Chapter 51
WREN
“You’re telling me you don’t want four matching sex pillows?”
“Would you keep it down?” I hiss.
Nikita smirks and pats my cheek, turning back to the website pulled up on her laptop.
Gabbie sits on the other side of me with a notepad and pen, conducting our online shopping endeavor with military precision.
“I think you should at least get one? That wedge shape would give the perfect angle to hit it from the back. Bonus points for not having to do any of the work because…” She gestures at the screen, then drapes forward over the library table to demonstrate the position as if she’s being railed from behind.
“Said pillow will do all the work to keep those hips nice and elevated.”
“You’re totally getting one.” Gabbie nods and hovers over the add to cart option. “Want to choose a color?”
“Black will do,” I sigh. “You seriously did not just simulate being bent over this desk? We are in the library.” I elbow Nikita with my best effort at scolding.
“And what a lovely, educational experience that would happen to be.” She grins. “Tell us, Gee. How many times have you caught students getting it on since you started doing your placements here?”
Gabbie goes bright red. “We’re not talking about that.”
“See?” Nikita giggles. “These desks are sturdy for a reason. And that reason is a simple, primitive biological equation spelled… S-E-X.”
Just as she enunciates each letter, the mysterious, good-looking professor with his permanently rolled-back shirt sleeves and stupidly muscled forearms passes our table.
He clears his throat but continues walking.
Gabbie slumps into her seat, the epitome of kill me now, mortified horror. “He comes in here every day. Tell me how I am supposed to look him in the eye now?”
That makes Nikita scoff. “Please. That man looks like he’s probably christened every surface in this library thrice over. He’s a walking shag me senseless in the stacks. A real-life rail me against the reference desk. A virile package of pound me over the periodicals.”
I cup my hand over her mouth in an effort to shush her. “Okay… back to nest shopping.”
“Dick me down among the dissertations?” she mumbles against my palm, eyes twinkling.
“We should have done this at home.” Gabbie pinches her brow.
“I’ll behave. As long as you promise to tell us exactly why you’re squirming and can’t take your eyes off Professor McFuckhot’s ass.”
“Oh my god. You can’t say that kind of thing in a place like this!”
“What? In the holy inner sanctum of the library? Or should I start calling it the confessional of Gabbie’s greatest sins?”
“Wait… has something happened?” I swivel in my seat, eyes glued to Gabbie, who has never looked more interested in the sight of a selection of velour waterproof blankets.
“How much cum do you think you’ll have to clean up exactly?
Two Alphas, both knotting you twenty-four-seven, for probably at least a minimum-length seventy-two-hour heat.
Being your first time, it could very well last longer than that.
They can knot you faster and more frequently when heat hormones and pheromones are involved.
So, I’m going to guess you’ll need at least five of these blankets, but maybe we should order you eight just to be certain?
Actually, let’s just round it up to ten.
” She flaps a wrist at me, as if I’m an irritating bug.
My eyes nearly pop out of my head. I hadn’t really considered the mess that would be involved.
We’re all given awkward classes and educational pep talks about knotting and heat management.
Namely, the importance of maintaining fluid intake, carbo-loading, personal hygiene, contraceptives, and testing.
Never had it crossed my mind until now that there will be cum covering just about everything. Sheets. Pillows. Me.
Why does that make my thighs squeeze together?
Do I have a latent fluids kink?
“So you totally need to give us allll the details about this mini-heat nesting-palace fuckfest.”
“Stop saying fuckfest,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Should I call it a romantic rendezvous in Paris? An anatomically correct visitation to the Eiffel Tower?” Nikita rolls her eyes.
“Theo has done most of the work to make a proper nest…”
“Yessss. I knew Daddy would enjoy being Daddy.”
“… even if I have been admittedly kind of reluctant to get involved.”
“Have you tried unleashing the D word on him yet?” Nikita ignores me.
“No. I haven’t.” In no way am I mentally strong enough to go about admitting to newfound kink discovery with my Ex-Boyfriend’s Dad.
My guilt-laden, resigned sigh is muffled by my hands when I cover my face in an effort to hide my burning cheeks.
