Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Fuck Charles Lupine.
I hate him.
I hate that he was right.
A bath was exactly what I needed.
Not that I’ll ever tell him that.
The water is tepid by the time I pull the mask off my face. I must have fallen asleep, because my skin is waterlogged.
I was dreading getting out of the tub, but it was for naught. Charles thought of everything, and I have a towel waiting for me in the warmer to chase away the residual chill from too long spent in the cooled water.
I feel better than I have in a long time.
The bond with Athena feels more stable now than it was before. I still hate being away from her, but I didn’t think about it as much when I was in the bath. Something about it numbed the part of my brain that screams that I am incomplete without her by my side.
I felt taken care of. Cherished. Even though he didn’t stick around, I knew Charles was lingering nearby, and if I had called for him, he would’ve been right there.
By the time I towel-dry my hair and pull on a pair of loose sweatpants, Athena is waiting for me in the nest.
“Hey.” She smiles at me, looking up from a worn paperback. “How are you?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, bulldozing over her question and dropping to my knees in front of her. “I was an ass.”
She closes the book and places it to the side of the nest. “You were.”
“This is hard for me,” I continue, grabbing her hands with mine. “I don’t know how to accept this new part of me.”
“Me neither. But we have to try. After speaking with those… men, I realize we were the lucky ones in this situation. We have a chance to live where so many others died. And Lupine? I got to know them a bit better today. They seem like a great pack, Atlas. I always wanted a pack.”
I sit back on my heels. “You wanted an Omega.”
“I got one,” she teases, threading her fingers through mine. “Even if he is a little broken.”
“Hey!” I pull her hand to my mouth and nip at her fingertips. “If I’m broken, so are you.”
“Never said I wasn’t. But I was broken long before they shoved me in that crate.”
I pull her down to splay across my lap. Her pineapple scent is so fresh that it makes my mouth water. I nip and kiss up her neck, savoring the way she shudders in my arms.
“I’m not worried about your jagged edges. They fit mine perfectly,” I whisper against her soft skin.
She nuzzles her nose against my face. “We have to nest, Atlas.”
My stomach sinks a little, and my mouth goes dry. “Yeah, I know.”
“Let’s start small?” She pushes to her feet and grabs a couple of the bags, digging through them. The first thing she pulls out is the black sheets.
“Moisture wicking,” she reads from the label. “Oh. Ew.”
I snort and pluck them from her hands. “I think that’s a feature they all have to have.” We work to get them stretched across the inlaid mattress, and as we do, I blurt out something absolutely mortifying.
“Do you know slick comes from my asshole?”
A loud cackling laugh follows a beat of silence. “I mean, yeah? Didn’t you? That seems obvious.”
“I never thought about it!” I huff, grabbing the curtain lights and getting to work hanging them. My body is going on autopilot, instinctively knowing where everything is supposed to go. “And going into heat is going to be so weird, Athena.”
“So weird,” she agrees, arranging pillows around the room. “But I mean, at least the Alphas are hot?”
“Do we forgive them for what they did?”
“We? They didn’t do it to you.” She rolls her eyes and tosses a pillow at me.
“Yes, I forgive them. I’m still upset about it, but I don’t think it was malicious.
I talked through it with all of them, and you know, it’s going to be hard to balance so many relationships. There are bound to be some hiccups.”
I catch the pillow effortlessly and toss it to the ground. “But the hiccups should’ve affected me, and not you.”
“I mean, I’m sure your time is coming. They may be the sexiest pack I’ve ever seen, but they’re still stupid Alphas.”
She isn’t lying about their being attractive. All of them are. My memory goes back to the night I spent with Wyatt. His trim hips and sculpted stomach, the way his lips parted and gasped as I grabbed his cock. The tentative way he ran his fingers through my hair when I swallowed him down.
“I fucked Wyatt once,” I say quickly, tripping over my words. I can’t bring myself to look at her, suddenly very concerned about smoothing the lighted curtains down and plugging the cord into a socket.
“Oh?” Her tone isn’t judgmental or upset that I didn’t tell her sooner. She’s curious. “How’d that happen?”
“Lowered inhibitions and mutual attraction.” I swipe my hand over my forehead before joining her in placing blankets and pillows around the room. “I never thought of going there because his brother is my best friend.”
“But now you can.”
“I can.”
“How does that feel?” She hands me the body pillow that stole all my attention in Omegamart, and I wrap my arms around it.
We sit down in the nest, cuddling together. It’s a great nest, but it’s not perfect.
It needs them.
I may not be able to smell their pheromones, but I know in my gut that we need them for it to feel complete. How in the world am I supposed to tell them that?
“It feels odd,” I admit to her. “Like we’re in a holding pattern.”
“How come you’ve never pursued anything serious with him?” she asks, throwing her leg over my hips and subconsciously grinding her pussy on my thigh.
I dig my fingertips into her soft thighs, gently encouraging her motions. “Because not only is his brother my best friend, but we’re coworkers. It was not a good idea.”
Which is why Wyatt got so weird after we hooked up.
They say you don’t shit where you eat for a reason, and I wasn’t going to act on my attraction to any of Pack Lupine.
Until I did.
Now, I’ve been so focused on the fact that I am now an Omega and how much it bothers me, I haven’t given myself a chance to process what it means that these guys are my pack.
Not that I’m thinking solely with my dick, but I’m not not thinking with my dick. Especially right now, when Athena is rocking against me, her scent thick in the air.
