Chapter 34 Pedro
PEDRO
The bedroom smells like sex and sweat and something sweeter underneath.
I check my watch. Six AM. Eighteen hours since her heat began.
Jessica sleeps in the center of her nest, surrounded by rumpled blankets and discarded pillows.
Her blonde hair fans across the sheets in tangled waves.
Her skin is flushed pink, damp with perspiration.
Bite marks bloom across her shoulders and breasts, purple and red against the pale canvas of her body.
My brothers left those marks. I'll add my own soon enough.
She's beautiful like this. Wrecked and satisfied and finally at peace. The frantic desperation of the first wave has faded, replaced by the deep exhaustion that comes between cycles. Her breathing is slow and even. Her pulse, when I press two fingers to her wrist, beats steady and strong.
Healthy. Safe. Ours.
I release her wrist and sink into the armchair by the window. The morning light is grey and soft, filtering through curtains that haven't been opened in over a day. The room is warm, too warm, but omegas in heat run hot and cold unpredictably. We've been adjusting the thermostat every few hours.
Sergio took her first. Then Nacho, when the second wave hit around midnight. Carlos handled the third, somewhere around three AM, his laughter echoing through the house as he coaxed her through another orgasm with gentle teasing.
My turn is coming. I can feel it building, the tension coiling tighter in my gut with every passing minute. The scent of her arousal is making it hard to think. Hard to maintain the clinical detachment I've relied on my entire adult life.
I'm a doctor. I've treated heat patients before. Administered suppressants, monitored vital signs, counseled frightened omegas through their first experiences. I've always been professional. Detached. The grumpy EMT who didn't let emotions interfere with medical care.
This is different.
This is Jessica.
She stirs in her sleep, a soft whimper escaping her lips. Her thighs press together, seeking friction. The sweet scent in the room intensifies.
The next wave is coming.
I push myself out of the chair and cross to the door. Crack it open. Call down the hallway in a low voice.
"It's starting again."
Footsteps on the stairs. Carlos appears first, hair damp from a shower, wearing fresh sweatpants and nothing else. Dark circles shadow his eyes, but his grin is irrepressible.
"Already? That was fast."
"Cycles shorten as heat progresses." I step back to let him enter. "Her body is acclimating. Learning what it needs."
Sergio follows, a glass of water and a plate of sliced fruit in his hands. He's wearing jeans and a grey t-shirt, looking more put together than any of us have managed in eighteen hours. His jaw is set in that familiar determined line.
"She needs to eat." He sets the supplies on the nightstand. "She's barely had anything since yesterday."
"She'll eat when she's ready." I return to Jessica's side and press my hand to her forehead. Still hot, but within normal parameters. "Forcing food during active heat can cause nausea."
Nacho is last, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his bare chest. His dark eyes are fixed on Jessica, watchful and intense. He hasn't slept at all. I can tell by the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers tap restlessly against his bicep.
"How is she?"
"Stable." I withdraw my hand as Jessica's eyes flutter open. "Awake."
She blinks up at me, confusion giving way to recognition. Her hazel eyes are glassy, pupils blown wide, the heat already clouding her thoughts.
"Pedro." My name comes out hoarse. Wrecked. "I need..."
"I know." I brush hair back from her damp forehead. "I'm here."
She reaches for me with trembling hands, fingers curling into the fabric of my scrub top. I changed clothes an hour ago, trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Now the thin cotton feels like armor between her skin and mine.
"Please." She tugs at me, weak but insistent. "It hurts. Everything hurts. I need you to make it stop."
The clinical part of my brain catalogs her symptoms. Elevated body temperature. Dilated pupils. Increased respiration. Slick already dampening her thighs, visible even in the dim light.
The rest of me just wants to give her everything she's asking for.
"Okay." I sit on the edge of the bed and pull my shirt over my head. "I've got you."
Her hands immediately find my chest, palms flat against my skin, and she makes a sound of pure relief. Like she's been drowning and I'm oxygen.
"So warm." She presses closer, her naked body molding against mine.
"You're burning up." I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my lap. "Your temperature is elevated. That's normal for heat."
"Don't want normal." She nuzzles into my neck, her breath hot against my pulse point. "Want you."
Something cracks inside my chest.
I've spent thirty years building walls. Keeping people at arm's length. Hiding behind professionalism and grumpiness and the comfortable mask of the cranky doctor who doesn't do feelings.
