Chapter 48
WADE
Wyatt and I hung back. The dusty barn air was impossibly thick with our pack’s six mixing chemistries. It made me sway on my feet, brain foggy, joints feeling too loose.
I didn't know what was churning through my twin's hazy mind. In my case? ‘Certified brother fucking’ and ‘We don’t cross swords’ and ‘Keep it in the family, except for that’.
I was warring with long established reservations; a line me and my twin drew a long time ago.
Now, we stood on the brink of crossing that boundary.
We'd undressed in front of Nelly, sure. We'd kissed her in succession, our lips meeting hers with bare seconds between.
But now, as we stood over the writhing tangle of bodies on the tattered blankets, we were faced with something more involved and infinitely more intense.
The invisible barrier we'd drawn years ago would blur into nothing if we joined our pack mates.
Cooper's head was buried between Nelly's thighs, his shoulders flexing as he devoured her with obvious pleasure.
Levi stroked her hair while his mouth claimed one perfect breast. Boone's large hands framed her face as he kissed her deeply, swallowing her moans. The sight of them ignited a feeling dangerously close to jealous rage. I didn’t want to stand here, frozen by my own inhibitions.
I wanted to toss my worries out the window and worship Nelly too.
But we had a code, dating back to when we were seventeen, and it resided in the marrow of our twin bond.
We’d already established pack bonds with Levi and Cooper back then.
The four of us had fallen into friendship as little kids, but then they’d fallen into love as teens over shitty parents and drunken abuse.
During a camping trip, just before me and Wyatt turned seventeen, I’d had a bit too much beer by the campfire.
I knew I’d catch shit from my grandpa the next day for drinking, but the buzz finally let me face something I’d been wanting for a while—to be a part of what Levi and Coop had.
It might have started out as not wanting to be left out—of their inside jokes, their quiet affection, their ability to blow off steam in the comfort of each other’s arms—but then it grew into something more.
After our birthday, me and Wyatt freshly minted seventeen-year-olds, I’d told him he should join us one night.
He’d looked horrified. Right then and there, he made me promise to not suggest shit like that again, that we weren’t brother fuckers.
When Boone joined after Levi and Coop came back from college, I’d embraced him too. I wasn’t a real part of their trio, just a casual visitor. I admired them from the outside looking in, and that was enough.
The rules shifted over time.
Never the same woman on the same night.
Never the same room with different woman.
And now… this was the same woman, on the same night, in the same place.
Not only that, but our pack brothers were here. His reaction so long ago burned through me.
It had been knee jerk and visceral.
What we were doing right now broke every rule.
Nelly's back arched off the blankets, her copper hair spilling across the faded fabric like spilled paint.
Another wave of her heat scent crashed over me, so powerful it made my knees weak.
My mouth watered. My skin burned. The wooden beams above us seemed to warp and bend in my vision as that heady fragrance filled my lungs.
"Christ," Wyatt muttered beside me, the word barely audible over Nelly's gasping breaths.
I glanced at my brother's face, his jaw flexing, sweat gathering on his brow.
The battle in his head was probably bloodier than mine but trying to hold onto those old rules suddenly seemed meaningless.
Our Omega was right in front of us, waiting to be claimed.
Our pack had an opportunity to truly meld as one…
but did I want that? Did I want to sit back and watch as the other men enjoyed her body?
The jealousy curling in my stomach surprised me.
I wasn't normally possessive. Hell, I'd shared a childhood room, my clothing, a birthday, this ranch, and every other square inch of life with Wyatt. It was the same in a way with Cooper and Levi. They’d basically lived at Sagebrush after their home life got too bad.
Our grandparents basically adopted them.
After that, the four of us divvied up things.
Grandpa. Gran. Beds. Breakfast. Boone caused the dividends of life to change again, twenty-five percent to twenty.
But watching Levi's fingers trace patterns across Nelly's ribs, seeing Cooper's tongue lap at her most intimate place, hearing her cry out as Boone's teeth grazed her nipple made me want to erase the entire goddamn past and tell them they couldn’t have anything else that was mind. I was done splitting my winnings.
