Chapter Five
Hale
A relentless knocking drags me out of the warm cocoon of pillows and blankets I’ve built around myself. I surface slowly, like a diver who stayed under too long, blinking against the light and the pounding behind my eyes.
I sit up and stare.
Okay. Vegas hotel room. That part checks out. But something’s wrong.
Everything looks… mirrored. Familiar, but backwards. The bed is on the wrong side. The desk is flipped. Even the stupid abstract art on the wall is facing the opposite direction.
What the fuck?
Did I get drunk and wander into someone else’s room? No. Absolutely not. My key barely works on my door on a good day. There is no universe where it lets me into a random room by accident.
The knocking starts again, harder this time, and my skull throbs in perfect rhythm. I groan, dragging myself to the door like a condemned man.
On the other side stands a hotel employee with a rolling tray stacked with food and coffee. At my clearly vacant expression, he straightens and launches into a rehearsed explanation.
“Someone named Erica called the front desk,” he says, accent vaguely French, patience already worn thin, “and requested sustenance for three people be delivered to this room at precisely noon.”
He pauses. Smiles. Holds out his hand. “No tip has yet been provided.”
I blink at him. Sway slightly. Erica.
Right. Eric.
So, this is Eric’s room.
I glance down and spot a wallet half-hidden beneath a crumpled pair of jeans. I grab it, flip it open, and pull out the twenty practically begging to be used. The man lights up as if I’m a billionaire, handing him the keys to his very own yacht.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
He wheels away happily, leaving me alone with my confusion and the smell of coffee.
I stand there for a moment, letting the silence press in.
What happened last night? Where is Eric?
Why am I not in my room?
I grab a coffee and take a long, desperate gulp. It
tastes like burnt dirt, but the caffeine has my brain flickering faintly back to life.
I toss the wallet onto the desk—and freeze. That is not Eric.
Blond hair. Teal eyes.
Aksel fucking Winther stares back at me from the grainy ID photo.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I whisper to the empty room.
The bed shifts.
A blanket mound wriggles, followed by a groan and a string of deep curses.
Aksel’s head pops out, hair wrecked, eyes squinting against the light. His face mirrors my own stunned horror.
Normally, this would be hilarious.
Unfortunately, my head feels like it’s actively trying to kill me.
Fragments of last night drift back, slow and uneven. Trivia night. Vodka. Eric being Eric. Talking. Like actual conversation. With Aksel. Like we weren’t sworn enemies. Then laughing. Then…
Nothing.
A clean break. Like someone hit delete on the rest of the night.
The harder I think about it, the worse my head pounds.
“I gotta piss,” I mutter, stumbling toward the bathroom.
I’m washing my hands when a loud snore nearly sends me into cardiac arrest. I spin around-
And there’s Eric.
Naked.
Except for the goddamn feather boa.
Passed out in the bathtub, arms wrapped around an empty vodka bottle like it’s his soulmate.
Despite the hangover threatening my existence, a laugh bubbles out of me. I clamp a hand over my mouth and back out of the bathroom as quietly as possible.
I need to grab my phone. Some moments are gifts.
And I refuse to waste this one.
“What’s going on?” Aksel asks as I yank pillows and blankets off the bed, searching frantically. He still hasn’t moved from his spot against the headboard, watching me with bleary curiosity.
“Eric is passed out in the tub,” I snicker, breathless. “I need photographic evidence.”
Have I mentioned before how mature I am? I fling the last blanket aside and freeze.
Abs. Bare skin. Bright red briefs.
That’s all my brain manages to register before my feet betray me and I go down hard, ass over elbow, tangled in bedding on the floor.
“Fuck!”
My head throbs in time with my pulse and the sudden, undeniable ache between my legs. I squeeze my eyes shut, praying the hangover has dulled his senses because I am leaking, and my pheromones are absolutely out of control.
“You okay?” Aksel asks, already moving toward me. That helps nothing.
Our eyes lock, his full of concern, mine blown wide with heat. My face feels like it’s on fire. I’m breathing too fast. Too shallow. Is this contact heat? Can it come on this quickly? I’ve never experienced it before, but panic claws its way up my spine.
I need my suppressants. I need my room.
I need my wallet.
My brain is running on fumes. “What’s with all the yelling?”
Eric’s voice cuts straight through the tension.
He stands in the bathroom doorway, completely and unapologetically naked except for the stupid feather boa, sipping my coffee and scratching his balls like this is a perfectly normal morning activity.
Nothing to see here. Just a lumberjack swinging his metaphorical axe.
“Jesus, dude,” Aksel laughs, tossing a pillow at him. “Put that thing away before you hurt someone. Guess I know why you’re so popular now, huh?”
Eric casually bats the pillow aside and takes another sip.
“I was looking for my phone and my room key,” I say, forcing my voice into something resembling casual. “I need something from my room.”
Eric leans back into the bathroom and retrieves my wallet and phone from where I must have tossed them last night. “Phone’s dead, but your key’s still here.”
I mutter a rushed thank-you and bolt for the door, pointedly ignoring the way Aksel’s nostrils flare as he finally catches my scent.
I hit the hallway at the speed of light.
And then it clicks.
We didn’t end up in Eric’s room. We ended up in Aksel’s.
Thank the gods.
I make it to my door in record time, fumbling with the keycard as my entire body trembles with pent-up need. I could cry when the light finally turns green and the door beeps open.