This woman is demolishing every barrier I've ever constructed.
"You have me." The words come out rougher than I intended. "All of me. Whatever you need."
She pulls back to look at my face, and even through the haze of heat, with soft flickers in her eyes.
"You're always so serious." Her thumb traces along my jaw. "Always watching. Always worried. Do you ever let go?"
"Not often."
"Let go now." She presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. "For me. Please."
I capture her lips before she can say anything else.
The kiss is nothing like I planned. Not gentle. Not clinical. Not the careful, controlled encounter I had mapped out in my head. It's desperate and messy and consuming, all tongue and teeth and the soft sounds she makes against my mouth.
She tastes like need. Like heat and honey and just like Jessica.
I lower her onto her back, settling between her thighs, and break the kiss to look at her.
Flushed cheeks. Parted lips. Dark hair spread across the pillow like a halo. Her chest heaves with each breath, breasts rising and falling, marked by my brothers' mouths.
Absolutely beautiful.
"I'm going to take care of you." I trace my fingers down her sternum, between her breasts, over the soft curve of her stomach. "But I need you to tell me if anything hurts. If you want to stop. Can you do that?"
"I don't want to stop." She arches into my touch. "I want everything."
"You'll get everything." My hand slides lower, through the damp curls between her legs, and she whimpers. "But at my pace. Understood?"
"Pedro..." Her voice breaks on my name.
That sound. That desperate, broken sound. It snaps the last thread of my control.
I push two fingers inside her without warning, and she cries out, back arching off the bed. She's so wet I slide in easily, her inner walls clenching around me, pulling me deeper.
"That's it." I curl my fingers, searching for the spot I know will make her scream. "Let me hear you."
"Oh God." Her hands fist in the sheets. "Right there. Right there, please..."
I find the spot and press hard.
She shatters.
The orgasm rips through her with violent force, her whole body convulsing, my name tearing from her throat like a prayer. I work her through it, fingers still moving, drawing out every wave of pleasure until she's trembling and gasping and completely undone.
"Good girl." I withdraw my fingers and bring them to my mouth, tasting her arousal. "So responsive. So perfect."
Her eyes go wide as she watches me lick her slick from my skin.
"That's..." She swallows hard. "That's really hot."
"You taste incredible." I lean down to kiss her again, letting her taste herself on my tongue. "I could do that all day."
"Stop thinking like a doctor." She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me closer.
"This isn't a medical procedure. This is us. Be with me. Not as my physician. As my alpha."
The distinction breaks something in my chest. She's right. She doesn't need Dr. Negrorio right now. She needs me.
"Tell me what you want," I manage.
"You," she breathes. "Just you. No monitoring. No checking vitals. Just feel me. Feel us."
I know the biology. Post-orgasm, omega bodies in heat have a brief window of satisfaction before the need surges back stronger than before. She needs to be filled. Locked together. Claimed completely, her body refusing to let go until it's satisfied.
I want to give her that. Want it more than I've wanted anything in my entire life.
I reach down to free myself from my pants, and her hand wraps around my length before I can stop her.
"Jessica." My voice comes out strangled. "You don't have to..."
"I want to." She strokes me slowly, firmly, learning my shape. "I want to feel all of you. Know all of you."
"You will." I grit my teeth against the pleasure of her touch. "But right now, I need to be inside you. Can you let me do that?"
She releases me and spreads her thighs wider. An invitation. A surrender.
I position myself at her entrance and push forward.
The feeling of her surrounding me is indescribable. Hot and tight and slick, her body welcoming me like I was made to be here. I sink in inch by inch, giving her time to adjust, watching her face for any sign of discomfort.
There is none. Only pleasure as she makes as I fill her completely.
"Pedro." My name is a whisper on her lips. "Please move."
I do.
The first thrust draws a moan from both of us. The second makes her nails dig into my shoulders. By the third, I've abandoned any pretense of control, driving into her with a rhythm that's purely instinctive.
She meets me thrust for thrust, hips rising to take me deeper, legs locked around my waist. Her inner walls flutter around me, tightening with each stroke, and I know she's close again.
"Let go." I bury my face in her neck, breathing in her scent. "Come for me, Jessica. I want to feel you."
She breaks with a cry that echoes off the walls.