Mine. The word pulsed through me with each heartbeat. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Fuck, I wasn’t thinking straight.
You can’t split a person five ways to Sunday. You can have all of them or none.
Nelly wasn’t a fucking pie to be sliced into six pieces, five for us and a little leftover for her.
We all needed her. Care about her. Maybe… maybe loved her.
I peeled off my briefs with a sudden decisive motion, the fabric catching on my hardness before sliding down my thighs.
The air hit my exposed skin but did nothing to cool the fever burning through me.
I kicked the underwear away, not caring where it landed.
Not caring about anything except the desperate need building at the base of my spine.
My hand wrapped around my cock almost of its own volition. I stroked once, twice, my breath catching at the pleasure that shot through me. It wasn't enough. Nowhere near enough. But it was something to take the edge off while my mind filled with visions of what I really wanted.
I imagined pushing between her legs, replacing Cooper's mouth with my body. I pictured the way her eyes would widen, how her lips would part on a gasp as I slid into her heat. In my mind, her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeper, urging me on with breathless, excited pleas.
"Wade," she'd whisper, barely able to speak around the gasps of satisfaction, "Wade, please."
And I would give her everything she asked for.
I would move inside her with long, deep strokes.
I would feel her body clench around me, squeezing me, milking me.
I would mark her again, my teeth finding the spot where I'd already claimed her.
I would flood her with my seed, over and over, until it spilled down her thighs.
My hand moved faster, grip tightening. The mental image was so vivid I could almost feel her slick heat around me. Almost taste the sweetness of her skin. Almost hear the sounds she'd make as I pushed her over the edge.
Levi shifted position, giving me a clear view of Nelly's face contorted in pleasure.
Her eyes were closed, her neck arched, her lips parted as she panted through the sensations Cooper was drawing from her body.
One of her hands was tangled in Boone's long braid, the other gripping Levi's shoulder like it was the only thing anchoring her to this earth.
I wanted those hands on me. I wanted them in my hair, on my chest, guiding me where she wanted me most.
I wanted to feel her nails digging into my back as I drove her to the edge of sanity and beyond.
Bullshit rules didn’t matter.
What was the point of drawing lines in the sand when the tide was coming in? The pull between us and Nelly was stronger than any boundary we could construct.
I looked over at my twin again, finding him staring at me. At my hand moving on my cock. At the evidence of how badly I wanted to join the twisting, jumble of bodies before us. His eyes darkened with understanding.
Go, they seemed to say. I'll be right behind you.
I knew we were thinking the same thing—that some rules were meant to be broken, and some boundaries were meant to be crossed.
Especially when it came to Nelly.
But I couldn't move. My feet felt rooted to the barn floor as my hand continued its relentless pace. The pressure was building too quickly, threatening to spill over before I'd even touched her. I wanted to come. I needed to come. But not like this. Not in my hand while watching from the sidelines.
I needed cold water. A shock to the system. Something to pull me back from the edge so I could take her properly when my turn came.
Because it would come. I would make sure of it.
The thought of a cold shower, of ice water sluicing down my overheated skin, was barely enough to keep me from spilling over the edge.
I closed my eyes, trying to focus on anything but the soft moans filling the barn air, the scent of Nelly's arousal mixing with the muskier notes of Alpha rut, the visual feast of her body stretched out before me.
Nelly's back arched off the blankets again, her body going rigid as Cooper's mouth finally forced her to climax.
Her cry of release echoed through the barn.
That sound, so wild and free, made the invisible glue holding me to one spot dissolve.
My feet were moving before my brain caught up, carrying me toward her with gravitational force.
My abrupt movement spurred Wyatt into action. I could feel him behind me, following my lead.
Our pact was pointless now.
And neither of us cared.
I knelt beside Levi, who was cradling Nelly's head in his lap, stroking her copper hair as she trembled through the aftershocks of her climax.
My hand immediately traced down her beautiful stomach, feeling the tight muscles beneath her soft skin quiver at my touch.
Her scent was even more intoxicating up close, a heady mixture of sweetness and need that made my head swim.