21. Grace
Chapter 21
Grace
That confrontation with the McAllister Alphas wasn’t fun, but I try to put it out of my mind. My family is safe and okay, thanks to my Alphas. Not that they’re mine, but… well…
I’m trying not to think about that.
Instead, I focus the next few days on building my nest, trying to get it exactly how I want it.
It’s weird, to be ruled by instinct and emotion. To put something somewhere and arrange blankets and other soft things based on nothing but “this feels right.” It’s frustrating when I just feel that something is off, wrong with the nest, but I don’t know how to make it right and I just have to fiddle and rearrange until finally something clicks.
But at least it keeps me busy. Keeps me from thinking about what’s coming, and what I’m going to want and need.
And I have to admit, it hurts more to struggle against these instincts than to give into them. It’s like fighting with a starving dog instead of just giving the dog the food and petting that it needs and deserves.
And, as the Alphas keep pointing out to me, I deserve to treat myself well. To give myself what I need. If what I need is a soft nest… maybe that’s not so bad. Maybe that’s not the worst thing.
After all, what’s really wrong with wanting a nest? I try to think about it, and come up empty. It’s just a cozy way to sleep. It’s not going to stop me from getting my work done or leading the fulfilling life I want to lead.
Maybe not all of my Omega instincts are bad things. Maybe it’s fighting them, instead of working with them, that’s the problem.
I’ve just gotten everything perfect when Cade pokes his head in. “Coming along nicely,” he says gruffly.
“Isn’t it?” I beam. “I really like it.”
Cade nods, looking pleased, which is basically his version of saying I’m glad to hear it. “Gotta pick up a piece of equipment that came in. You, uh, said you wanted to help with it.”
I did. I’ve been reading all the owner’s manuals on the farm equipment so that I know how to operate and fix up the machinery, and I want to help get this new part and install it. “Yes, let me just change real quick.”
I put on something a bit more practical for hauling equipment around, then join Cade to go out to the pickup.
Honestly, I like spending time with Cade. I know he’s gruff and quiet, but the silence is comfortable. And when I’m feeling in a chatty mood, he never interrupts me or makes me feel like I’m being a bother. He just listens and makes me feel heard.
I also like when I can make him smile. I don’t succeed all the time, but I keep trying, and sometimes I can make it happen. I think I’m getting better at is as I practice and figure out exactly what his sense of humor is, what’ll strike him as funny or surprise him.
The drive up is quiet, with the windows down and fresh air blowing in. It’s peaceful, and I hum snatches of songs here and there, my arm dangling out the window as Cade drives. It’s lovely.
We get the equipment and load it up without a problem, but we’re only about ten minutes into our drive home that I start to feel… flushed. Hot.
It reminds me of the bar, when I first presented as an Omega, except this comes on faster and it feels worse. I roll the windows down again, but the breeze is no longer refreshing. It’s not enough.
I tug at my shirt collar, my breath coming a little faster. It feels unbearably hot in the truck, even with the windows down. The heat is so thick and overwhelming it’s all I can think about or focus on. I try to swallow the lump in my throat repeatedly, but it only seems to make things worse.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel… off. Something uncomfortable and foreign is stirring inside me, like a slumbering animal coming to life. I’ve never felt anything like this before, and it kind of scares me.
Am I having heat stroke or experiencing dehydration or something?
I glance over at Cade to see if he’s feeling it too, but he seems totally unbothered with one hand lazing on the wheel and his eyes locked on the road. But his scent catches in my nostrils, freezing me in place. It starts softly enough, little gusts of fresh mountain air. But my nose pulls at the stuffy air in the cabin, and when the powerful, spiced scent of mulled wine greets it, I’m almost overwhelmed.
It's his scent, no doubt about it, but it seems different somehow. Much more intense. There are notes and accents I’ve never picked up on before. The sharpness of clove that’s usually there is overpowering now, screaming at my senses to notice it. Just the smell of him lights my body up, but it’s not enough.
I need more than that.
I squirm on my seat, hoping that it’ll take at least some of this unbearable discomfort in my core away, but it only makes it worse. Cade shoots a quick glance at me, his brows furrowing.
“You okay?” he grunts. I shake my head, my throat growing dryer.
“I need…” I don’t know how to finish that sentence. But something in me, something instinctual and primal, takes over. Like I’m being driven by something outside me, my body leans over, and my lips reach for his neck.
As I get closer, the smell of fresh chocolate chip pancakes floods my nose, and something inside me snaps. My mouth attacks his neck, and my hands rake over his body. He groans against the touch of my lips and my clit throbs with need. But it’s still not enough.
