Chapter 10
E very inch of me was inflamed, aching to be touched even as hands were everywhere. None of it was enough to drive away the heat that clawed at me, that demanded I be soft and open. I had lost track of who was where multiple times, only concerned that someone was inside me at all times.
Clove and nutmeg saturated each breath.
Diego.
The slick warmth of his skin had me close to overheating, but I didn’t want him to move, didn’t want him to stop driving his hips against mine, plundering my body to satisfy the demands of the heat. He felt so good I wanted to cry. Honestly, I wasn’t far off as I sobbed my release and melted, completely depleted.
“One more, little dove.”
I turned to Kai, his chin resting on the bed next to me. He was so pretty. I reached a lazy hand toward him and tucked my fingers into the sweaty strands of his hair.
“One more what?”
“One more knot and then you can sleep.”
“Sleep good,” I murmured.
Kai chuckled. My eyes flew wide as Diego ground against me, his knot swelling and setting off the first domino of my orgasm, pleasure cascading through me.
“I’m never going to get over how fucking delicious you look coming on a knot,” Kai said playfully.
I could only whimper, sucking in minuscule breaths, each tiny shift in Diego’s hips sending a fresh spasm of desire through me.
“Come for me.” Kai’s fingers swept over my clit and Diego moaned as I squeezed hard around him. I was already so primed it took only seconds for Kai to break me.
I let delirium take me, coming back to clarity only when Diego eventually slid free and Amir flipped me over, hoisting up my hips, fingers spreading my tender flesh.
I whined, my thighs shaking. “What?”
“They need to see how much cum you took.” I turned to see Amir, his arm wrapped around my waist to keep me upright, and then I felt the warm drip sliding out of me. “There we go, princess. Everyone gets to see what a little cum slut you are.”
My cheeks burned and my pussy clenched at his words, more warmth dripping free.
He chuckled. “You like that, don’t you? You want all of them to see how well you were used.”
I didn’t. Did I? Instead of thinking too hard about it, I let my cheek rest against the blankets until Amir was finally done showing me off.
I drifted in and out.
Someone scooped me up.
Cinnamon.
Kai.
Warm water sluiced over me, gentle hands cleaning up the absolute mess they had made of me. I clung to the nearest body, keeping my eyes closed because I was too fucking tired for anything else. I purred under the attention. Hands were everywhere, but my body wasn’t craving ruination right now. I just wanted to be held, to sleep, to feel safe.
Cinnamon and cedar, clove and nutmeg wrapped around me. I sank into oblivion with those scents in my nose. They were so cozy around me, holding me like a treasure, but even so I slept fitfully. I woke often and fell asleep just as quickly, unused to the bodies around me and the scent of alpha despite how deeply I had been drenched in it lately.
My dreams twisted and turned, full of flashes of all of their faces, Jerry’s sneaking in to send my heart pounding when suddenly it was him taking Diego’s place to fuck between my spread thighs.
“Little whore,” Jerry whispered. “Giving it up to anyone who gives you a bit of attention. Did you wish it was me? Did you cry? You’re not good enough, Callie.”
Every time I tried to close my eyes, he appeared again, sometimes murmuring hateful things in my ear, sometimes bending over some faceless woman.
“Fuck,” Jerry groaned. “She feels so much better than you. No wonder you were so easy to leave.”
I hated seeing it, hated hearing it, but it wouldn’t go away. The truth of his words rang through me like the clang of a church bell, vibrating me down to my bones. I should have listened to my mom and my friends. I never should’ve believed he loved me. It was agony to know how much more I had loved him than he had loved me. I turned to run, the floor slippery beneath my feet. Escaping him wasn’t an option. Every step I took away only dragged me closer, forcing me to listen to each grunt of his satisfaction as he shoved his dick into the faceless woman.
I screamed and no sound came out. Then hands were everywhere and eyes popped into existence until it was a wall wrapped around me. Nowhere to hide. I couldn’t breathe, saltwater pouring in to sting my eyes and fill my mouth, to drown me in all of my misery.
I swung my fist and woke myself with a jolt, staring around in confusion with no recognition of where I was. The walls were gold and terracotta wallpaper, the ceiling white with fancy molding around the overhead light. Where the fuck was I?
