Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jalen
Imake it exactly three steps away from Sierra’s door before I have to stop and brace myself against the wall.
My hands are shaking. Actually shaking, like I’m some pubescent alpha who’s never been around an omega in heat before.
Except I have been. Multiple times. I’ve helped fellow cadets through heats back in our ROTC program, provided support, and maintained perfect control.
It’s one of the things I was actually good at.
Staying calm when everyone else was losing their minds.
Being the steady presence that omegas needed during vulnerable moments.
But this is Sierra Smith. The omega who actually competes with us business-wise where none other can.
The same omega I’ve had a secret crush on for... I don’t even know how long anymore.
Sexy, smart Sierra Smith.
And I just caught the scent of her slick while standing outside her door. It’s taking every ounce of willpower I possess not to turn around, break down that door, and give her exactly what her body is begging for.
The image is burned into my brain: Sierra in her nest, trying to stay quiet, working herself toward relief with her hand or a toy or—
I press my forehead against the cool wall and try to breathe through it.
Her voice when she thanked me. Wrecked. Breathless. The slight catch that told me exactly what she was doing when I knocked.
The scent of her heat is everywhere now. So thick in the air I can taste it. My rut-brain is screaming at me to go back, to offer help, to give her my knot and make all that desperate need stop.
I force myself to move. Down the hallway, away from temptation, back toward the living room where my pack is probably also losing their minds.
The house suddenly feels too small. How are we supposed to survive a week of this? Her in heat, us in rut, all of us pretending we can maintain control while our biology screams at us to claim and knot and breed.
This is what I get for being observant. For noticing things other people miss.
It’s served me well in event planning. I catch the small details.
I can read a room and adjust accordingly.
But right now, all those carefully honed observation skills are working against me because I can’t stop cataloging every tiny detail about Sierra’s heat.
The way her scent changed throughout our discussion. The flush that started at her collarbones and spread upward. The shift in her breathing pattern.
I noticed all of it.
I just wanted to walk over, run my hands into her soft brown hair, tilt her head back, those light-brown eyes locked with mine as I lean in and press my lips along that line of heat until she was panting my name.
And now I can’t stop noticing the scent of her slick lingering in the hallway, the sound of her movement in the bedroom, the way the house itself seems to hum with tension.
I enter the living room and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Dax is pacing, all that controlled energy from earlier completely gone. His scent is pouring off him. Burned caramel so thick and aggressive it makes my own alpha instincts bristle with the urge to either submit or challenge.
Malik is on the couch, but his usual composed demeanor is cracking. His jaw is clenched tight enough to shatter teeth, and his hands are gripping the couch cushions like he’s restraining himself from going down the hall.
Cole is by the window, his head tilted, listening to the storm hammer against the metal shutters. The sharp, spicy heat rolling off him is almost frantic. He’s practically vibrating with barely contained energy.
All three of them turn when I walk in, and the look in their eyes makes me stop in my tracks.
“How is she?” Dax asks, voice rough.
I have to clear my throat twice before I can answer. “She wanted ice cream. Rocky road. I left it outside her door.”
“Rocky road,” Cole repeats slowly, then lets out a strangled laugh. “With marshmallows. She has a thing for marshmallows, apparently.”
He’s looking directly at me when he says it, and I feel my face heat despite everything.
“Not the time,” I mutter.
My scent has always been a source of amusement for the pack.
Toasted marshmallows and spiced cider? Cole claims it smells like childhood nostalgia, which is equal parts flattering and irritating.
Sierra once mentioned during one of our forced interactions at an industry event that it reminded her of campfires, which did absolutely nothing to help the inconvenient attraction I’ve been nursing.
Not that I’ve acted on it. I learned a long time ago that being the quiet one, the observant one, means people don’t always notice what you’re feeling.
It’s a useful skill in business. Clients love that I remember their preferences, that I anticipate their needs without being asked.
But in love? It just means I’ve gotten really good at pining in silence while everyone assumes I’m just being my usual reserved self.
