Chapter Nineteen – Rourke #2
“I’ll start a bath so she can warm up,” he says, heading straight to the attached bathroom to do just that.
Mason goes to her suitcase to pull out some dry clothes, and Jess says, “Hey, that’s not—” She can’t even get the full sentence out before Mason pulls out a big, fat silicone alpha knot, and at first, I think we’re all quite shocked at his discovery.
Mainly shocked to see it, I think. I knew she brought something, but seeing it in its full glory is… let’s just say very different.
Jess blushes and turns into my chest to hide herself from the world.
Asher walks out of the bathroom, saying, “It’s running. It’ll be a bit before the tub fills, but—” He stops the moment he surveys the room and sees his brother kneeling next to Jess’s suitcase, or rather, when he spots the impressive fake cock in his brother’s hand.
Jess isn’t the only one who blushes. Asher does too, once he puts it together.
He trips over his words, “That’s… I don’t think she, uh, needs that thing right now.”
Mason jiggles the thick silicone knot a bit, showing everyone in the room that its length is not rigid.
It bends, as I suppose it should, given what it’s used for.
“Now, I know what an alpha knot looks like, but I have to admit, it feels pretty fucking different when you’re looking at one like this. ”
“Then maybe you should drop it,” Jess mutters against my chest.
It’s like her words bring him back to reality, and Mason drops the dildo like it’s a hot potato that just burned his hand. The alpha returns to digging through her stuff to find some clothes for her, and I can only imagine the other items he may or may not be digging through.
That’s one way for an omega to get through her heat alone.
I resume my pace to the bathroom and set her down on the edge of the tub. Her face is still a bright pink hue, and she avoids looking at any of us in the eyes. When Mason joins Asher and I, a fresh set of clothes in his hands, she doesn’t look at him, either.
As the tub fills with warm water, Asher must feel the need to fill the awkward air, for he says, “So you have a huge knot in your suitcase and we all saw it—”
Mason shoots him a glare. “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
“What I mean is, it’s totally normal. We can just, uh, move on from that. Pretend it never happened.”
“Maybe you can. You didn’t touch it.”
Asher shoots back, “No one said you had to keep holding it, or wiggle it around like that.”
Now the elder brother is miffed. “I wanted to see if it moved. I was curious.” When he receives a strange look from his brother, he adds, “Not about that. Shit. Get your head out of the gutter.” To me and Jess, he says, “For the record, I’m not interested in alpha knots, not like that.”
Jess groans. “The more you guys say, the worse this gets.”
I reach for her as I say, “You’re right. Let’s get you out of those clothes—”
She smacks my hand away. “I can undress myself, thank you very much. Besides, call me crazy, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea for any of you to see me naked. You three might lose your minds at this rate.”
“Good to know what you think of us,” Mason says, acting way too offended.
“It isn’t like a set of nice tits is going to make me lose my mind.
I have more willpower than that.” Jess glares at him, but slowly that glare shifts toward me, until her head is angled back and I’m all she can see.
“Why’s she looking at Rourke like that?”
Asher answers him, “He says they’re scent matches.”
Mason chokes on air. “Fucking what? You guys are gone for a few hours and now there’s scent matches involved? What the fuck is going on?”
Under her breath, Jess mutters, “I’m surprised you even care.”
“I don’t,” Mason shoots back, although he’s not as confident as he probably wishes he was. “I don’t give two shits that you and this asshole are scent matches. Go be scent matches somewhere else, then, and leave me and my brother alone.”
Asher elbows him and says, “Come on, you don’t mean that.”
“You don’t have a right to be upset,” Jess tells him, “not after what happened the other night.”
Alarm bells go off in my head, and I glare at Mason as I demand to know, “What happened the other night?” Asher looks confused, which I take to mean he’s unaware, too. What a mess this whole thing is.
Mason is tight-lipped, but Jess spills the beans with an attitude: “We talked under the moonlight. Shared some stuff. Very personal shit. Then we almost kissed—”
That finally gets Mason to say, “You have no right to say it like that. When you spin the story like that, it sounds like I was the one who denied you—but if you can remember what actually happened, you’d recall that you were the one who got up and ran away from me.
” He spares a jealous glance my way. “Now I know why.”
I, on the other hand, can’t get over the fact they nearly kissed, and neither of them thought it was wise to tell me.
