Chapter 21 Dominic #2
The hallway is silent. Mattaniah's mother looks from Amos to me to Mattaniah, who is still pressed against his door with his arms crossed, his face blank.
"Five thousand a month." She says it through her teeth.
"Take it or leave it," I tell her.
She takes it. She walks past us down the hallway without looking back, her heels clicking against the hardwood, her spine rigid. The bedroom door at the end of the hall closes behind her with a controlled click that somehow sounds louder than a slam.
Mattaniah's arms drop to his sides. His breathing is shallow and his scent is a mess, sour stress cutting through the blocker with exhaustion underneath it.
"She's not going to stay bought," he says quietly.
"No," Amos agrees. "She's not. But it buys us time."
I reach for Mattaniah's hand and he takes it without hesitation, his fingers threading through mine. His grip is tight and his palm is damp.
"Come on," I tell him. "You're sleeping in your room tonight."
He doesn't argue.
The bed swallows him within minutes. Amos pulls the covers up and tucks himself against Mattaniah's back while I shower and change, and by the time I return to the bedroom the Omega is deeply asleep with Amos' arm draped over his waist and his face pressed into the pillow.
Instead of getting in bed I stand in the doorway of the walk-in closet and look at the corner.
The chair has been rearranged. The throw blanket that usually drapes across its back has been pulled down and shaped into a loose circle on the seat, and inside the circle is a collection I haven't seen assembled in one place before.
My dark gray cashmere cardigan sits at the bottom with Amos' scarf wound through the folds of the blanket above it, and layered on top I can see one of Amos' sleeping shirts, a pair of my dress socks folded neatly, and the jacket I thought I'd left at the office two weeks ago with its collar turned up.
The whole thing is shaped like a bowl, curved inward, the edges built up around the center, every piece positioned to hold our combined scent. The precision couldn't have been accidental even though the Omega who built it would swear up and down that it was.
I stare at it for a long time. Then I cross to the dresser and pull out the cashmere sweater I've been meaning to donate for six months. I drape it across the top of the nest, settling it into the curve where Mattaniah's face would rest if he were curled up in the chair.
When I climb into bed on Mattaniah's other side, the mattress dips enough to stir him. His eyes open, glazed and half-conscious, and he presses his face against my chest with a sleepy sound that tightens something behind my ribs.
"You were in the closet," he mumbles against my shirt.
"I was."
His body tenses. Even half asleep, the implication registers. "You saw the... the chair."
"That's a nest, firefly."
"It's not a nest." His voice firms despite the drowsiness and his cheeks darken against my chest. "I don't nest. I was just organizing."
"You organized my cardigan and Amos' scarf and my stolen jacket into a bowl-shaped arrangement designed to hold our combined scent." I run my fingers through his curls. "That's a nest."
"It's a pile." He buries his face deeper into my chest. "A completely random pile that I happen to sit in sometimes when I'm stressed. It doesn't mean anything."
"I left you a cashmere sweater in it."
He goes still. "What?"
"The black one. I was going to donate it anyway."
The silence stretches between us as his fingers curl into my shirt.
"You can't just feed someone's pile," he whispers. "That's not how piles work."
"Go back to sleep, Mattaniah."
"I'm not nesting." He says it into my chest, the stubborn words muffled. "I don't do that."
His body relaxes against mine anyway.
"Of course you don't." I press my mouth against his hair. "Close your eyes."
His breathing evens out within a minute, his body going heavy against mine, his face slack against my chest.
"You found the nest." Amos' whisper reaches me over the curve of Mattaniah's shoulder. I can see the glint of his eyes in the dark, his chin resting against the back of the Omega's head.
"There is no nest." I keep my voice low enough that Mattaniah doesn't stir, my hand still moving through his curls. "He's just collecting things."
"In a completely normal, non-nesting way." Amos shifts closer, his arm tightening around Mattaniah's waist, and the Omega makes a soft sound between us without waking.
"Exactly."
"And you fed it." His thumb traces a lazy circle on Mattaniah's hip, mirroring the motion of my hand in the Omega's hair.
"I donated a sweater. The location is irrelevant."
Amos is quiet for a moment, the Alpha lips curved against Mattaniah's hair, the edges of his mouth contorting the rest of his face.
"I was thinking that you put a cashmere sweater in his nest and then told me there was no nest." His voice carries a warmth that makes me want to hit him with a pillow. "But sure. I wasn't thinking anything."