This is a conversation topic and admission I’m unprepared to navigate at this juncture.
“Ohhhh… but you wanna, really, really baddddd?”
“Don’t distract me.” I turn back to the laptop. “Theo has been trying to get me to go on this website for forever. So we’re going to finish ordering everything. We’re going to check off this ridiculous list, and then I can have my existential crisis.”
Gabbie pats my shoulder. “If it helps, we’re done with the shopping part.”
“Okay, so now I get to freak out? Because I’m warning you both now, I’m totally freaking out.”
“Why?” they both squeak in unison.
I flop my hands around. “I can’t take advantage of them? This is insane. Theo is paying for all of this, and I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin.”
“Technically, Theo and Scotland are paying for it.” Nikita taps the table with her fingernail.
“And that’s supposed to make me less stressed?”
“It’s your pack taking care of you, baby girl,” she croons.
“Noooooo,” I wail dramatically and slump onto the table with my head on my folded arms.
“Okay. What do you need? This is us talking you down.”
“I need to not be a needy, greedy, selfish Omega.” My words come out smothered against my arm.
“Let’s do a little perspective shift…” Nikita hums and strokes my hair. “Remind me what your plan was if you had your first heat this semester?”
“A heat clinic.” My voice sounds small and unsure.
“And who was paying for that?”
I blink a couple of times. “Our college scholarship committee?” I mumble, then scrunch my nose. “Ew.”
“Yes. Very ewwww.”
“So does the thought of having two hot-as-fuck Alphas, who are your scent matches no less, paying for a nest and whatever you require sound moderately better than Jerry with a toupee and egg-sandwich breath being the one to pay the bill for random heat clinic applicants to fulfill the task?
“Your point is noted. Even though I still hate the premise,” I grumble. “Why is being an Omega so hard?”
“It’s one big counterbalance. Otherwise, we would just be too fabulous. The universe had to offset our Omega greatness somehow,” Nikita states matter-of-factly, then examines her nails with all the preening satisfaction of I told you so in her expression.
That makes me pause. “Wait. Neither of you has actually told me the exact details of what you’re doing for your heats when the time comes?”
“Right. We didn’t get a chance to indulge in the time-honored Omega housemate tradition of getting drunk off our asses on homemade cocktails while we flip through heat clinic brochures together yet.”
“I’m pushing the button if you’re not gonna do it.” Gabbie guides my hand to the laptop. “Buy now. Questions after.”
“Oh god. I’m really doing this?”
“Yes!” they cheer as I grimace and hit the purchase button.
“How does that feel?” Nikita squeezes me in a hug.
“Like I wanna vomit.”
Gabbie grins and kisses the side of my head. “A more stubborn eldest daughter, independent Omega, never existed.”
“Text Daddy and tell him you’ve been a good girl.” Nikita nudges my phone toward me across the table.
“Nope. You’re telling me about what the plan is for your heat. How are you affording a clinic? Or are you both relying on scholarship funding like I was intending to?”
My gaze bounces between them as Gabbie chews her bottom lip, and Nikita busies herself touching up her lipstick using the mirrored reflection of her phone.
“Come onnnnnn,” I whine pathetically. “We literally just had a full-blown conversation about me needing sex pillows and cum blankets.”
Gabbie turns bashful. “Umm. So, I have a nest egg. Literally.” She traces the patterns in the wooden surface with a finger. “My parents’ pack set it up like a trust fund. As soon as I need to access it, I can. All I have to do is go through the heat clinic they’ve already approved for me to use.”
“Wow… really?”
“Mmmhmm.” She nods rapidly but still gnaws on her bottom lip. Something in her energy is a bit odd, but also, this entire thing is odd, so I don’t blame her for finding it bizarre to talk about out loud.
Heats are weirdly personal and somehow very public at the same time.
I still haven’t gotten my head around it.
“Okay, now you.” Gabbie pokes Nikita.
She sighs dramatically and dabs at the corner of her mouth to touch up the bold rouge lip color that, of course, complements her flawless brown skin. This girl’s style is impeccable.
