Chapter Ten
Kendrick
The soft click of the cottage door closing tugged at my consciousness, bringing me awake. Groaning loudly when pain sliced through my head as I blinked my eyes open, I slammed them shut and rolled over.
It was still dark in Bal’s bedroom, which told me it was way too early to be up and about.
Bal was no doubt on his way down to the workshop, with a million and one spreadsheets he needed to get to.
And a million and one last minute things he needed to check for the five hundred and fifty seventh time, before Nik needed to take off tonight to begin delivering presents.
Overheated from the pile of blankets I had on, I fitfully kicked all of them off me and shoved them to the foot of the bed. Why was it so hot in here? And why was my head pounding like I’d been out clubbing with Sadie?
Sure, Bal and I had celebrated our victory at winning the gingerbread contest last night with my and Nik’s family, but it had been a tame event. Nothing that would cause my head to ache like it was in a vice grip.
Groaning, I blinked my eyes open and stared up at what I could make of the dark ceiling from the light of the moon shining in. What time was it? Rolling over, I groaned again when I saw it was barely four a.m.
“Too early,” I mumbled, flopping one arm over my burning eyes.
Sleep. I needed more sleep. My body felt achy and heavy with the need.
I was just on the edge of falling back asleep when the events of last night flashed across my mind. Bal grabbing me when we had won, swinging me in the air, then my body sliding down his much taller and harder one.
The heated look in his silver eyes, that didn’t quite tell me what he was thinking.
Coming back to his cottage, still on a high from our win, after the pizza we had devoured with my family to celebrate.
Standing in the entranceway to this very room, so close I had to crane my neck up to see him. The heat of his body warming me, both our breathing coming just a bit too fast. The tender way he had brushed a lock of hair off my forehead. The anticipation when I thought he was going to kiss me again.
Only to feel him bend down, his firm lips brushing the lightest kiss across my forehead, before he had whispered good night, and walked into the living room to take his place on the couch.
That kiss hadn’t been the kiss I had been waiting for, been wanting. But somehow it was one of the sweetest, tenderest, most intimate kisses I had ever had.
It had shaken me to my core. It made me want…so many things from Bal.
Heat flooded my body, and I pulled my sticky t-shirt away from my chest. Why was it so hot in here? Had Bal turned up the heat, thinking I would get cold?
My stomach twisted then, making me gasp as nausea and a sharp cramp had me rolling to my side, my knees up in my chest.
Oh fuck! I knew what this was!
No, no, no! My heat wasn’t due for another three weeks, well after I would be home, and we had staged our “break up”.
This could not be happening now!
The gush of slick, the hardness of my growing cock, and the almost all-consuming need for a knot that swarmed through my out-of-control body, told me it very much was happening now.
When the wave of pain and fire backed off, I managed to grab my cell phone from the nightstand. Squinting at it, hands shaking, I typed out a message to Bal.
Me: You can’t come back here for a few days. I’m sorry, but can you stay at Nik’s or Kris and Oliver’s?
The phone dinged in my hand a few seconds later, but another wave of lust and heat gripped me, and I couldn’t focus enough to even read it.
Finally, I held the phone up, the words blurring before righting themselves.
Swiping at a rivulet of sweat dripping down my forehead, I wiped my hand on the sheet already damp from my slick.
Grumpy Elf: What’s going on? Are you okay?
I was absolutely not okay. My hole ached with the need to be filled and knotted, and I moaned at the near pain of it. I didn’t have any supplies with me. No toys to help get me through this.
Me: My heat came early.
My phone was silent for a full minute, before another text came through.
Grumpy Elf: What do you need, Kendrick?
The ache was too much just then, my mind too muddled with need and lust, and I dropped the phone beside me on the bed. What did I need? I needed to come.
Pushing my pajama pants down past my ass, I slid two fingers into my slick hole, moaning at the sweet pleasure of being filled with something. It wasn’t enough, not by a long shot, my fingers not nearly thick enough, but it was a start.
Fingers coated in slick, I slid them out of my ass and wiped them down the sides of my throbbing, hard cock. It was just enough to make the slide of my hand down my length not catch on my over sensitive skin.
The rhythm I sat for myself was rough, fast, my hips humping the air as I jacked myself. It wasn’t enough. My hole needed to be filled! Three fingers slid in, this time with a slight burn that I loved.