"Go to sleep, Amos."
"Going to sleep." He presses his mouth against the back of Mattaniah's neck and settles, his breathing evening out against the Omega's skin.
I don't sleep right away. I lie in the dark with Mattaniah's breath warm against my throat, my hand moving lower to trace circles against his hip. He built that nest in a closet where nobody would find it, piece by piece, and the care in the arrangement sits in my chest in a way I can't shake.
I'm staring at him again. Just looking this time, the curve of his jaw and the small scar above his left eyebrow that I've never asked about. I press my mouth against his forehead and close my eyes.
Sleep is pulling me under when his hips move.
The motion is small, a sleepy roll forward that presses his cock against my thigh.
His scent sweetens in his sleep, warm coconut deepening, and I can feel slick gathering through the thin fabric of his sleep pants.
His mouth opens against my collarbone and a barely-there whimper escapes him.
My body goes still but his doesn't. His hips roll again, slower this time, chasing friction that his sleeping mind has decided it needs.
His cock thickens against my thigh, hardening in increments, and his scent keeps deepening until the room smells like aroused Omega and my own body is responding in ways I can't control.
"Mattaniah." I say his name quietly against his hair. "Firefly."
His eyes open, glazed and unfocused. "Mm?"
"You're moving against me in your sleep."
He blinks. Awareness seeps in slowly and his cheeks flush as he registers the hardness pressed between us, both his and mine. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"Don't apologize." My hand finds his hip and holds him steady. "Do you want me to stop this, or do you want me to take care of it?"
His breath catches. Behind him, Amos' breathing changes to something lighter, making me very aware that he’s no longer sleeping.
"Take care of it." The words come out thick with sleep. "Please."
I roll him onto his side, his back against my chest, and slide his sleep pants down over his hips.
The slick has gathered between his thighs, warm and wet, and when I press my cock between them he gasps and presses back into me.
I reach around and palm his cock, already hard and leaking, and he makes a sound that's barely louder than a breath.
"I'm going to fuck you." I say it against his ear, low enough that the words are more vibration than sound. "Slowly. You're going to feel every inch of me and you're going to stay exactly like this, half asleep, letting me use your body. Can you do that?"
"Yes." His voice cracks.
I push inside him through the gathered slick, his body opening around me with a yielding softness that makes my eyes close. The stretch wrings a moan from him that he muffles against the pillow, and I bottom out and hold myself there, buried to the hilt, my knot pressing against his rim.
"There." I wrap my arm around his chest and hold him against me. "Feel that?"
"Yes." He shifts his hips and the motion sends sparks through both of us. "Dominic, please move."
I move. The pace is glacial, long strokes that pull almost all the way out before sliding back in, each one drawing a sound from him that gets softer and more broken as the pleasure builds.
His body clenches around me in sleepy pulses, his muscles responding on instinct rather than conscious effort, and fucking him while he floats between sleep and arousal feels different from anything I've experienced before.
Amos shifts behind me as his hand reaches across and finds Mattaniah's face, his thumb tracing the Omega's lower lip.
Mattaniah takes it in immediately, his jaw closing around the familiar comfort, and the sound he makes around Amos' thumb while I thrust into him from behind goes straight through me.
"You feel so good, firefly." I keep the pace slow, each stroke deliberate, my cock dragging against the spot that makes his thighs tremble. "So warm and tight and wet for me even in your sleep."
He whimpers around Amos' thumb. His hips rock back to meet my thrusts in a lazy rhythm, his body chasing the pleasure without urgency. His sounds and his scent and the tight clench of him around my cock build the pressure in my gut one slow stroke at a time.
"Is this okay?" I ask it against his neck.
"Don't stop." He says it around Amos' thumb, the words barely intelligible. "Dominic, please don't stop."
I fuck him at the same glacial pace, my hand moving on his cock in lazy strokes that match my thrusts.
His orgasm builds so slowly that when it finally crests there's no sound at all.
His body just tightens around me and a long, shuddering exhale escapes him as he spills over my hand, his eyes closing, his muscles going slack in waves.
The clench of him pulls me over the edge and I come inside him with my face pressed against his neck, my knot swelling just enough to stretch his rim without fully locking.
"Stay inside me," he mumbles, already sliding back toward sleep. "Don't pull out."
"I'm not going anywhere." I bury my face in his hair, holding him against my chest, the last word said silently. Ever.