“I knew this was going to be a mess,” I say, pointing at Mason.
“I knew one of you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off her.
” I end up a little bit more riled up than I should be.
Asher attempts to play the peacemaker, saying, “This whole thing is spiraling. Let’s just take a breather and calm ourselves down. The real issue here, right now, is that Jess is hurt. Nothing else matters. We can agree on that, can’t we?”
Jess leans back and tests the water’s temperature. “I keep telling you, I’m fine.”
I look at her. “Then stand and put weight equally on both your feet. Walk a few steps. Show us you’re fine.” She responds by leaning down, taking off one of her muddy shoes, and whipping it at me. I catch it, once again my better reflexes on display. “Really? Throwing shoes? How old are you?”
“How old am I? You are the one acting nuts now that you heard Mason and I almost kissed. And you—” She points at Mason, slips off her other shoe, then throws it at him.
Unlike me, he doesn’t care to catch it. He lets it hit him in his stomach, get mud all over his shirt, and then fall to the tiled floor.
“—you have no grounds to stand on. None of you do. You’re all making this a bigger deal than it is. ”
Mason frowns. “How is Rourke being your scent match not a huge deal?” He turns his frown to me. “As if you’re gonna be able to keep yourself away from her when she’s in heat. Fucking please. You’ll be the first to knock down that door.”
“I’m not the one who almost kissed her,” I throw back.
Jess groans, but Mason and I are too busy glaring at each other, while Asher is still trying to play peacemaker between us.
The three of us are so entangled in our own bickering that we neglect to realize she starts to take off her clothes.
Hell, none of us realize she’s naked until she’s sinking down into the tub and letting out a low moan.
And that moan? That moan is the only thing that jerks us back to reality.
Every pair of eyes in the room is now on her. The water isn’t up enough to cover her full body, leaving her round, perky tits on display. That space between her legs is completely submerged and hidden by the way she has her legs.
But honestly? Seeing her in the tub, her chest exposed, is more than enough to make a certain part of me come alive—and I don’t think I’m the only one affected here.
“Asher, grab me the hair clip on the counter there,” she says as she leans her head back.
“This heat is no good for the color in my hair.” When Asher only stares at her, she finally lifts her head and brings her knowing eyes to each of us.
“I’m sorry, but it kind of felt like we were going in circles, so.
” She shrugs, then snaps her fingers. “Hair clip, please.”
Asher wears a dumbfounded look as he goes to get her hair clip, and he makes a big deal over trying not to stare at her exposed chest while handing it to her. His brother, on the other hand, clutches the clothes he brought in like they’ve become his lifeline and he needs them to survive.
And me? I’m feeling… a wild rollercoaster of different emotions.
Jess twirls her hair up and clips it to keep it from dipping in the water. “Unless you three are going to bathe me, I got it from here.” She shoots a glare our way. “That was me being sarcastic, by the way, in case you didn’t notice. Get out.”
“Right,” I say, though as I say it, my feet are still rooted firmly in place. Moving from my current location near the tub is going to be one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. Knowing she’s right there, naked…
This isn’t good. This doesn’t bode well for her heat. I’m an alpha who’s never doubted his self-control before, but here and now? I’m weaker than I’ve ever been.
Mason is the first to move, though each movement is mechanical and strained, labored to infinity. He sets her clean clothes on the toilet seat, tosses Jess a lingering look, and then marches himself out of the bathroom. Asher follows him.
I don’t want to go. I want to stay right where I am. Hell, I want to take off my clothes and join her in that tub, pull her onto my lap and get to know every inch of that body beneath the water.
That tingle in my lower half? It’s a full-blown erection now, as much as I hate to say it—and it’s something she definitely notices before I turn to follow Mason and Asher. I grab the bathroom door handle on the way out and close it behind me.
Mason, Asher, and I stand in the middle of her chosen bedroom, not so much staring at each other as we are staring off into space. Clearly, our minds are still on Jess and what just happened. We’re each struggling in our own way.
I knew things would get bad being in a house with multiple unmatched, unmated alphas, but I didn’t think it’d get this hard this soon, and I didn’t believe I’d be one of them.
Asher speaks softly, “What are we going to do?” He glances at his brother, then at me, for any type of guidance.