack ready? Holy shit.
Panic sends his scent from contented straight into a slow-burning forest fire in under a second.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, alpha.”
Nix reaches up and tries to rub his hands through Jamie’s hair, nearly bumping him in the nose and poking him in the eye, Jamie manages to dodge just in time, realizing he must have said all of that out loud.
“I do. I want your baby any time, but you are right. Maybe not right now? So. Maybe we should ask Finn. See if there’s anything else in those books. I should probably read them, too.”
“Nix. Fuck.” He can feel his mate wiggle, and his knot finally slips out—serious conversations, doing the job to get it down. There’s come and slick everywhere, making an even bigger mess. All the wolf wants to do is push it all back in to be sure it takes. The instinct to breed their omega is strong, and with five alphas in the house, Jamie thinks Nix is going to be leaving a wet trail wherever he goes.
Maybe he’d consider a plug? He shivers at the thought of plugging Nix up—full of the pack’s come.
“Alright there, alpha?” It’s a little bit dry and a lot mocking.
“Oh, it’s alpha now, is it?” He climbs out of the sweet-smelling mess and gathers Nix in his arms. “It was Daddy-this and Daddy-that not even thirty minutes ago.”
“Daddy doesn’t like it?” Nix giggles when Jamie carries him into the bathroom and puts him down outside the shower; he relishes giving his butt a light smack.
“Daddy likes it just fine, as you know. But Luca, that little troublemaker, knows all my hot buttons. Nixie, I could have hurt you. I’m sure he told you it really gets me going, yeah?” He turns on the shower, pulls Nix in after him, and starts washing his mate’s hair.
“He said you might be a little reluctant to let yourself go, and I want the real you, Jamie. I need you. All of you, just the way you are. I can take it—everything you have to give me. I can take it. I needed you to know that. And look, I’m good. Better than good.”
There are soft hands on his belly and chest, washing away sweat and slick—and maybe just a little guilt for being so rough.
“I’ll do better, Nix. Just no more blindsided poking at my kinks, yeah?”
“There are more? Do tell.” He’s too cautious to tickle his mate in retaliation in the shower because no one wants to explain a broken bone from shower shenanigans to Gideon.
“Alright, you. Enough. Before we have a shower sex accident neither of us wants to explain to Gideon. Out.”
The towels are warm, and the feeling in his chest is even warmer. His bite on his omega’s neck is gorgeous: large and deep, bruising running up his neck and even a bit down into his chest.
He rethinks the black hoodie in his hands and exchanges it for a white tank instead—his mate has caught on, no doubt, trailing his fingers over the sensitive mark and shivering.
There’s no convincing him to try a pair of boxers. Goddess knows why Jamie tries. There’s a reason no one complains about Luca’s no-pants agenda because bare butts are easy-access and one of Jamie’s favorite things.
“No. No pants. I’m starving. Feed me.”
Standing on the mattress, he launches himself off in a flying leap and expects Jamie to catch him, fearless in his trust—Jamie’s wolf could explode with joy.
“Alright, you menace. Let’s eat.”