Chapter Twenty-Four – Kayla
I sit in a deep tub, my legs spread out before me beneath the bubbly water.
It’s a strange sensation—it feels both warm and not warm enough.
I can’t remember the last time I took a bath; the apartment I share with Jeremy only has a tiny little shower surround.
It’s not the best place to relax, and the water tends to run cold sooner than you’d like.
This? This is heaven. This is perfect. I never want to get out.
On the flipside, I can’t really remember when I got in. Running the bath, pouring something in it to make the bubbles, undressing… none of it. My mind is a little fuzzy, but I don’t care. I’m too lost in how good it feels to simply soak and exist.
Existing isn’t too bad. Who knew it could be like this? I didn’t, not until recently. Now that I have a taste of what life can be like, how could I ever go back to the way things were before? How could I return to Jeremy and revert back to the wannabe beta I pretended to be?
I don’t want to. I… I don’t want to go anywhere without the two alphas in this house.
Hayden and Bradford. My eyelids flutter shut. I can picture them both so clearly. Their handsome faces, their contrasting eyes—one pair pitch-black and the other a brilliant blue. The way they talk, the differences in their demeanors.
They really are so different, and yet I could never choose just one. Picking one would be like choosing between my arms and my legs. I need them both. I want them both. They make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and though I might’ve run away scared in the beginning, I’m past that point now.
I need them. I need them so badly I can’t think straight. Never before has anyone felt the sheer depths of desire I feel for them. There’s just no way.
I don’t know how long I lay there in the bath, soaking it up, but eventually I decide to drain it and get out.
Don’t want to be a prune. I stand and reach over the edge of the tub to grab my towel, and as I step out I wrap that towel around me.
It’s a large bath towel, so with my size it’s easy to tuck and wrap in place.
I move before the vanity mirror and run a brush through my hair.
It doesn’t even occur to me that it’s strange my neck is bruise-free.
It barely registers in my head. I’m so lost in my longing for the two alphas in this house that nothing else is clicking inside.
I’m on cloud nine, and I will never come down to earth again.
After my wet hair is brushed, I look for the clothes I surely brought into the bathroom with me, but I can’t find them. My search proves fruitless. Maybe I left them in my room without thinking.
Stepping out of the bathroom and into the hall, I cross the hallway in a few steps and head right to my room. When I first step foot into my bedroom, I see that someone is sitting on the bed, near my pile of clothes, and my feet abruptly stop.
Hayden.
He immediately sees me, and he stands. “Kayla,” he says. “I was waiting for you.” The way he says it makes it sound like I already knew he’d be here, and in a weird way, I guess I did. I’m not surprised at all to find him in my room.
I should feel strange, being in nothing but a towel, but I don’t. If anything, the towel wrapped around my body is too tight, too thick of a layer. I don’t know how Hayden stands there, wearing all those clothes.
I don’t say anything to him. All I can do is stare at him and think: he’s drop-dead gorgeous. He has to be an alpha—and if he’s an alpha, that means he has a knot. My cheeks blush at that particular thought; I’ve never longed for an alpha’s knot before.
Then again, I’ve never wanted anything like this before. Never crushed on anyone, never wanted a man, let alone two, more than the air I breathe.
Hayden closes the distance between us, and suddenly he’s standing directly before me, blocking out the rest of the room.
Hell, the rest of the world. He towers over me, his expression oozing confidence and assuredness, but not in a smug way.
No, this type of confidence is catching, and it makes me lean into him, against his lower chest.
He brings both hands to my arms, running his fingertips along my skin and leaving a trail of electricity everywhere they roam. Those hands eventually end up cupping my face, and he angles my head back as he leans over me and says, “I don’t know how much longer I can hold back from you.”
The words are spoken in such a hushed whisper that I close my eyes and revel in them. I don’t question him; I can’t. The only thing I can do is surrender to whatever happens next, though I do manage to say, “Then don’t hold back.”
I’ll never beg for anything. I’m not that kind of person. At the same time, I’m desperate, so beyond desperate it’s impossible for me to think straight when I’m near him. Everything in me goes crazy, and I need to know what it’s like.
I need him. I want him to have everything.
Hayden responds the only way he can: he bends down and presses his lips against mine, kissing me hard.