There’s a void, an emptiness in me that has to be filled. It’s compulsive and maddening, and so powerful that I don’t care what else happens, I just want Cade to fill it. I crawl into his lap, making him jerk the wheel in surprise, and lower myself down, straddling him.
“Shit. What the hell are you doing? This isn’t safe,” he grunts, glancing around my shoulder to straighten out the truck and make sure we don’t crash.
There’s some distant, barely audible part of my mind screaming at me that he’s right and that what I’m doing is crazy, but I don’t care.
I lean forward and kiss his neck again, and his cock swells against me in his jeans. It’s so close I can feel it, and I want it in me. Now.
I push myself down so there’s no space left between us and grind myself on his growing cock. My mouth and tongue dance across his neck, savoring the sweet, delectable taste of his sweat and the scent radiating off his sun-kissed skin. I’m high on it. High on him.
I grind harder on him and feel wetness bloom between my legs. It only makes me hungrier, more eager.
“I don’t want the toys,” I pant into his ear, my teeth gently gnawing on the soft skin of his lobe. I drag my wetness against his rock-hard cock. “I want this . I need it.”
Cade stares into my eyes, his fierce dark blue irises sparkling like sapphires, and kisses me hungrily in the same rough way he does everything. But it’s exactly what I need right now, so I kiss him back just as desperately, our tongues thrashing, until he jerks the wheel again, peeling us apart.
But he must know neither of us are going to be able to stop this because he slams on the brakes and veers off the road into the dirt along the empty stretch of road we’ve been driving on for what feels like forever. He slams the truck’s shifter in park and stares into my eyes, his ripped, barrel chest heaving. I feel like prey about to be overcome by a predator, and the thought gives me chills.
I lap at the sweet bead of sweat trailing down his neck, and with a growl, he wraps his powerful arms around me to haul me out. Our mouths collide during the trek to the front of the truck, and Cade lowers my back onto the hood.
With my legs spread wide for him, he grinds against me. “Fuck, you’re in heat. I know exactly what you need. You need to come, sugar. I’ve got you.”
His voice is rough as he draws away enough to tug aside my shorts and panties, leaving my wet, needy pussy exposed. He pushes my legs farther apart by my knees and then drops his head, lowering his mouth onto me.
I writhe against the hood, totally lost, as he devours me. He nips at the insides of my thighs, pulling little jumps and gasps out of me every time, and the scruff of his beard against my sensitive skin and lips is electric. My hands wind themselves in his shaggy hair, pulling and clawing at his scalp.
His tongue pierces me, lighting me up, and I moan as I buck my hips against the hood to meet him. It’s still not enough to take away this unbearable ache, this insatiable need raging inside me, but it still feels incredible and dulls the edge.
Thunder rumbles overhead as the skies rage and darken, but it barely registers through the intensity of Cade’s hot mouth all over me. The sprinkles of rain that start to fall a few moments later bring some much-needed cooling to my flaming skin, but they still aren’t enough to break the trance that Cade’s mouth has me in.
When he licks his way up my center and sucks my clit into his mouth, I dissolve into my climax, bucking and grinding against his mouth and beard that’s rubbing me raw in the best way.
“That’s it, let it out, sugar,” Cade mutters as he works me through it. “Come for me. Come as hard as you want. You’re doing so fucking well.”
His words reach me in a fog, like I’m hearing them from outside myself. I’m so far under the spell of pleasure still rippling through me that nothing else really registers.
“Fuck, you taste so perfect,” Cade mutters as he keeps eating me. My hands don’t leave his hair because it’s all I have keeping me grounded. “Is that better?”
“More,” I moan, my mouth struggling to form words.
Cade’s beard drags across my agonizingly sensitive skin, and I cry out but thunder crashes in the skies, drowning out the sound. The dark clouds churn as lightning streaks through them. A beat later, the sky yawns open and heavy rain pours down on us, drenching us both in a matter of seconds.
My moans mix with the hiss of the rain as Cade laps at me, alternating between fucking me with his tongue and teasing my clit. My legs raise on their own, mounting themselves on his shoulders, and he pushes his face into me, desperate to get deeper. To get at the burning inside me and take it away.
“You need more? Then come again for me, sweet little Omega. You’re gonna give me another,” Cade orders over the roar of the rain as it patters against the hood of the truck.
I nod wildly, arching and writhing beneath him. He can have whatever he wants from me, as long as he makes the need stop. Even after that incredible release, I still feel the heat roiling inside me, driving me.