I stumble inside, barely registering the room as I tear into my duffel bag. My hands shake as I find the suppressants.
Two. Just to be safe.
I swallow them dry and kick my jeans down, breathing hard, waiting for my body to calm the hell down before it completely betrays me.
The silence is deafening. My heart is still racing, my skin too tight, my body buzzing like it’s been struck by lightning.
Contact heat is basically your body installing a trial version of “Alpha Proximity Sensitivity” without asking you first. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, a sudden awareness of how broad someone’s shoulders are, irrational irritation that they are not touching you, even more irrational irritation that they are touching you, but not in the way you want, and a dramatic insistence that you aren’t affected, even while actively melting.
In short, it’s when the laws of thermodynamics and unresolved tension decide to collaborate.
Contact heat feels nothing like the books describe.
It isn’t slow or sensual. It’s overwhelming, messy, humiliating, and impossible to ignore.
I fist my aching cock in one hand and shove three fingers into my ass as my mind keeps replaying the way Aksel looked at me.
The way his eyes darkened. The way his scent spiked when he realized what was happening.
I cum with a long whine, panting as the heat flares inside of me again.
I continue fingering my hole, adding fingers until my entire fist is inside of me.
I stroke my stiff length, coming four more times until my heat begins to recede.
I gasp for breath after the fifth and final orgasm, covered in fluids and humiliation.
It feels like hours have passed, but a glance at the clock tells me it’s only been about twenty minutes.
I’m left shaky and mortified and sprawled on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the shellshock of the almost disaster that just happened in Aksel’s room.
By the time I’ve cleaned up and taken another suppressant, purely for my own peace of mind, I feel human again. Exhausted. Raw. Embarrassed.
Contact heat is not sexy. It’s inconvenient at best and catastrophic at worst. Definitely not the fantasy version everyone writes romantic manga about.
A soft knock pulls me out of my thoughts.
“Hale?” Aksel’s voice comes through the door, low and hesitant. “You okay?”
Panic flares all over again. My room definitely smells like sex. There’s no way around that. I debate my options for exactly half a second before deciding avoidance will only make this worse.
I crack the door open just enough to slip out, keeping my eyes firmly on the carpet.
We stand there. Too close. Too quiet.
Neither of us acknowledges the obvious. The air between us is thick with things unsaid.
Then sweet salvation.
Eric opens the door across the hall, steps out fully dressed, takes one look at our faces, and immediately goes on alert. “How are we doing out here?”yet.”
“Fine,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
Eric’s gaze flicks to Aksel. “So… you didn’t tell him
“Tell me what?” I ask, heart dropping straight into my stomach.
Aksel rubs the back of his neck, suddenly shy in a way I’ve never seen before. Color creeps up his throat and across his cheeks, and I hate how much I notice. “I got distracted.”
Eric blinks and then grins like he’s just been handed the best gossip of his life. “By what, exactly?”
The tension in the hallway is thick enough to choke on.
“Nothing,” Aksel blurts, way too fast to be convincing.
“Mmhmm,” Eric hums, lips pursed as he slowly waggles his eyebrows. “Well, you might want to tell your husband about the videos we found on our phones.”
Everything inside me freezes.
My blood goes cold, like someone just dumped ice water straight into my veins. “You’re fucking with me,” I say flatly. It’s not a question.
There is absolutely no way we did what Eric is implying. No way. I would remember something like that. Wouldn’t I?
My memory stubbornly refuses to cooperate. All I have is champagne, laughter, and then nothing. Just a blank stretch of time where my life may or may not have imploded in the most cliché way possible.
Drunk-married my ex–arch nemesis in Vegas. While filming a reality show. A scream starts to bubble up my throat, and I’m forced to swallow it back down.
This isn’t happening.
“I bet Mister Tentacles here would love to be doing exactly that right now,” Eric mutters under his breath.
Aksel shoots him a look sharp enough to draw blood, but I’m already moving, walking blindly toward the elevators like if I don’t stop, none of this can be real.
“Where are you going?” Aksel asks, concern clear in his voice.
“The roof,” I say bluntly.
He stumbles, just a little, and I feel a petty spark of satisfaction bloom in my chest. It dies immediately when Eric opens his mouth.
“Oh, please. Drama queen,” he says. “You want to win this competition way too badly to jump now. At least wait until after the eliminations.”
I stare at my bestie with narrowed eyes, really wanting to jump now to avoid any other world-altering shit shows. But, alas, he knows me too well. I can’t die without knowing I’m the best. Damn my stubborn siren genetics. I groan. “Ugh. Fine. The bar, then.”
“The bar?” Aksel asks. He looks genuinely worried, and annoyingly enough, it makes him even hotter.
“If I’m going to discuss my apparent nuptials, I need alcohol,” I snap, jamming my finger into the elevator button like that’ll make it arrive faster. It absolutely does. Science can’t convince me otherwise.
“I don’t think adding more alcohol is the solution here,” he says carefully.
I glare at him. “Then what do you suggest, hubby?” I gag as the word leaves my mouth.
I never wanted this kind of attachment. I’ve seen what it does to people. My parents are living proof that being bound to someone can turn into a life sentence.
“How about better coffee,” he says, steady but gentle. “We clear our heads and talk like adults.”
The elevator dings.
I step inside and cross my arms. “Fine. But you’re paying.”
“Oh, yay,” Eric sings, sliding in behind us. “Free coffee.”
How is this the longest weekend of my life, and it’s only Friday?