Forty-Seven
FORTY-SEVEN
Luca
WHEN I GOT HOME from an exhausting day at work on Monday, there was a gray cat sitting on the kitchen counter.
“You got her,” I said, still able to muster some relief and happiness on behalf of a cat and the alpha who loved her.
“ Meow ,” Princess said, lifting a front paw to lick at it delicately.
Emiel and Mia turned to face me, both wearing grins that could only be described as goofy. I’d never seen an expression even close to that on Emiel’s face before. It suited him, I couldn’t help but notice.
Or... possibly that was the hormones talking. This close to a heat, it was hard to tell.
“She was at the county shelter,” Emiel said, offering six entire words to me without being prompted.
Mia set down the wooden spoon she’d been holding. “They tried to run her through the adoption program—but apparently, she kept biting and clawing the volunteers. Anyway, heroic nick of time rescue from the shelter, happy endings all around.”
Her smile softened as she glanced at Emiel, and I tried not to resent her easy happiness. God, I was becoming such a self-centered asshole as my bitterness festered, year after year. This abrupt insight into my own assholeish-ness probably should’ve been valuable, but instead it just made me feel even worse.
I shook my head in frustration and set all that aside. Dropping my work bag by the kitchen doorway, I came forward slowly, rubbing my fingers together and making the universal pss-pss-pss noise used to gain a cat’s attention.
Princess burbled another meow at me and deigned to rub her cheek against my fingers when I got within arm’s reach. I let the sleek fur slide across my knuckles, appreciating the temporary sense of calm that came with being accepted by a cat.
“Oh, I see how it is,” Mia teased, from her station next to the stovetop. When I looked up, she winked at me... the gentle smile from earlier still playing around her full lips. “She won’t so much as give me the time of day.”
“Keep feeding her tuna,” Emiel suggested.
The alpha seemed uncharacteristically okay with being in the same room as my incipient heat pheromones... and Mia’s, for that matter. I gathered he must’ve taken dampeners a day early to block our scents’ effect on his nervous system. Again, resentment bubbled up in my chest. I hated this feeling of being a burden. I hated the way alphas got to choose whether or not they’d be affected by a heat, and I didn’t.
Princess purred and scooted her whole body against my hand. I stroked her, ears to tail, and tried to let her uncomplicated happiness seep into me via osmosis.
“I’m really happy for you,” I told her, eye to eye. “You’re about to become the most spoiled housecat in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.”
“As evidenced by the fact that she’s only lived here for a few hours and she already has free run of the kitchen counters,” Mia agreed, laughing. She turned to the stove and set a lid on the pot she’d been stirring, cutting off the source of the rich scent that had permeated the kitchen. “That is such a health code violation, you know.”
“I’ll teach her not to,” Emiel mumbled.
“But maybe not today,” Mia finished. “She’s had a rough week. We all have. Now, this needs to simmer for a couple of hours. I’ll have to check on it occasionally, but in between, I plan on vegging out in front of the TV. Anyone else?”
Predictably, Emiel shook his head. “I want to show Princess the upstairs rooms. Might put a second litter box in my bedroom so she doesn’t have to go so far.”
“I’m in,” I told Mia. “The other’s will be late, but they know to get home by nine. What’s for dinner tonight, by the way?”
“Moroccan vegetable tagine with pita wedges,” she said. “And you should eat as much as you can.”
My nose wrinkled, but she was right. “I know.”
This heat hadn’t even started yet, but it was already acting like a royal bitch. I’d had that uncomfortable ‘might-be-hunger, might-be-queasiness’ feeling for more than a day. Once the hormones hit me properly, I wouldn’t eat or drink anything for several days. It was important to be well-fed and well-hydrated going in.
Of course, my body wouldn’t care one way or the other while I was in the throes, but it would make all the difference when it came to my recovery time afterward. I knew that from long and bitter experience with forced heats in the gang.
Clearly uncomfortable with the new topic of conversation, Emiel scooped up Princess and stood. The cat immediately started rubbing the top of her head against his chin, purring like an outboard motor as the two of them exited the kitchen.
Mia peeked under the pot lid, checking her stew. When the sound of retreating footsteps faded, she turned to me and let out a slow breath. “It was close today, Luca. With Princess, I mean. I’m not sure how he would have taken it if we’d been too late.”
I imagined a cat that bit multiple volunteers wouldn’t last long at the shelter.
“Badly,” I said, picturing chain link and fists on flesh. “He would have taken it badly.”
We went to watch TV in between Mia’s occasional trips to the kitchen to babysit her tagine.
“How are you?” she asked, stroking my hair as I indulged myself by resting my head on her shoulder, breathing in her sweet scent.
“Horny,” I said. “Pissed off. Did you get a delivery date on your scary Mexican cartel ‘appetite suppressant pills’ yet? I’m hoping at least one of us still gets to have bodily autonomy this quarter.”
“It’s supposed to arrive on Friday,” she said unhappily.
I made a sympathetic noise. “Cutting it fine.”
“Yeah,” she said on a sigh.
I licked my lips. “Will you stay in my nest with me tonight? I know I’ve been an ass these last several days—”
Her hand stilled, then resumed its steady stroking. “I’d like that. If you really want me there, I mean. And I don’t blame you for being pissed off. The whole situation just sucks, no matter how you look at it.”
I wrapped an arm around her middle and squeezed, startled by how badly I needed her. Horn-dogging for another omega wasn’t... a deviation , exactly. Lots of omegas played with other omegas sometimes. But normally, this close to a heat, the only thing my body could focus on was alphas. It felt good to think about sex where I was riding the edge of heat, but where I could still be in control.
My dick, which had been making a nuisance of itself for days now, twitched awake with fresh interest. I nuzzled against Mia’s throat, and she hummed in approval, arching her neck to offer me more access.