Cade seizes me by the thighs, pulling me down the hood of the truck closer to him, and rests one knee against the bumper to better brace himself. As soon as his mouth finds me again, I cry out, groping and squeezing my aching, tender breasts.
He seems even hungrier now, turned on by the raw need in me. He drives his thick tongue into me, burying it all the way inside, and I moan at the stretching sensation it brings. But it’s nothing compared to the breath-stealing feeling when he starts to fuck me with it, sliding in and out, growing faster and harder with each stroke.
“You like that?” he groans into my pussy as I moan so loudly that not even the pouring rain can drown out the sound.
“Yes!” I scream as I feel another orgasm welling inside me. I can’t stand the thought of him stopping, of anything taking away this pleasure, so I pull him into me with my legs, squeezing his head between my thighs and rooting him there.
“Mm, fuck yeah. That’s my good little Omega.”
His tongue finds my swollen, electric clit, lapping and twisting around it. And when he plunges two fingers into me, I come again, melting against the hood of the truck. Pleasure floods my senses, overpowering everything else, and for longer than I can keep track of, I stop breathing and time seems to stop moving around me.
There’s nothing but Cade. Nothing but pure bliss.
But my first gasp of breath brings the world roaring back to life around me. The rain is falling so hard that its hiss cancels out every other sound. Cade hovers over me, panting and drinking in the spent sight of me with his fingers still lodged inside me. With his eyes locked on mine, he draws his fingers out slowly, letting me feel every little sensation until they slide out.
I wilt against the hood, and Cade climbs on top of me, kissing his way up my rain-soaked body until his mouth reaches mine. We share a wild, messy kiss before he breaks it and stares into my eyes as rain pours all around us.
“How do you feel?” he asks hoarsely.
I nod, breathless. “A bit better. The edge is dulled.”
“Good. I need to get you home quickly,” he says and doesn’t give me time to question why.
He hurries to help me get my clothes back on straight before he carries me to the passenger side of the truck and lowers me inside. He rushes back to the driver’s seat and jumps in, then starts the truck and throws it in gear.
We peel away from the gravel, sending it flying behind us, and as we tear down the open road toward the ranch, I understand the urgency. The ache, the unbearable need that mercifully dulled after the orgasms Cade gave me, is already twisting inside me again.
I squirm in the seat, whimpering, and Cade glances at me. He rests one calloused hand on my leg, stroking it.
“It’s going to be okay. We’ll be home soon where we can take care of you. Just hold on.”
His deep voice is uncharacteristically soothing, but the need is still there, itching and scratching at my insides.
Thanks to the storm, there’s hardly anyone else on the road. We only pass a few other cars in our mad dash back to the ranch, and when we get there, Cade hoists me into his arms and charges inside through the last sheets of drizzle still falling.
The others are there, and they greet us at the door as Cade carries me through it. They take one look at the two of us, soaked through to the bone, and their noses prick at the air. One by one, I see the comprehension dawning on their faces without Cade saying a word.
“Her heat started,” he says gruffly.
As soon as the words leave his mouth, the air in the room shifts, taking on a charge that makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand. They all know what this means and what has to happen next. And judging from the heat blazing in their eyes as they stare at me, they want it just as badly as I do. My eyes drift across them all, drinking in the raw sex appeal of these gods.
I need Alpha cock so badly.
My face flushes at the thought because I don’t know where it came from or why it’s so damn loud in my mind. But I know beyond a doubt the only cocks I want are theirs. All four of them.
“Please. Help me through my heat. I want it to be you. All of you.”
The guys exchange uncertain looks. This probably wasn’t what they imagined happening when they agreed to save me at the auction. All of this was supposed to be fake, a big show for this small town.
But this need? It’s real. Very fucking real. And I have to get it taken care of.
“Please,” I say from Cade’s arms, staring up into his eyes, but he looks to the others.
Several unbearable moments pass without a word, and my heart pounds so hard that I feel like it might crack through my ribs. They resisted giving me what I wanted for so long, refusing to add a friends with benefits clause to our fake relationship agreement because they didn’t want to complicate things.
Part of me is certain that they’re still going to deny me, that they’ll just drag out the toys Cade bought me and tell me to take care of my heat myself. I know it’s technically possible, that Omegas who find themselves alone when they enter their heat can try to simulate the experience of being fucked by an Alpha until the heat finally passes. But it sounds painful and awful, and the desperate need raging in my chest screams at me that it won’t be satisfied by anything but these Alphas.