Neither of my hands were coordinated with the other, but my body didn’t care. My ass was full of my fingers, and my cock was firmly gripped in my other hand, both striving for that crest of bliss.
My body temperature rose another notch, the only sounds in the room my panting, gasping breaths, the slap of flesh on flesh, and the obscene squelching noise my slick ass made around my fingers.
My orgasm shot out of me before I even registered it was upon me, my cum painting my chest. I lay panting for long minutes, eyes closed, nearly boneless. Finally, I let my fingers slip from my body, my hole still clenching with need.
The urgent dinging of my phone had me blinking, and I tried to remember where I was and what I had been doing.
Bal.
It took a minute for my searching hand to locate my phone, and even longer for the words lighting up the screen to make sense.
Grumpy Elf: Kendrick?
Grumpy Elf: I’m coming home!
Grumpy Elf: No, that’s probably not a good idea…um, I can drop supplies off for you.
Grumpy Elf: Would it be better for your brother to do that? Another omega, I mean?
Grumpy Elf: Kendrick, please tell me how to help you. What you need.
Me: I need an alpha to fuck me into the mattress and knot me.
The phone was blessedly silent after that. Yeah, I figured that would shut him up.
This was going to be a long, painful couple of days.
Balfour
I need an alpha to knot me.
Just the act of staring down at the words Kendrick had typed had my body strumming with desire, all the blood from my brain traveling at warp speed straight to my dick.
My eyes frantically searched the workshop, which was already a hive of activity and buzzing words of conversation, as the elves worked hard to get the last minute items needed for the big night tomorrow.
Growling at a passing elf, who was in their first year at the workshop, I demanded, “Where is Nik?”
Eyes wide, he visibly gulped. “Ni…Nik?” He stammered, then seemed to realize who I was asking about. “Do you mean The Santa?”
“Yes, yes,” I waved my phone at him in the universal hurry up sign. “The Santa. Where is he?”
Another gulp. Honestly, why did these first-year elves always act so jumpy about everything?
It wasn’t like anyone ever got fired from the workshop.
We just moved people around until we found their niche.
Pointing in the general direction of the back of the building, he stammered, “I think he’s down at the reindeer barn? ”
He said it like a question, which annoyed me even more.
If he didn’t know where Nik was he should just say so.
I probably shouldn’t have just grabbed the first elf I saw and expected them to know the whereabouts of their boss, but really they should keep better track of him.
I couldn’t be expected to do everything around here, all the time.
Hurrying out of the workshop, I nearly ran down to the building that housed the reindeer and the sleigh.
“Nik!” I yelled, once I was inside the warm building, wrinkling my nose at the earthy scent of the beasts. “I need you!”
Nik straightened from where he’d been bent over Blitzen’s stall, giving the beast nose a scratch. Raising one dark brow at me, he wiped his hand down his jeans. “Is the workshop on fire?”
“What? No, of course not.” I wrinkled my brow at him in confusion. “Why would you even think that?”
“I can’t imagine anything else causing you to get in–” he waved a hand in my general direction, “such a tizzy. You’re normally calm under any circumstance.”
“It’s…I…he…” I waved my phone between us, like I had done to the elf a few minutes ago. Apparently, I thought waving my phone at people would make them magically know how to solve my problem.
Nik scrutinized me for a few seconds. “I’m assuming he is Kendrick?”
“Who else would I be talking about?” I huffed. I did not have time for all these questions.
Nik crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the stall.
Blitzen, ever the nosy fucker, popped his head over the stall, staring at me with interest. I so did not need to be the talk of all the reindeers.
I might not be able to understand them, but Nik could, and I knew they were a gossipy bunch.
“Indeed.” Nik pursed his lips. “Trouble in paradise? There is a paradise, right? Not just a hoax you two are playing at?”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I shot him my best indignant glare.
The one that made all the other elves shake in their boots.
Nik just grinned at me, a knowing look in his blue eyes.
But I wasn’t going to crack under his gaze.
He might know me better than anyone else, and he might be The Santa, but I controlled the naughty list. He’d never know if mine and Kendrick’s names were on it from our tiny white lies.
