Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
TRISTON
V anilla whips around me, stronger than any of my memories, and I groan into her mouth.
The sound sets her aflame, the same it did that entire summer.
She digs her nails into the side of my throat, the sharp pricks jolting through me like their own sparks of electricity.
Her tongue traces my lips, and I let her in, savoring her taste after so many months apart.
It’s like drinking the purest water after dying of thirst in a desert.
I run my hand up her spine and palm the nape of her neck, twisting my fingers into her hair and pulling.
The move is muscle memory, the exact right amount of pain that she likes without ever truly hurting her.
She gasps, and her vanilla grows thicker.
This time the groan that falls from my lips is more pathetic, more of the desperation swirling under my sternum escaping.
“Em,” I whisper against her mouth. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
She nods, and then I’m tasting tears, and I don’t know if they’re hers or mine.
Maybe they’re both. I take a step forward and then another one, right up until her back presses into Beau’s hard chest. He twists a hand into her hair just above mine and pulls her away from me.
Before either of us can protest, it’s his lips that are against mine, just as unrelenting as I remember them being that summer, every time we fucked around in the barns or out on the pastures.
Suddenly everything that’s been off, that’s felt like it doesn’t quite work, falls into place. I can breathe without it hurting even as a cramp tightens my stomach.
Emily squirms between us. Distantly, I hear the crush of fabric as she drops my hat to the floor.
Then her hands are twisted in my flannel, pulling me away from Beau and back to her.
This time, her lips are hot and demanding, not allowing a single inch of resistance.
I let myself get lost in it, in the taste and feel and the hands on my body that are the closest things to home I’ve ever truly felt.
This time, when I pull away from her, trying desperately to gulp in enough air, Beau’s eyes are wide and his cheeks are flushed.
Tears fall down Emily’s face and drop off her chin.
With a shaking hand, I wipe them off. Beau pulls my wet thumb into his mouth, his tongue tracing along the edge of it.
My breathing is unsteady, and my dick is so hard it fucking hurts .
When he sucks on my thumb, my knees buckle.
I slide to the floor, kneeling in front of her, the exact position I wasn’t quite ready to fall into just minutes before.
It doesn’t feel like begging, though, not with both their hands in my hair and pulling at my flannel.
Emily pushes the fabric off my shoulders.
It pools at my elbows, and I quickly push it the rest of the way off.
She pulls at the t-shirt next, her cheeks sharpening under her own desire.
Fuck, the vanilla of her scent is so strong, I can’t even remember the way the Alpha smelled on Thursday.
Another cramp rolls through my stomach, but I ignore it.
“Take it off.” Her voice is practically a purr, and it has my dick jumping, straining against the thick denim of my jeans.
Whimpering, I grab the back of my shirt with a shaking hand, pulling it off in a single move and dropping it at her feet.
She presses the side of her foot to my thigh. “Those, too.”
It’s harder to get them off with my hands shaking, but I don’t argue, kicking the jeans and scent blockers away from me and then pressing my forehead to her stomach.
I close my eyes as my clove scent explodes away from me, the sour edge to it just as strong as it was Thursday at the Haven.
Emily hisses a curse like she’s been kicked by Redwood, and then a growl vibrates through her entire body.
My entire body aches for her, my skin tightening on my bones like just a few days ago, and I hold back a pained moan by the skin of my teeth.
Her hands twist into my hair, holding me against her, as her scent pulses in time with her heartbeat.
My entire body trembles, my clove scent only getting stronger.
Emily tenses, her nails breaking through the skin of my scalp.
Fuck, I need her to do something, anything to relieve me of this torment. Nothing a nameless Alpha at a Haven can do will ever compare to the way she makes the needs fade and the restlessness settle.
It’s only ever been with her, with them that those desires Omegas are supposed to feel have been experiences I’ve actually known.
The nesting, the need for touch, the desire to be used and held and fucked until I’m boneless.
After so many months on the suppressors, I’d practically forgotten just how overwhelming the needs can be.
“Emily?” Beau’s voice pulls me out of the haze.
She sucks in a breath, and the growl cuts off. A new hand traces up my throat and along my jaw before moving to Emily’s hip. Tears fall from my eyes, burning as they drip from my cheeks and soak into her shirt.
“Triston?” he asks.
I only shake my head, wrapping my arms around her thighs. My trembling shakes her body, too. Another cramp twists my stomach, and I choke out a whine, pressing harder into her.
“He’s…” Emily drags in a breath that feels as desperate as my entire existence.
“He’s touch-starved, strong enough it’s almost…
almost like being in a heat haze. I can’t—” Her words cut off on another growl.
I shift against her, my dick leaking precum onto the floor without even being touched. “I can’t think past it.”
“Touch-starved?”
Emily’s hands tremble as she brushes them through my hair and down my throat, her thumbs pressing into the sensitive pulse points just below my jaw.
“A… Jesus , I can’t focus,” she whispers.
Her hold tightens around my throat, and my scent thickens all over again.
“It’s a reaction that happens with… with Omegas sometimes.
When they’ve been kept from the things they need, the nesting and the touching.
Sometimes it’s a reaction to suppressors.
If it gets extreme, they can go through something called a Drop.
It’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. If the touch-starvation causes the Drop or the other way around. But not all Drops are caused by that.”
“All right,” Beau whispers. “What do you both need then?”
“Pr-pretend it’s a heat,” she admits. Her voice is just as shaky as mine now. “It’s just about as strong as one, but it should…”
She moans, deep in her throat, as I lift the hem of her shirt with my nose to get closer to her skin. I press my lips to the soft skin just under her belly button, slowly tracing the stretch marks that weren’t there the last time. Her taste is nearly as addictive as her touch.
“It should what, firecracker?” Beau’s steady voice is like a light in a storm, somehow keeping Emily and me both from completely losing it.
“It should get better after I lock him,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “You can’t.”
Her hands tighten around my throat again, and I moan.
“Yes, I can, Omega.”
Her voice whips through me, and some of the flood of symptoms recedes just enough to get my head above the water. I run my tongue over her hip bone, soaking in the pulse of vanilla. The words are gravel in my throat.
“I don’t have condoms,” I admit, “and I was with someone on Thursday, trying to keep from getting too sick.”