I don’t just want them. I need them. In this moment, they’re the only thing I need.
“Please,” I whisper again, too far gone to care that I’m openly begging. “Please, I can’t do this on my own. I need your help. Please .”
All four Alphas react, leaning toward me as if they’re being pulled by an invisible force. Then, finally, Jesse nods.
“We’ve got you, wildcard,” he promises. “You won’t be alone.”
Cade dips his chin in a quick nod of acknowledgement as the four of them share one more look, then he turns and carries me to my bedroom where my nest waits. The bed is piled with the flannel blankets and other creature comforts I wanted, and Cade sets me down gently among them.
Instantly, I feel at home. I can’t put it into words, but this feels right. Like it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m glad that Easton and the others talked me into giving in to my Omega feelings and building this nest.
The men all climb onto the bed around me, stripping out of their clothes as their hands wander across my body. Hendrix grips the belt loops of my shorts and hikes them along with my panties down to my ankles with one pull. The sight of my naked body awakens something in them all, and an untamed hunger courses across all their faces like they’re sharing a single mind, a singular focus: me.
I shiver with each touch, the need throbbing in me, almost like it knows what’s coming. Like it’s writhing under my skin to meet their touch because it knows release and relief are close and they’re the only ones who can bring it.
Easton lies down beside me and closes his hand around mine.
“It’s okay. We’re going to take care of you,” he says, rubbing his thumb across the back of my fingers, and my body thrums at the feeling of his hard cock against my side. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”
“He’s right,” Jesse agrees as he climbs between my legs, completely naked. “It should be us. Let us take care of you.”
His broad-shouldered frame towers over me, and I whimper at his touch when his powerful, huge hands find my knees, pushing them apart.
“Are you on birth control?” he asks, his voice raspy.
I nod, swallowing hard. “Yes. They gave me a stronger kind while I was at the ORD office, something just for Omegas since my old Beta birth control wouldn’t work as well anymore.”
“Good.” He lets out a breath, the muscles in his neck tensing. “Are you ready?”
I nod again, and Jesse notches his cock at my entrance. The sensation of his bare skin against my pussy is overwhelming. The others hover around me, their cocks hard and waiting, and just knowing that I’m going to get them all is enough to drive me wild. Something primal and instinctual takes over me at the thought.
They’re right. This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. How I’m supposed to be. Their Omega.
I shudder as Jesse begins to slide inside me, my toes curling. But he hasn’t even gotten an inch of the many he has inside of me when he freezes, his hazel eyes locking on mine like he’s searching for something.
“Wait—are you a virgin?”
My face flushes, and although I feel like I’m about to die from embarrassment, I nod. Given my history with him, I can’t look him in the eyes to answer, so I shift my gaze to the side.
“I never found anyone to take my virginity,” I mutter. “And I never had sex with William or anyone else.”
Something intense flashes in Jesse’s eyes as he stares at me silently, and although he stays that way for what feels like an eternity, like he’s wrestling with something internally, he abruptly snaps. He finally falls forward, his mouth crashing into mine. He kisses me, so hot and consuming that it completely overrides the bit of pain that courses through me as he presses himself all the way inside me.
I grip and claw at his back and sides, my breath catching in my throat.
“That’s our good Omega. Let me in,” Jesse encourages me as he starts to draw back. I instinctively clamp around him, and he grins at me. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”
“She’s fucking perfect ,” Hendrix says, kneeling on the bed to my left and softly stroking himself as he watches Jesse fuck me. The flame in his eyes coupled with the dimple in his smirk is intoxicating, and it loosens me up as his pack mate drives into me again. Jesse repeats the motion several times until my grip gradually loosens.
It’s a lot to take, the sensations overwhelming, but Jesse is gentle with me, fucking me slowly and deeply. The feeling of his cock filling me up and stretching me is enough to push the burning need to the back of my mind. It dulls the roar enough that I can finally concentrate on the incredible feelings surging through me and lose myself in them.
I clench around Jesse, staring into his intense hazel eyes. My inner walls are squeezing him tight, and it’s clear he’s struggling a bit for control, but somehow, he manages not to come as he keeps taking deep, long strokes into me. Each one steals a little bit more of my breath and pushes the aching need a little bit further away.
But when he abruptly stops to kiss me, then pulls out, the need comes roaring back, ten times more powerful than it was before. His eyes are flaming as he stares down at me.
“I can’t wait to knot you,” he murmurs. “But right now, I know my pack mates need to be inside you. And you need that too.”