Neither of us heard the front door open. We were both startled by an influx of lime, vanilla, and spices, coupled with Byron’s muttered, “Gonna need those fuckin’ dampeners early,” as he and Zalen stopped in the doorway of the TV room.
Mia cleared her throat, straightening away from me self-consciously... although it did nothing to hide the richness of our mingled scents. “Hi,” she squeaked. “Um. The food should be ready in five minutes. I’ll, uh, just go get everything plated, shall I?”
“Thanks, Mia,” Zalen said, at the same time Byron smirked and said, “Don’t hurry on our account.”
I flipped him off. Zalen elbowed him, herding him toward the kitchen and dining room. Mia covered her face with one hand for a moment, her cheeks bright red. When she dropped it, it was to point a finger in my face.
“You. Me. Nest. Tonight,” she said.
Despite myself, I huffed a breath of laughter at her bossy tone. “Yes, ma’am .”
Dinner was probably delicious. My taste buds were already whacked, but I was at least able to eat a decent-sized portion without tipping from ‘maybe queasy about food’ to ‘definitely queasy about food.’ Meanwhile, Princess only tried to get on the dining room table twice.
Mia and I shamelessly left the cleanup to the others, jogging up the stairs to the second floor, hand-in-hand like a pair of teenagers. I locked the door to my nest behind us and pushed her up against it, the scent of alphas still clinging to my nose.
“Have you ever used a strap before?” I asked breathlessly, pressing the words into the skin of her throat.
She pushed me back a few inches so we could see each other. “A strap? Is that, like, a bondage thing?”
“No, a strap-on,” I clarified, already picturing the feel of a knotting dildo sliding into me, catching on my rim over and over until my body clamped down and trapped it inside. “A fake cock you can strap onto your hips with a harness to fuck someone.”
She looked intrigued rather than shocked, which felt like a win. “You’d want me to do that?”
“God, yes,” I said. “I bought one for you in case you ever wanted to use it, but it never really seemed like the right time to talk about it. Can I get it?”
She nodded, her pupils blown wide and dark in her large, brown eyes. “Okay.”
I forced myself to pull away in favor of retrieving the unopened package from its drawer. She came and watched over my shoulder as I tore it open and sorted out the mess of straps.
“Why are there two dildos?” she asked, picking up one of the matched pair. Both were a reasonable size—unlike Byron’s sea monster—with a generous knot near the base.
“The second one’s for you,” I said, attaching it to the ring set in the crotch area of the harness to demonstrate.
“Oh,” she said faintly. “Wow. Okay—clothes off. Now .”
My inner omega slut rolled over happily in response to the command, so different than the helpless, terrified tension I felt if an alpha barked at me when I wasn’t expecting it.
We both stripped, and I helped Mia get the harness fastened around her hips. Slick pulsed from my passage when her eyes rolled up, a moan slipping out of her as I eased the first dildo into her body and tightened all the buckles.
“Oh, holy... fuck,” she groaned, leaning against my shoulders as her knees went unsteady. “God, Luca .”
“I am so wet for you right now,” I told her.
She laughed, although it was breathless. “We’re wet for each other. Who needs alphas?”
The answer was that I would need alphas, soon enough—but not tonight.
“This is going to be so good,” I promised instead.
She hefted the second dildo in a cupped palm, looking down at it in fascination. “Do I just...?”
“Peg A, slot B,” I said, stealing a hard kiss before turning and dropping to my hands and knees among the profusion of pillows on the floor. God, I needed this so bad .
I felt everything shift as she knelt behind me. Slender fingers grasped my hips. Knuckles slid over my soaking entrance.
“Fair warning, I have no idea what I’m doing,” she said, as though this bore any relation to rocket science.
Before I could dredge up words to reassure her, the cool, blunt end of the fake cock pressed against my hole. I let out an embarrassing high-pitched groan and rocked back, at the same time Mia cautiously pressed forward. We both whined as she slid inside, the dildo’s knot stopping her forward progress when it hit my rim.
Beads of sweat popped out all over my body. “Mia... please... I need it...”
“Oh god,” she said, and rammed it in.
I bit down hard on a wail, not really wanting every alpha in the house to hear what was going on. “Move. Move!” I rasped, wriggling my hips.
The stretch and burn as Mia rolled her pelvis, pulling the knot partway out of my body before my passage sucked it back in, was everything I needed to drive unwelcome thoughts out of my brain. I hated what was going to happen to me over the coming days. I’d turn into a mewling, needy bitch in heat; begging the alphas for their knots, for their bites.
And somewhere deep down, I’d still know that I wasn’t good enough for a real pack. I was too broken, too damaged. I hated those days where I wanted it anyway. Where I wasn’t in control of my own thoughts. Where I wasn’t in control of my own actions.
It was so much better to be here, with Mia, getting off with her because it was something we both wanted. Something we both chose .
“Touch me,” I begged. “Mia, please, touch me. I’m gonna—”
Mia snarled an omega puppy growl and latched onto my shoulder with her teeth. The hand that wasn’t digging fingernail-shaped marks into my hips snaked forward, closing around my dripping cock. I thrust forward into the circle of Mia’s fist... backward onto the strap-on.
Once. Twice. Three times... and my orgasm crashed over me, driving a choked cry past my control.
“Luca! Luca... fuck ...” Mia groaned against the nape of my neck, and a moment later, she was jerking out her release as well, her hips twitching even as my body clamped around the latex knot stretching me wide.
What felt like an age later, we tumbled sideways in a messy tangle, still connected, panting like we’d run a race. For this moment, in this warm, protected nest, I didn’t feel so utterly alone inside my own head.
The next words slipped out before I even knew my lips were forming them. “Mia... stay with me during my heat? Please?”
Behind me, Mia went very still.