Forty-Six
FORTY-SIX
Mia
EMIEL WAS ANOTHER ONE of the pack who didn’t sleep much, and I’d heard him moving around in the converted attic bedroom when I’d come up to the second floor. For that reason, I didn’t feel bad about trotting upstairs to fluster him.
Unsurprisingly, a light was shining through from the open landing, confirming that he was still awake. Princess the Guard Kitten poked her head through the railing as I approached the top, letting out a meow of greeting.
“Hi, Beautiful,” I replied. “Do I have to answer three riddles before I’m granted access to the kingdom?”
“Nah,” Emiel called from somewhere out of my line of sight. “Might need to scratch behind her ears first, though. Hi, Mia.”
“Hi, Emiel,” I called back, mounting the last few steps and leaning down to offer the required kitty scritches. “Sorry to bother you so late.”
He was propped up in the bed with a book hanging loosely in his hand, dressed in a white T-shirt and the gray sweatpants that I found so incredibly distracting. I felt a little tingle between my legs—the first hint that my impetuous idea to deliver his gift might not’ve been the most brilliant decision I’d ever made.
“Don’t be,” he said. “What’s up? Everything okay?”
I hated the fact that he had to ask. What would need to happen before we could all start to assume that unexpected things were good, rather than bad?
“Everything’s great,” I said warmly, vowing to make this interaction the first of many happier ones... even if it left me with a mild case of lady-omega blue balls afterward. “Luca got that gift he threatened you with a while back, and I asked him if I could be the one to deliver it.”
“Christmas ain’t ’til Wednesday.” Emiel frowned, sitting up. “And we don’t really do anything for it, anyway.”
I gasped, playing up my shock. “You don’t ? Oh, we are so totally changing that. But this isn’t a Christmas gift. It’s just a gift-gift. And even though I want to see if you’ll blush, you have to promise me that if you don’t like it, you’ll say so and not worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.”
He marked his page in the book and set it aside on the nightstand, giving me a sideways glance. “Well, now you’ve got me all worried.”
I snorted, inviting myself over to his bed and flopping down on the edge. “You beat people up in cage fights for stress relief. I think you’ll be okay, big guy. Seriously, Luca wants to help you out, and so do I. But if we called it wrong and it’s not a help, it’s no big deal.”
He narrowed his eyes at me and held his hand out for the unmarked brown cardboard box. I gave it to him with a smile, wondering when the last time someone had spontaneously gotten him a gift might have been.
He kept half an eye on me, and half an eye on the box, as though he expected it to contain an exploding snake-in-a-can gag or something. The object inside was wrapped in plastic, obscuring its details. He pulled it out and stared at it in confusion for a moment, then he tipped the open box up. A small pamphlet fluttered free, so he set the other stuff aside in favor of skimming over the text.
“It’s a knotting sleeve,” I told him. “Luca said it’s made so alphas can orgasm from things other than intercourse, and still be comfortable afterward. I think he thought it might be useful if you wanted to, uh, experiment .”
The heat kindling low in my belly wasn’t getting any better—and it definitely wasn’t helped when Emiel’s eyes went wide and flew to mine, then immediately darted away. Spicy citrus thickened in the air.
“Oh,” he said, his rumbling voice barely audible.
I caught my lower lip between my teeth, chewing it for a moment as the silence stretched.
“You’re not upset, are you?” I asked, suddenly worried. He’d come so far in the last few weeks... it was easy to forget how much he had to overcome.
I watched his prominent Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. His dark, deep-set gaze returned to my face.
“No.” The word was hoarse. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, lately. I mean... not when the others were missing, of course. But, like, since I started talking to my therapist about it.”
Relief loosened my tense shoulders.
“Me too,” I admitted. “Sometimes I have dreams about what happened between us during my heat.”
Deep lines appeared between his brows. “Bad dreams?” It sounded like the words were dragged from him.