“I’ve got a little online business I’ve been running for the past few years.
Let’s just say, I put my love of shoes to good use, and that’s given me a nice, fat bank account for whenever I need to make a withdrawal.
I had a heat clinic meeting and completed all the initial onboarding before moving to Willow Falls. ”
“Really?” I eye her. Something tells me there are a lot of details missing from this particular version of the story.
“That’s all I’m at liberty to divulge.” She grins, waggling her eyebrows.
“Oh… we are so doing cocktails and getting drunk confessions out of you.” Gabbie leans in and circles her forefinger in Nikita’s face.
She bats her eyelids innocently in reply, before checking the time on her phone. “Annnnnd on that note, my beloved bitches, I’m going to be late to the ice rink if I don’t haul ass.”
“How has the ice skating thing been going?” I ask.
A twang of guilt hits me when I realize I’ve been unintentionally neglecting my friend.
All too tangled in everything colliding in my world between studying, the dog shelter, not to mention sneaking around with two scent matches, and probably, definitely spending too much time thinking about how my brother’s best friend kisses like the devil.
Nope. Not going there. Not right now.
Nikita lights up. “I’m having the best time. It’s like having my own mini pint-sized groupies who crowd around my knees and give me adorably besotted smiles and high fives on demand.”
“Cult leader mode loading,” I snort.
“I would be a benevolent ruler.”
“Okay, so you’ve got your little minions on ice. Skating is fun. What’s that coy look for?” Gabbie purses her mouth.
“Nothing.” While volleying her head from side to side, Nikita rolls her lips in an attempt to disguise the way she’s smiling to herself.
I lean closer. “Does this nothing have a name by any chance?”
“Hah. He wishes.”
“So there is someone?” Gabbie gasps. Her how romantic enthusiasm bubbles up immediately.
“Oh god, no.” Nikita’s face scrunches like she just caught a whiff of a hockey player’s gear bag. She dramatically flutters her hands like she’s shooing off evil spirits. “Don’t put a hex on me like that.”
We exchange silent looks until she relents and leans in with a hushed voice.
“Fine. All I will tell you is that there was one guy—who shall not be named but maybe, most definitely, comes from Latvia—who kept pushing for me to go on a date with him. I informed him about the Omega thing, our scholarship, all the hoopla about not being seen fraternizing with or dating athletes. Told him it would have to all be very PG.”
“Is he hot… nice… datable?” I search for the word to accurately describe the type of man who might be able to handle the force of nature that is Nikita, and I’m suddenly realizing I don’t know if such a term exists. Filled with fortitude, perhaps?
“Oh, no. I wasn’t interested. Scratch that… am not in any way, shape, or form interested.”
“Yet, he still took you out?”
She nods and grins. “The ego on the man renders him impressively oblivious, or maybe he’s just taken too many pucks to the head, I’ll say that much.”
“Why didn’t we know about this?”
Nikita casually waves us off, as she is so very good at doing. “You were busy with your Alphas… and Gabbie, you had to stay late on library nerd duty. I figured it would make for a more entertaining evening than sitting around by myself.”
“So you went on a date… with a hockey player?” I say slowly.
“Not a date,” she corrects. “Coffee between two people who just conveniently happened to sit down at the cart stationed next to the ice rink at the same time.”
“Alright… and why do you have that look on your face?” Gabbie has her hand over her mouth in anticipation of whatever direction this story is headed in.
“We ordered our coffees, and Mr. Ice Hockey proceeded to tell me we were going to spend our time together watching a highlight package on his phone… of all his hockey goals.”
“No.” My mouth drops open. “He did not?”
Nikita closes her eyes and does the sign of the cross. “Two hours of my life. TWO. HOURS.”
“Oh my god.”
“The horror.”
“And that, my Omega friends, is all the warning you need to stay far away from Eastern European hockey players with a hard-on for watching themselves put a puck in a net.” Nikita flicks her hair over her shoulder as we fall about laughing.
“My advice? Stick to ogling rugby players,” she calls behind her, then gives Gabbie a wink like the troublemaker she is. “Or hot professors in libraries.”