Instead of answering his question, I hissed low, trying to keep my voice down so the reindeers couldn’t hear me. “He’s in heat.”
Nik’s brows rose to his hairline, before a shit eating grin took over his face.
“Well, I guess you’ll need a couple of days off then.
Go,” he made a shooing motion at me, “get out of here. And before you give me any bullshit about needing to be here for the big night, I will remind you that Anderson has been your assistant for over two hundred years. He is quite capable. At least, I assume he is, since you trained him. Not that you’ve ever let the man actually fill in for you. ”
What? Anderson? Honestly, the big night hadn’t even crossed my mind. I had more important things to worry about than Nik crossing the world, delivering presents and Christmas joy.
Fighting the urge to grind my teeth in frustration and/or stomp my feet, I grabbed him by the arm and bodily forced him into the sleigh room. Away from nosy reindeer ears.
Nik stared at me like I had lost my mind, and maybe I had.
“Explain,” he demanded, opening the door to the ornate red and gold sleigh, and plopping his behind on the cushioned seat.
“I…I’ve never…I don’t know what…” And…I was back to stammering.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly, then shook my hands at my side.
“I’ve never taken an omega through a heat before.
I don’t know what he needs. I don’t even know if he wants me to be with him through it.
I should ask that, right? Right. I should ask him. ”
Nik rubbed the side of his nose, watching me while I paced back and forth a few times, muttering to myself.
“Bal,” he said softly, halting my pacing. “Settle down. Haven’t you guys talked about this?”
“Talked about it?” my voice croaked. “Why would we have?”
“It’s what most people do in a relationship.”
Ugh, there was that damn word again. Though this time I didn’t think Nik was fishing for information or trying to ferret out our lies. He looked genuinely baffled by my reaction.
“Oh,” I breathed softly, “no, we haven’t been together that long, and well…he said it came early. We haven’t talked about it yet.”
“Ahhh, okay.” Nik nodded in understanding.
My pacing started up once more. “I’ve heard omegas need…things…during their heat. Food, water. Other…things. Should I get a care package together and like…leave it at the door? No, it might be better for Keegan to take it to him. Or their mom. Another omega.”
“Maybe start with asking him if he wants you to be with him through his heat,” Nik supplied softly. “A real alpha is much better than toys. Or so I’ve heard.”
Toys? What kind of….ohhhhh, those kinds of toys.
My face heated just thinking about toys, and Kendrick, and Kendrick using toys.
Nope, could not think about any of that right now. My dick did not need to get any harder. Thankfully, my tunic top covered my groin area, but even it was going to have a hard time concealing it if my dick got any bigger in my pants.
Nik patted my shoulder. “It will be fine, Bal. I think the fact that your entire focus is on Kendrick now, and you didn’t even have a thought for tonight, says it all.
Go. Get out of here. We’ll all be fine without you this time.
Trust your elves. You’ve trained them well.
And,” he gave my shoulder another squeeze, “you deserve time off to enjoy this time with your omega.”
My omega.
But he wasn’t my omega, not really. It was all a lie.
Was it really, though? Because it has been the easiest lie I have ever told.
And the more time I spent with Kendrick, playing the part of his boyfriend, the more I found myself wanting it to be true.
First, I needed to make sure he wanted me to be with him through his heat. Because I would never assume or impose myself on him. If he wanted to go through it alone, I would make sure he had everything he would need.
Balfour
Past…
Me: I spent the afternoon with Kacey. Be jealous.
Nemesis: Pics or it didn’t happen.
Me: Why are you such a child? My word should be good enough.
Nemesis: I do spend most of my day surrounded by six year olds, so….and I don’t trust any elves who never smile.
Me: I smile.
Nemesis: Again…pics or it didn’t happen.
Me: There. Picture sent. Proof of life and a smile.
Nemesis: I can’t believe how big Kacey is getting! I’m a little jealous you get to see her all the time.
Me: She’s getting tall. She’s going to be normal size. Not like your brother.
Nemesis: Keegan is normal size!
Me: He is child size, and you know it! Even for a human omega he is short!
Nemesis: Okay, he is LOL I’m still jealous I only get to see her on holidays and school breaks. Thanks for the pictures btw. You have a really nice smile.
Me: *blushing emoji* You’re welcome.