Chapter 64
ACE
The sight of my tattooed hand splayed across Wren’s pale skin makes my heart stall inside my chest. It’s the first thing I see when my eyes crack open, and exactly like every time I’ve woken this way since the beginning of her heat, it takes a moment to confirm I’m not dreaming.
None of it seems real. Not after all these years of imagining what it might be like to hold her, to touch her, to have the freedom of scenting her with deep inhales against her hair, to fill my lungs with peach and faint hints of caramelized sugar.
Yet, here we are.
Her shallow breathing puffs against my chest, the fingers of her left hand pressed against the black-and-grey linework wren on a peach tree blossom I had tattooed for her so long ago.
The day I first met her, when I immediately knew she was my scent match, was the day I went out and had the design inked just below my heart.
It was the only way to cope with the crushing blow of coming to terms with the truth… that she didn’t recognize me in return.
Now? Now, everything has upended in the space of a week.
It’s just the two of us lying in her nest this morning.
Brennan checked her temperature earlier and confirmed that the numbers are back to within a normal range, so the others have taken the opportunity to grab a shower and eat something.
As my fingers lightly trace the curve of her spine, I can easily feel the difference for myself.
She’s not feverishly overheated anymore, which is a huge relief.
However, it might be one thing to know she’s made it through her first heat, but my own personal worries threaten to rise to the surface.
I have to swallow down the fear that when she finally wakes, our bubble of bliss will pop.
For five days, I’ve had my scent match within my reach.
Five days to have her and hold her and get to know her body on the most intimate of levels. But I still don’t know Wren’s mind.
The prospect of what she might truly think about me—the mere thought of her rejecting me, or worse, returning to being blissfully unaware again—churns my stomach.
Maybe my whirling thoughts are too loud because Wren begins to stir, as if on cue.
I’m left with nowhere to hide, bare skin against bare skin, as my pulse kicks into a higher gear.
Part of me wanted desperately to be the one to be there when she finally woke up so that I could confirm once and for all whether she knows we’re scent-matched or not…
while the other part of me has already mentally packed my bags and has one foot out the door, ready to avoid inevitable and crucifying heartache.
I’ve lost too many times.
I’ve spent too many years doing it alone.
I don’t think I can bear to suffer another blow of this magnitude.
Wren yawns, stretches, and is mostly coming out of a daze when she tenses in my arms. Just as she blinks rapidly, realizing she’s wrapped up by me, I feel her touch slowly move against my skin.
I can hardly dare breathe, lying as still as possible while the pads of her delicate fingers trace the tattoo—her tattoo.
“Hey,” she breathes, pink tongue darting out to wet her lips.
“You’re back.” My heart grows too big for my chest. Words feel rusty and clumsy on my tongue.
“You’re the last person I expected to see,” Wren croaks; nerves are obvious in that admission.
I apply a little pressure to my hold, to check in, grounding myself as much as her with that added weight of my palm. “Is this… is this alright… like this?”
She slowly dips her chin.
Thank fuck. Air rushes from my lungs. Relief pours through my limbs.
“Before your heat… you found out…” I venture. This feels too big, too grand, I don’t even know how to say it out loud for fear that I’ll speak the truth, and she’ll run away.
“We’re scent matches,” Wren finishes for me.
My heart pumps desperately. Rapidly squeezing hard enough that I’m sure she’ll be able to hear it.
“I’m so sorry that I didn’t know sooner.” Her voice is so quiet, I can barely hear those words over the relentless drumbeat pounding behind my ribs and blood whooshing in my ears.
“Don’t be. As long as you’re okay—”
“I am, Ace. Trust me, I’m more than okay. So many things make sense now, my god, you have no idea.”
On hearing her say that, I’ve admittedly got too many questions, but I’m terrible with words.
They’ll no doubt come out wrong, so I stay silent and enjoy soaking up the opportunity to watch her from up close.
Right now doesn’t feel like the moment to grill her over what she meant by that.
So instead, we lie cuddled together quietly, before Wren swallows and makes a low groan as soon as she attempts to shift her weight.
“Ouch… whatever just happened… I feel like I’ve been run over. ”
Carefully helping her move onto her back, I fluff up her pillow and brush some loose strands of hair from her eyes.
Every single part of me wants to prove that I’ve remained right here at her side.
Someway, somehow, I feel consumed by this weird Alpha urge to make sure my Omega understands that I’ve been here for her the whole time.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve needed to stay cut off from Wren for so long, having to fight all my scent-match instincts while we’ve lived on opposite coasts.
Maybe it’s because I’ve only ever had her brother for company while wishing daily that I could tell him the truth about us. I don’t fucking know.
“Just take it easy.” I keep stroking and petting her hair, which she seems to enjoy. “A full five-day heat was a lot for your body to handle.”
She gasps, and I go still, very nearly jerking my hand away, thinking it’s something I’ve done.
With a little shake of her head, I watch helplessly as her pretty eyes well up.
“Five days? That’s not possible. What… what day is it?
” The sight of Wren hovering on the verge of tears makes my chest seize.
