Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
PHOENIX
If only this nest could swallow me whole.
I burrow deeper into the blankets Mason scented, pressing my face into a pillow that still carries traces of chamomile and black pepper.
The fabric is soft against my overheated skin, but it’s not enough.
Nothing is enough. My body aches in places I didn’t know could ache, a hollow throb that starts low in my belly and radiates outward until even my fingertips feel empty.
Mason kissed me.
The memory plays on repeat behind my closed eyelids. The way his hands felt on my waist. The sound he made when I rolled my hips against him—desperate and wanting and so completely un-Mason-like that my chest aches just thinking about it.
And then he left.
I curl tighter around a pillow, pulling my knees to my chest. The position does nothing to ease the cramping, the restless energy crackling under my skin like static electricity looking for somewhere to ground.
Every few minutes, another wave of heat crashes through me—not quite the full force of what’s coming, but enough to leave me gasping, fingers twisted in the sheets.
You have no idea how bad of an idea this is.
What does that even mean?
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, counting the hairline cracks in the old plaster.
God, I’m pathetic.
No, not just pathetic. Lonely.
The realization settles over me, heavy and suffocating.
I’ve spent my entire adult life surrounded by people—agents, managers, assistants, co-stars, fans—but I’ve never felt anything other than alone.
Because none of those people know me. Not really.
They know Phoenix Riviera the brand, the product, the carefully curated image that’s been manufactured and marketed since I was six years old.
Except Mason. Mason knows me. Mason sees through all of it.
And he still walked away.
Another cramping wave hits my lower belly, stronger than the last, and I bite down on a moan that wants to escape. My skin feels too tight, too hot, like I’m being slowly cooked from the inside out. The nest that felt so perfect a few minutes ago now feels like a prison.
Because I’m in it alone.
Like always.
Because I’ve never let an alpha get within a hundred yards of me during a heat.
Not since Laurence Starling.
The thought surfaces unbidden, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the memories it drags with it. I was seventeen. He was forty-three. A director with a reputation for “discovering” young talent, for launching the careers of the lucky actresses that manage to catch his attention.
My mother arranged the meeting. Said it would be good for my career. Said I needed to transition to adult roles, and Laurence was the man who could make that happen.
What happened in that hotel room didn’t feel like career advancement.
I never told anyone. Not really. Dropped hints to Mason once, when I was drunk enough to let my guard down, but he didn’t push. Mason never pushes. He just waits, patient and steady, ready to catch me whenever I finally decide to fall.
Is that why I avoid alphas? Why the very thought of them always made my hackles rise, makes some primitive part of my brain scream danger danger danger even when there’s no actual threat?
Or is it simpler than that? Maybe I’ve just built my entire adult life around running from what I actually need.
My heat is peaking, and with it comes what feels like strange clarity. The fog in my brain shifts, rearranges, shows me patterns I’ve been too blind or too scared to see.
All those betas I’ve partied with. Safe, uncommitted, meaningless. Bodies in my bed that never demanded anything more than a few hours and a story to tell their friends. I told myself I was being independent, liberated, free from the oppressive omega stereotypes that defined my mother’s generation.
But maybe I was just scared.
Scared of wanting. Scared of needing. Scared of giving anyone enough power over me to hurt me the way Laurence did.
If I just accept what my body so obviously wants, maybe everything would be easier.
Maybe the reason I’m so miserable isn’t because I’m an omega in a world that devalues omegas. Maybe it’s because I’ve been fighting what I am instead of just accepting it.
The heat is clouding my judgment. I know this. Some tiny rational part of my brain waves a red flag, warning me that heat-induced thoughts are not to be trusted, that the chemicals flooding my system are designed specifically to override logic and self-preservation.
But that voice is getting quieter with every passing minute.
And the voice saying give in, let go, stop fighting is getting louder.
A soft knock at the door. My head lifts from the pillows, every nerve ending suddenly alert.
“Phoenix?” Atticus’s voice, muffled through the wood. “Mason sent me to check on you.”
Of course he did.
I should tell him to go away. Should curl back into my nest and suffer in dignified solitude, the way I’ve handled every other heat since I was old enough to understand what they meant.
Instead, I hear myself say: “Come in.”
The door opens slowly, like he’s giving me time to change my mind. Atticus steps through, hands up in a universal gesture of harmlessness and wearing an expression of genuine concern that doesn’t at all match his reputation as a playboy.
“Mason said you might need company. That I should…” He trails off, clearly uncomfortable. “He said it didn’t seem like you wanted to be alone.”
Silence stretches between us when I don’t immediately reply.
Atticus stands just out of reach of the bed, clearly unsure whether he should stay or go.
His presence fills the room in a way Mason’s didn’t—alpha pheromones seeping into the air, mingling with mine, creating a chemistry that my heat-addled brain interprets as yes, this one, this is what you need.
I watch him through half-lidded eyes, cataloging details I’ve tried not to notice before. Like the strong line of his jaw. Or the way his tight shirt stretches across his chest when he breathes.
Atticus Sloan might be the most physically attractive man I’ve ever met.
I grab his wrist and yank him into the nest.
The momentum takes him by surprise—or maybe I’m stronger than I look, supercharged by the hormones raging through my system. Either way, he lands on his back with a grunt, and before he can recover, I’m straddling his hips, pinning him with my weight and my desperate determination.