“She say anything else?” Malik asks, leaning forward slightly. His vanilla ice-cream scent spikes with interest, and I see his deep brown eyes go even deeper brown.
I hesitate. I shouldn’t tell them. It feels like a violation of Sierra’s privacy to share what I heard, what I smelled, what I know she was doing when I knocked.
But we’re pack. And they can probably smell it on me, anyway. The lingering scent of her slick, the way my own scent has gone thick with rut response.
“It’s getting worse,” I say finally, choosing my words carefully. “The heat. I could... I could smell it through the door.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Dax stops pacing. Malik’s hands tighten on the cushions. Cole turns away from the window completely, eyes locked on me.
“And?” Dax prompts, voice dropping an octave.
I swallow hard. “And I’m pretty sure she was... trying to take care of it. When I knocked.”
The growl that rumbles through the room comes from all three of them simultaneously. Low and deep and so alpha-aggressive that my own rut responds, wanting to join in, wanting to add my voice to the claim.
“Fuck,” Cole says, running both hands through his hair. “Fuck, that’s...”
“Hot,” Malik finishes bluntly. “That’s incredibly hot, and we all need to get ourselves under control immediately.”
But none of us moves. We’re all standing there, frozen by the mental image of Sierra in her nest, hands between her thighs, trying to soothe the heat that’s clearly driving her crazy.
I’ve spent too long learning to read Sierra from a distance.
Catching her tells in stolen glances at industry mixers, decoding her reactions.
It started as a professional necessity. Knowing what pissed her off or made her smirk gave me an edge when we were bidding for the same venues, the same clients.
But somewhere along the way, it became more than strategy.
I started noticing things that had nothing to do with business.
The way her laugh cuts through a room when she’s genuinely amused.
How she taps her pen against her clipboard when she’s impatient.
The fact that she always steals a sugar packet from the coffee bar at events but never uses it.
Just tucks it into her pocket like some kind of weird trophy.
And now I’m noticing things I definitely shouldn’t be noticing. Like the exact timbre of her voice when she’s aroused. The scent of her slick. The way her breath catches when a wave of heat goes through her.
“She booked this place for her heat week,” Dax says slowly, like he’s working through a puzzle. “So, she obviously came prepared. Which means...”
“Toys,” Cole supplies. “She’s got toys in there.”
The word hangs in the air like a grenade.
My brain immediately supplies an extremely vivid image of Sierra with a vibrator, or a dildo, or, God help me, something with a knot that she can work inside herself when the heat gets too intense.
Based on the way everyone’s scents just spiked, they’re all thinking the same thing.
“Stop it,” I tell myself as much as them. “We need to stop thinking about this.”
“Kind of hard not to,” Malik says dryly, “when she’s down the hall right now probably using one.”
Dax makes a sound that’s half-growl, half-groan. He resumes pacing, more agitated now. “This is bad. This is really bad. How are we supposed to last a week like this?”
I don’t answer immediately because the truth is lodged somewhere between my brain and my mouth. The truth is that I want to help her. Every fiber of my being is screaming at me to go back down that hall and offer myself as a solution to her suffering.
But I can’t.
Not because it would be wrong, though crossing that line with a business rival definitely complicates things. But because if I help her, if I knot her, if I give her what her body is begging for... she’ll know.
She’ll feel it in the way I touch her. Hear it in the way I say her name. See it in my eyes when I look at her afterward.
And then everything I’ve been carefully hiding? All the observations I’ve noted in silence? All the feelings I’ve pretended don’t exist? They will all be laid bare.
And I don’t know if I can survive her rejection after that.
“By remembering that she’s our…responsibility,” I finally say, though the word tastes wrong in my mouth, but it’s the only one that fits. “And that she trusted us enough to be here during her heat. We’re not going to violate that trust.”
It’s the same principle I apply to client relationships, actually.
People trust us with their most important events.
Weddings, anniversaries, proposals. They share intimate details of their lives and trust us to handle them with care.
Sierra is trusting us with something infinitely more intimate, and I refuse to betray that.
Even if my rut is making very compelling arguments about why helping her wouldn’t be a betrayal at all.