“Charles and I have talked about our relationship, and neither of us is into the other sexually, but the other three…” I trail off, adjusting so she’s more comfortable on top of me and staring up at the ceiling.
“The attraction is there. I don’t know if it’s mutual with Harvey and Sebass, but I’m willing to explore it if they are. ”
“Why wouldn’t they be? You’re a smokeshow,” she says, rolling on top of me. “My Omega is the sexiest Omega in the world.”
For some reason, when she calls me an Omega, it doesn’t raise my hackles.
It feels right.
“Ah, you’re wrong about that. I know for a fact that I have the sexiest Omega in the world.
” I press my lips to hers, my hips thrusting gently against hers.
We kiss each other with reverence, moving slowly against one another, with all the time in the world to explore one another and saturate our new nest with our scents.
She pulls away with a soft gasp. “I kissed Harvey,” she says in a rush.
“And how was it?” I ask, running my nose up her scent gland and inhaling deeply. “I’ve always wondered.”
“It was a great first kiss,” she admits with a blush. “We cuddled and talked after he apologized for what happened.”
“Are you going to make him make it up to you?
She drags her fingertips down my collarbones. “Of course I am. All of them will have to.”
I grind my hips into hers, and her mouth parts on a breathy moan. “With lots of orgasms, right?”
A pretty flush runs down her neck, and she chews on her lip. “Maybe.”
I rotate my hips, letting her feel my hard cock as it bumps against her mound. “How was the kiss?”
“It,” she inhales deeply, her pupils dilating, “was only a kiss. Tender, sweet.”
My body craves hers. It’s been too long since we touched, and I am barely holding myself back from ripping her leggings off. “But you wanted more?”
Her eyes go glassy, her hips rotating slowly and grinding her cunt against my cock. I can feel us both dripping, soaking our clothes. “I mean, yeah. He’s-” She gasps as I grab her hips, pulling her down and thrusting my hard cock against her. “He’s gorgeous.”
“He’ll look even better when you’re wrapped around him,” I whisper, nipping at her ear.
She runs her fingers through my hair and pulls my lips to meet hers. Our tongues stroke each other lazily as she squirms on top of me.
“What will it be like when you’re pressed between me and one of the Alphas?
Riding their knots while you drink me down?
” She gasps, fingertips struggling for purchase on my bare chest. I purr in approval, leaning up to nip at the soft skin on her neck.
“You love that idea, don’t you? Because you smell so delicious. You’re dripping slick at the idea.”
There are too many layers between us.
I flip us over, laying her on her back and resting back on my heels as I fumble with the waistband of her leggings.
My desire to lay her bare in front of me is overwhelming all rational thought.
When I expose her, her scent mouth-watering, her arousal undeniable, my control snaps, and I dive between her thighs.
The first taste of her on my tongue has me thrusting my hips into the mattress of the nest, my aching cock desperate for friction.
The unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation of slick dripping down the back of my thighs nearly takes me out of the moment, but I’m pulled back in when Athena moans my name as I glide my tongue over her clit.
Her fingers weave into my hair and pull, pressing my face tighter against her soft pussy. I suck her clit into my mouth and slip a finger inside her, groaning when I feel how slick and hot she is.
I want more.
I need more.
A hunger I have not felt before rolls through me, and I push another finger into her while I grind against the nest, my cock slick and stiff and aching for friction. I lick and nip and suck her clit until she’s begging and pleading beneath me, and it’s still not enough for me.
“Atlas,” she pants, wrapping a leg around my shoulders and burying my face deeper in her cunt. “Please, more.” I slide three fingers into her, but she’s still distressed, begging and pleading for more, more, more.
A fourth finger slides easily into her slickness when I overlap them slightly and move them within her at the same pace I thrust my hips into the mattress.
Pleasure shoots up my spine, and I am panting, whining into Athena’s center as I soak up her slick with my tongue.
I’m making a mess of my pants, dripping slick from both sides of me as I chase my pleasure while doling it out to my Omega.
“Please,” she whines, writhing against my face. “I need more. I need…”
I know what she needs.
She needs a knot.
Something I can’t give her.
But I can do the next best thing.
I pull my hand out, overlapping my fingers with my thumb and sliding the whole thing inside her slowly.
I watch with rapt attention as she stretches around my hand.
She’s not quiet as she sucks my hand down, and slick drips down my wrist, easing the passage.
When my fist is fully seated inside her and she writhes, moaning and yelping as I slowly thrust it into her, I suck her clit hard between my teeth.
Her body seizes and shakes as she screams out her release, back arching and toes curling in an erotic picture that makes me lose control.
My cock pulses as I drive it deeper into the nest and explode. I would be embarrassed about coming in my pants if it weren’t for the fact that I have a gorgeous woman on my fist and the taste of her slick on my tongue.
But my cock is still hard, my body still aching for more, and Athena seems to be the same. She’s whining and sobbing as I pull my hand out of her. Pain blooms through my lower abdomen, nearly making me yelp.
“Fuck,” I hiss, curling in on myself. “What is happening?”
“I think,” she pants, crawling to me and pushing me onto my back, “we’re going into heat.”
Why does it hurt? I don’t have a uterus to cramp. Isn’t heat ovulation? I’m not ovulating. I shouldn’t be going into heat.
Athena pulls my still-hard cock out of my sweats and fists it, smearing slick and cum across the shaft. She holds it steady and then slams herself down onto it. I cry out, squeezing her hips tightly as I thrust up into her.
I have never felt this way before. I’m desperate, my body craving things that Athena can’t give me, but I’m chasing all the same.