“Phoenix—”
“Shut up.” I press my hands to his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath my palms. Through the thin cotton of his shirt, his skin burns almost as hot as mine. “Just…shut up for one second.”
He goes still beneath me. Those green eyes are wide, pupils blown dark with arousal he’s not bothering to hide anymore. Beneath me, I can feel the evidence of his interest—hard and insistent against the apex of my thighs.
The sensation makes me gasp. Roll my hips instinctively. Watch his jaw clench as he fights for control.
“You want me,” I say, and it’s not a question.
“I’ve wanted you since the first table read.” The admission seems to cost him something. “But that doesn’t mean—“
I kiss him.
It’s nothing like the gentle press of lips we shared the day before.
This is hungry, desperate, all teeth and tongue and the accumulated frustration of years of wanting things I wouldn’t let myself have.
He responds immediately—his hands coming up to grip my hips, his mouth opening under mine, his body arching up to meet the grind of my pelvis.
Yes, something in me sings. Yes, this, finally, yes.
His kiss tastes like expensive whiskey—the kind that burns smooth down your throat—with a lingering sweetness of cherries that makes me wonder how long he’d been nursing that drink before finding me.
The Daniels’ liquor cabinet was clearly fair game tonight.
His hands move over me with a roughness that surprises me, calloused palms dragging against my sensitive skin in a way that speaks of real work, not just the sculpted perfection of Hollywood gyms.
When I roll my hips against him, pressing our bodies closer, he groans deep into my mouth, the sound vibrating through me like a live wire, sending sparks of electricity dancing across my nerve endings.
His fingers dig into my waist, pulling me tighter against him as if he can’t bear even the slightest separation between us.
Fuck, he tastes good.
My fingers fumble with the hem of Atticus’s shirt. I yank it up, bunching the fabric over his ribs. His skin gleams warm under the lamplight, taut over lean muscle that shifts as he breathes. I need more. Need it all. The cotton drags stubborn against his shoulders, and I growl low in my throat.
“Off. Now.”
He lifts his arms without a word. The shirt sails over his head, lands somewhere in the shadows beyond the nest. Broad shoulders, defined chest—every inch screams alpha in ways that make my core clench.
Dark hair dusts his pecs, trails down to disappear into his waistband.
I trace it with my nails, scraping just hard enough to raise red lines.
His fingers glide under my shirt. Tease along the sensitive skin at my waist. I moan.
The sound rips from me, raw and needy, echoing off the high ceilings. Electricity sparks where he touches, shoots straight to my clit. My hips buck against him, chasing friction through the thick fabric of his jeans. He circles my navel slow, deliberate, thumb pressing into the dip of my hipbone.
But then his hands shift. Tighten. And instead of pulling me closer, he’s pushing me back, creating space between us even as his body screams for the opposite.
“Wait.” His voice is wrecked, barely recognizable. “Phoenix, wait.”
“No.” I try to kiss him again, but he turns his head, my lips landing on his jaw instead. “Don’t stop. I need—“
“I know what you need.” He finally gets enough leverage to ease me back, to create enough distance that he can look at me properly.
His face is flushed, his breathing ragged, his arousal still obvious beneath me.
“And I’m not saying no. I’m just saying…
we should slow down. Before I lose control entirely. ”
“I don’t want you to have control.” The words are shameless, heat-drunk and desperate. “I want you to do whatever you want to do with me.”
A sound escapes him—half groan, half laugh, entirely pained.
“You have no idea how much I want to take you up on that.”
“Then do it.”
“Phoenix—”
“I’m serious.” I grab the front of his shirt, fisting the fabric in my hands. “Fuck me. Bite me. Bond me. Whatever you want. I don’t care anymore—“
“Firebird, stop.”
The words are quiet but carry a note of command that is impossible to ignore.
Atticus reaches up, his hand cupping my jaw with surprising gentleness given the chaos of the moment.
“Look at me.”
I do. His eyes are serious, searching, more green than gold in the lamplight.
“What is going on?”
I frown into his eyes, so close that my view of him has gone blurry around the edges. “I’m in heat. You’re here. It should be obvious.”
Atticus’s brow furrows, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with maddening gentleness.
“I’m pretty sure you just asked me to bond you.”
I stare at him, annoyance flickering through the haze of want.
Aren’t alphas supposed to be the ones who lose their minds at the first whiff of omega heat?
Isn’t that the whole evolutionary point—centuries of biology designed to turn them into single-minded breeding machines the moment pheromones hit the air?
And yet here’s Atticus Sloan, Hollywood’s favorite bad boy, stopping to talk while I’m practically combusting in his lap.
“Yes,” I bite out. “And?”
His eyes widen. “Phoenix, that’s the heat talking.”
“No, it’s me talking. Because my mouth is moving.
” I shove at his chest, frustration boiling over.
“You’ve been sniffing after me for weeks.
Following me around like a lost puppy. Agreeing to this whole fake relationship thing just to spend time with me.
” My hand drops between us, palming the hard length still straining against his jeans.
His hips jerk involuntarily, a strangled sound escaping his throat.
“Well, congratulations. Here’s your chance. You want me, come and get me.”
I squeeze. His eyes slam shut.
“Fuck, Phoenix…”
“So do something with this.” My voice drops to something low and dangerous. “Or I’ll do it myself.”