“No!” I said quickly, appalled. “Good dreams, Emiel. Very, very good dreams. But then I feel guilty, because I know you didn’t want it to happen.”
I hadn’t meant to share that last part. My teeth clicked together as I realized the words had escaped without me meaning to say them.
He looked thoughtful. “I only didn’t want it because I figured you wouldn’t want it. If you weren’t in heat, I mean.”
I leaned forward, placing my hands on the mattress. “I do want you, Emiel. I want all of you in this pack.” With a deep breath, I forced myself to speak my truth. “I think... I might even want Nat as a part of it. And it scares me, because it feels selfish and complicated and, I dunno... unrealistic, I guess? But I’ve decided it’s time to just throw it out there into the universe and see what happens, instead of bottling it up inside.”
“I like Nat a lot,” Emiel said simply.
I couldn’t help my watery smile. “I’m glad. I love that you two are becoming friends.”
Emiel looked like he was struggling with himself over something. After a long pause, he spoke again. “I, um, bought some stuff, too.”
When nothing else was immediately forthcoming, I tilted my head. “What kind of stuff?”
He hesitated, then leaned over and opened a drawer in the nightstand. Tension radiated off him as he pulled out a couple of objects and placed them by the lamp. My eyebrows shot up as I stared at the pair of very serious looking handcuffs lying tangled up with a red rubber ball attached to a leather harness.
“I don’t want to tie anyone up!” he said quickly, before I could ask any questions. “It’s not that.” He took a deep breath, not meeting my eyes. “Let me try to explain.”
I settled back and nodded wordlessly, keeping my body language and expression free of judgment.
His fingers flexed restlessly against the edge of the mattress; a nervous tic. “So... you know about what happened to me when I was a kid. It was terrible, and I hated it more than I’ve hated anything, ever. But what really scares me is knowing how big and strong I am now... knowing I could do that to another person.”
“You wouldn’t, though!” I burst out. “Emiel, you could never hurt a kid like that!”
He looked ill. “No. Not a kid. Just... anyone . When you were in heat, I knew better, but I still couldn’t help myself.”
“That was my fault,” I said. “Not yours. There is no possible universe where you would have had sex with me if I’d been crying ‘no’ and trying to push you away! None .”
He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “But you were in heat . You couldn’t give consent, not really. That’s the scary thing.” He made an abortive movement with one hand, as though brushing the words away. “But that’s not where I was going with this. I thought, what would make it so that I didn’t have to worry about forcing myself on you, or Luca, or anyone else?”
“I still don’t follow,” I said uncertainly, glancing at the objects on the bedside table.
“I was talking to my therapist, and she said something like, ‘What if the other person was the one in control?’ And I thought, yeah, maybe that could work. Because if I physically couldn’t hold them down or bite them, then I wouldn’t have to worry about it, right? I could stop focusing on that, and focus on feeling good instead.”
The proverbial lightbulb clicked on.
“Oh,” I breathed. “ Oh .”
The terrifying alpha who beat up professional fighters for fun looked like a single wrong word might shatter him into sharp-edged fragments. I would have cut out my own tongue before being the one to utter that word.
He swallowed hard again, visibly screwing up his courage. “She suggested some porn sites where it’s all ethical and run by omegas; where I could look at different things and start thinking about what it might be like. There’s a video that gave me the idea about getting this stuff. I liked the way it made me feel—like it was all safe and no one could accidentally get hurt.”
A visible tremor of nervousness had taken up residence in his hands, and beads of sweat were visible on his brow. My heart broke for him.
He wet his lips and asked, “Do you want to watch it with me? To, uh, see if it’s something you might like, too?”
An overwhelming surge of mingled affection and excitement made me momentarily lightheaded. There was no doubt that my pheromones had answered the question before my lips ever parted, but I covered his shaking hand with mine and looked him right in the eye.
“I would love to watch that video with you, Emiel. The fact that you would ask me means more than I can say.” My lips twitched into a faint, impish smile. “What do you think? I know it’s late, but... could we do it right now?”