Chapter 23 #2
Pink marble veined with cream on the floor.
The walls are a warm off-white, washed in gold from a gently domed ceiling above.
A curved reception desk of pale wood. Behind it, a single receptionist in a white tunic over pink trousers, her dark hair in a low, neat knot.
She’s small, mid-thirties, with a calm expression.
I inhale the jasmine and eucalyptus in the air, with something warm and sweet running underneath, vanilla maybe, or honey.
Harp music plays from the speakers. Along one wall is a long, curved velvet bench in dusty rose.
Along the other, framed photographs in soft focus.
Alphas, all of them, beautiful, some shirtless, some just portraits of jaws and eyes. Marketing, comfort, or both.
Mercifully, the lobby is empty.
“Welcome. I’m Kalei,” the receptionist says. “Clio told me we need to hurry. Don’t worry about anything. We have you”
“Hi,” I manage, and it comes out broken.
“Put it all on my account and tab,” Clio says.
“You don’t have to,” I whisper.
“We’re not arguing about this. Later.”
My eyes fill again, and I can’t even argue properly. I just squeeze her hand until my knuckles hurt.
Kalei comes around the desk. Up close, her scent is floral and subtle, and my body responds to it instantly with a small drop in my shoulders. She loops her arm through mine on the opposite side from Clio.
“Most of our rooms are booked tonight, but we have a couple of the deluxe suites free, and I’ll put you in my favorite one. Trust me. Let’s go.”
The three of us walk down a corridor that extends behind the reception area, the same dusty pink and cream, sconces throwing soft gold light onto doors in different colors, each with a name in small gold script instead of a number. The Garden. The Tide. Honey House. Storm.
“We theme the rooms,” Kalei explains, catching my eye. “Every Omega needs something different. Some want cozy. Some want to feel like they’re outside. Helps them settle.”
A stab goes through me, and I stop against the wall, another gush of slick soaking down my thighs. A humiliated whimper escapes me.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Kalei’s arm tightens around me. “A few more steps. Promise. I’ve got you.” Clio falls behind.
“You got this, babe,” she calls out.
Kalei brings us to a door painted the exact color of the sky just before dawn, pale and greenish. The gold script reads The Reef.
“This one. Trust me.” She opens the door.
Every thought I had waiting in my head drops out of it at once.
The ceiling is vaulted, and across it a mural of a reef has been painted in watercolor.
Schools of fish in impossible silvers and blues and yellows swim above me in total silence.
The walls are a pale seafoam. A four-poster bed dominates the far end, draped with gauzy white fabric that moves gently in the air from a ceiling fan turning above it.
The bedding is deep blue and white, piled with cushions and a cashmere throw.
Along one wall stands a built-in cabinet, open-fronted, with stacked white towels, hanging robes, neat rows of boxes.
Another one has shelves filled with all kinds of dildos and sex toys.
Beside it, a small kitchenette with a mini fridge showing cold waters and fresh juices, bowls of fruit, and a basket of pastries.
Beside the bed, a low table with a glass of water, a sprig of lavender, and a small folded note.
Through a doorway on the far side, I spy a second room, tiled in pale stone, with a large sunken spa already filled and glowing faintly blue, an orchid floating on the surface of the water. Beyond that, a walk-in shower, all glass and warm stone.
Above the bed, discreet but present, four padded pink leather cuffs hang loose from the posts.
“Oh, this place is amazing,” I whisper.
“I know.” Kalei’s smile is proud. “Our designer won an award.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Sit.” Kalei guides me to the wooden bench at the foot of the bed.
“Before you fall.” She crouches in front of me, her small hands warm on my knees.
“Quickly. I need to know what support you’d like tonight.
We have options. You can manage it yourself, and we’ll check on you and bring whatever you need.
We have suppressants that take the edge off the pain without shutting the heat down entirely, which most Omegas prefer.
There’s also an Alpha on call tonight, professionally screened, trained in heat assistance.
He’s wonderful. Some clients request him by name.
” A small, very deliberate smile. “He’s an additional cost but worth every cent. ”
“No Alpha,” I say, immediately.
“Of course. Suppressants?”
“Yes, please.”
“Excellent. Now, the walls are soundproof, so don’t be afraid to scream to your heart’s delight.
” She nods once and stands. “Shower first. It helps. Robe on the hook, and everything you could want is in the cabinet. The spa is running and will be warm by the time you’re out.
Food on the tablet if you want something more substantial.
Blue button by the bed if you need me. Red button for emergency. I’m here all night.”
“You are incredible. Thank you.” I’m barely holding myself together.
“The room is yours until you don’t want it anymore.”
She presses my shoulder gently and moves to the door. She pauses with her hand on the knob. “You’ll be okay,” she says.
Then she’s gone. The door clicks shut, and the only sound left is the ceiling fan turning slowly above the painted fish. I am alone.
Then the grief arrives all at once—not waves this time, but a flood. Everything I’ve been holding back since I stepped into that shop crashes through me so hard I have to press both hands against my mouth to keep the sound inside the room.
Then I let go.
I cry the way I haven’t let myself cry since Los Angeles. Loud, full-bodied, the sound breaking against the walls. I cry for the part of me that still wants to believe in Ace, Luca, and North so badly it hurts to sit still with.
My body is screaming for three men who may have done the unforgivable, and it doesn’t care what I think it should want. It only demands them, and I sob until there’s nothing left to come up, and then I sob some more because my body has always been more generous with grief than with resolution.
When I finally stand, my legs barely hold me. I peel off my ruined clothes in the tiled chamber, drop them in the cloth basket, and step into the shower. The water comes on warm at exactly the right pressure, and I brace both hands against the stone wall and let my forehead fall between them.
The heat wave builds again almost immediately. I slip one hand between my thighs because my body is leaving me no other choice, and I come, fast and sharp and joyless, against the wall of the shower.
It feels nothing like what I need, and I end up sliding down the wall until I’m sitting on the warm tile with the water running over me. I fold my arms around my knees and whisper to the drain, “How am I supposed to do this without them when the agony inside me is a longing for them?”
Underneath the heat and the grief and the wanting, a colder pain threads through everything—the possibility that they hurt that girl. That the men my body is screaming for are men I may not ever return to.
I press my face into my knees, let the shower run over me, and wait for the suppressants. The only thing my body produces, over and over, steady as a heartbeat, is their names.