“Shhh. Don’t be upset.” I let my hand cup her cheek and take it as a good sign when she immediately nuzzles into my touch. Soothing my sweet Omega and being able to tenderly brush my thumb against her satiny-soft skin feels like a dream come true.
“But that means there was a Wolves home game… and you… and Connor… and oh, god, Theo, too. You would have all had to miss a match because of me.” Her words are thick with rising emotion as realization dawns that her heat fell at a time when it would impact our playing schedule.
“I’m a terrible person. So selfish. I’m so sorry. ”
A growl of concern mixed with an attempt at reassurance bursts from my chest. I can’t handle seeing her upset, especially when there’s no need for her to be worrying about anything right now.
“You have nothing to apologize for. We made sure to take care of everything. Connor still played. The team won.”
Her big eyes blink at me several times. “He played the match?”
“You don’t remember?” That makes my lips twitch.
Especially considering what came after and just how memorable that moment was for me.
Everything about that night is burned into my memory, completely unforgettable.
So much so, it makes my cock stir at the prospect of what this is going to mean for Connor and me going forward.
“Wait. What is this? You’re…” Wren sucks in a breath, then hesitantly reaches out to touch the corner of my mouth. “You’re smiling?”
I playfully nip at her fingers. I am smiling, and fuck, does having this girl in my arms make me want to smile all the time. “Do you remember anything at all about him coming back to your nest after the game?”
Wren looks at me warily, eyes flickering back and forth between my own as she searches for the memory. Then I see the exact moment it must click into place. Her mouth forms a little O, followed by a deep flush gracing her cheeks with a beautiful shade of pink.
“Oh wow… umm… we all…” Wren stammers, then a whisper drops between us. “You two were…” She traps the plump curve of her bottom lip between her teeth.
A deep, satisfied hum rumbles from somewhere in my chest. “We were. We are.” I lower my mouth to place a kiss against the crook of her neck.
Partially to test the waters with how comfortable Wren might be with being intimate with me now that she’s emerged from her heat.
Mostly because I physically can’t go without touching her right now.
Warmth and desire surge through my body like twin waves racing toward the shore.
She makes a sultry whimper of agreement, tipping her chin back to open up and give me more access to her slender neck.
I let out a shaky exhale against her throat. “Fuck, you have no idea what you do to me… to all of us, peaches.”
The mortified noise she makes is too endearing. “Oh my god. You’ve all had to do god knows what, and I can only imagine how I behaved. I’m starting to get flashes of memories…” Burying her face in her hands, a long groan of embarrassment quickly follows.
Fuck that. She has nothing to be ashamed of.
“You think we didn’t enjoy every minute?
” As I speak against her skin, I slide down her body.
Using my mouth, I trace a path from her throat to her collarbone, down to her lush breasts, where I take time to suck and gently flick my tongue over each nipple, one after the other.
She tastes like a combination of all of us; the hints of our Alpha scents are strong from how frequently we’ve all had our mouths on her perfect tits.
Wren moans and starts squirming beneath me with little mewls of pleasure. I don’t know how oversensitive she’ll be after five days of this, but fuck, I can’t get enough of playing with her nipples and listening to her unravel.
When I keep shifting down her body, wedging my shoulders between her thighs, she starts protesting. “What… what are you doing?”
Placing a kiss on her inner thigh, I suck gently on the soft swell until her hips lift off the mattress. A fresh wave of that addictive, peachy essence fills my nose, and I take my time to lap at the spot where she’s covered in slick and undoubtedly traces of all of our cum combined.
“Want me to show you just how much we’ve enjoyed every second of your heat?
” Grazing my teeth against her flesh, an urgent need blazes through my veins.
I’m tempted, so unbelievably tempted to bite down, but Theo Brennan’s rules pop into my mind’s eye.
No bonding. Not like this, not while Wren has barely touched down after being strung out by her heat for days on end.
With a throaty groan, I have to train my attention on her cunt so that I don’t go forgetting myself and fuck everything up. “You know what you taste like?”
“I… I don’t know.” Her mouth hangs open.
“You taste fucking perfect, peaches. Like all of us combined.” Lowering my mouth to her swollen clit, I pause and hold her eyes. “You taste like the heart of our pack.”
As I close my mouth over her pussy, I show her in the only way I know how.
This is the only way I can prove to Wren, without any room for doubt, that she doesn’t need to worry.
Licking her pussy and pressing my tongue inside, I moan against her softness, using every moment I suck and lap at her to spell out exactly how perfect she is.
Drawing back for a moment, I flick my tongue and make sure she’s watching every slow, steady movement of my mouth as I eat her out.
“Forget all of those worries, peaches. You want to know the truth? I can taste all of us, and I’ll gladly devour you every day when all of our cum is leaking out of you like this. ”
She’s trembling with all that overwhelming pleasure as I say those words, then turn my attention back to the goal of making her shatter.
My entire body lights up, my dick plumps and demands more as I grind my hips against the mattress.
Wren shakes and moans and gasps my name with fingers clenched in the sheets as her whole body succumbs to the wave of her climax rolling through.
At the same time as her channel pulses and her little budded clit throbs beneath my tongue, our scents collide, and I unload all over the sheets.
All I can think of is her.
Wren Murphy. My girl. My scent match. My everything.