My head swam and I sank back into the blankets. They were deliciously soft, the only comfort at the moment. Every bit of me ached, but in a pleasant, well-used way. The way I knew I was supposed to feel during a heat but that Jerry had never let me experience. As a beta, Jerry had never been equipped to handle my heats, especially not alone, but he’d tried. Or at least I’d assumed he did, since I was delirious for most of it.
Everyone around me was asleep on a bed that was piled with blankets. I counted their faces. Kai next to me, Diego on my other side, Amir on the other side of him and Miles stretched out on the couch across the room. I was totally naked and blessedly clean.
The world felt wobbly when I moved. I sat up carefully again, delirium pawing at the edges of my consciousness. A blush suffused me head to toe. Had I really let them do whatever they pleased to me? Had I let everyone see?
Shame and desire clashed so fiercely nausea turned in my stomach. Was the heat over? I could only hope it was. I needed to get out of here. I knew I could stay, that Miles had said the suite was mine for a couple of days after, but I couldn’t bear to see their faces, not knowing if I would find judgment in their eyes.
And Kai… some instinct urged me to touch him and I curled my fingers into a fist just to thwart it.
Mine .
The word echoed through me. Kai had a bond mark on his throat and I followed the compulsion to check my own, finding a tender spot. I climbed off the bed and slipped away into the washroom, staring in burgeoning horror at the mirror. I grabbed one of the folded towels and screamed into it.
There was a fucking bond mark on my throat. That was why Kai felt like mine. Except he wasn’t. None of this was right. None of this was my life.
I braced my hands on the sink, not daring to turn on the water in case it woke one of them. I leaned my cheek against the porcelain, just trying to breathe. As much as I wanted to tell myself it was fine, it really fucking wasn’t. I had done something colossally stupid during that heat.
I didn’t regret doing the heat. It would give me a new life, but I couldn’t just fall into the one they were all expecting. I might not have a fiancé anymore, but I still had a job, an apartment, and a life that had nothing to do with Sin City. Expectation threatened to swallow me whole.
They hadn’t told me they wanted me to stay, and I didn’t want to be around if they did.
How the fuck was I supposed to ever introduce a mate to my family? Just show up at their door and be like oh, hey, so my fiancé dumped me in Vegas and I decided it would be a good idea to fuck these alphas in front of a live audience and now I’m mated to one of them. That wasn’t the sort of meet cute any family would accept.
My fingertips turned to ice, the sensation slowly crawling up my arms, my chest going tight and my breath like shards of glass in my throat.
I couldn’t do this.
The world warped, everything turning floaty, flickers of light dancing at the edges of my vision. Reality slipped away beneath my feet, everything from the dream rearing up even though I was awake.
I shivered, searching for something to use to dress myself. I wasn’t even sure where my purse was. I tiptoed around the room on wobbly legs, seeing a wallet on the coffee table in front of Miles. Urgency clawed at me and I grabbed it, yanking on a robe I found in the closet before I rushed out of the suite, panic so thick in my chest I could hardly stand it. I didn’t understand the sensation, why I felt like there was a predator chasing me, but my rational mind said to run even while my instincts screamed at me to find someplace safe to hide.
Kai stirred. Could he feel my panic? I couldn’t risk him waking and seeing me.
Home.
I need to go home.
I had a nest waiting for me and if I could just get to it, maybe everything would be okay. If I didn’t get my fucking disaster of a life back on track, I would never be able to face my family again.
I swallowed hard, bringing a hand to my spinning head. Everything was so warm. The robe was soft but it itched against my skin and the fabric of the hotel carpet felt prickly against my bare feet. Colors melted like wax around me, the world losing its cohesiveness.
Keep going .
Keep running .
Yes. Running was good. Away from all of my mistakes. Maybe if I ran far enough, I could leave them behind.
A sob worked its way free when I leapt onto the elevator. No one was on it, thank god. I didn’t want to see anyone. I would use Miles’s card to get a bus ticket, and mail it all back to him when I got home.
When the elevator opened again, I was assaulted by a wave of noise and flashing lights. A casino. Of course it was a fucking casino. I felt a thousand eyes on me as I fled. It got harder to breathe with every step, and when I wrenched open the door to the outside, it was like crashing into a wall of heat.
Run .
I was trying. The concrete was like stepping into a frying pan but I couldn’t stop. The screaming inside my head made me dizzy, one voice yelling at me to continue and the other ordering me to return to Kai.
Not mine.
Never mine.
I only knew how to be miserable. That was all I deserved.