He runs his tongue over my bottom lip before pushing it in and colliding it with mine.
The kiss is pure heat and flame, and my heart pounds so heavily in my chest it feels like it’s going to explode like a bomb.
The hands cupping my face move back to my hair, tugging on its wet lengths slightly and eliciting a moan from me. Heat fills every corner of my body, to the point where I’m ready to break off the kiss and tell him I’m ready.
I’m ready for him to take me, to have me in every way possible, to ravish me. I’m so ready.
He must be on the same wavelength as me, because he labors to pull his mouth off me. His pupils are dilated in desire as he gazes down upon me, and a few seconds later he steps away from me, taking me by the hand and leading me to the bed.
Never before has a bed seemed like such a huge step. Practically another world. It beckons, whispering about all the things that can be done on it, all the things I’m desperate for Hayden to do to me. I should be nervous, but I’m not.
Hayden stands me between the bed and his body, and he turns me so that I face him instead of the mattress. He sweeps my hair to one shoulder, and then he reaches for my towel, loosening it expertly, all without saying a single word.
The towel falls to the floor, and just like that, I’m exposed in a way I’ve never been exposed before—but I’m not afraid. The last thing I want to do is hide or cover myself up, such a switch from where I started. I stand there, naked as one could be, every inch of me bared to this man.
The look of hunger on his face is unmistakable. He whispers, “You’re perfect. So perfect.” He grabs me by the waist and pulls me in against him, and those same hands curl around to my back and fall lower, where they cup my ass.
My stomach flutters. Everything in me is ready, so ready for this. Whatever doubt I used to feel, whatever fear I used to hold inside; none of it matters anymore. It’s just us—even if there is someone else missing from the room.
Bradford.
But my mind is too focused on Hayden right now to ask him where the other alpha is. We could always get him later. We have all the time in the world.
Hayden helps me onto the bed, and we both get into position.
He crawls on top of me, a delicious smirk on his face as he spreads my legs wide and takes a good, long look at me.
The look on his face is one of ravenous hunger.
He wants to devour me whole, and I am more than willing to let him have everything.
“You’re mine,” he murmurs, and the instant those words fall upon my ears, my entire body shivers in response.
I am his. I am so his it’s unreal. There’s no fighting it, no denying it. I’m his, and he is mine.
He lowers his face to the crook of my neck, nuzzling the tender skin there, and I moan when his hands find a certain part of my body—the space between my legs. His fingers curl around a sensitive part of me, and right when those fingers start to move…
I wake up.
I wake from that spicy, steamy dream with a gasp, and I jerk upright in bed and glance all around to make sure I’m alone and not actually in the middle of giving myself to Hayden like I was in the dream.
Hayden isn’t in the room. It’s just me in bed.
Bringing a hand to my head, I try to remember how I got here. It’s all fuzzy. I think we watched movies until well after midnight, and eventually I fell asleep. Hayden carried me here, and I’m pretty sure he asked if I needed him to sleep on the floor again, but I told him no.
Thank goodness for that. If he was here, I might be tempted to have a redo of my dream.
A dream. It was just a dream, I remind myself. Just a—
Wait a minute.
I’m about to lay down in an effort to try to get some more sleep in, but right then I feel something inside of me… and something outside. My lower gut? Burns with pressure. The space between my legs and the sheets under it, not to mention my pajama bottoms? Wet.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
I slowly reach under the blanket, and when I lift said blanket I’m greeted with a wave of me. My scent. My slick.
Oh, how embarrassing. I’ve never done this before, for reasons that should be obvious, and now that my body is apparently capable of leaking slick, I don’t really know what to do.
Slick is supposed to be like catnip to unmated alphas. If Hayden smells this, if Bradford smells this—who knows what they’d do?
I should get up, get a change of clothes, go shower, and do some laundry before either of them get up. Yeah, that’s what I need to do. It’s my only option. That me in the dream? The one that wasn’t terrified to give everything to Hayden? The one who wanted him so badly she couldn’t think straight?
That’s not me. It can’t be me. I might have a crush on the alphas in this house, but that can’t be me. It’s just hormones. It’s the kiss I shared with Hayden yesterday. That’s all. Easy explanation.