Chapter 30 Mattaniah
Mattaniah
I wake up on fire. It's not the slow build of a spike or the creeping warmth that gives me time to brace. This is a wall of heat that slams through my body between one heartbeat and the next, and by the time my eyes open I'm already drenched in sweat with my hips grinding against the mattress.
The nest is damp beneath me. Slick has pooled beneath my hips, soaking the throw blanket and the sheets below it.
Dominic’s hand finds my hip and rolls me onto my back. His nostrils flare at whatever my scent is doing, his pupils blown wide, his grip tightening hard enough to bruise.
"It's here." He says it over my head to Amos, his voice rough with sleep and something darker. "Amos. Wake up. His heat’s here."
Amos sits up in seconds, his hand finding my forehead. The clinical check lasts approximately one second before my hand grabs his wrist and drags it down my body. I need his hands on me.
"Please." The word comes out as a whine that I can't control. "Please, Amos, I need... I can't..."
"I'm here." He pulls his shirt over his head and his skin presses against mine and the contact sends a shudder through me so violent my teeth chatter. "We're both here, Niah."
Dominic strips the ruined sweatpants off me while Amos' mouth finds my throat.
Amos' lips on my pulse and Dominic's hands on my thighs send electricity through every nerve I have.
My back arches off the bed and my hands grab whatever they can reach, Amos' hair with my left and Dominic's forearm with my right.
"Both of you." My voice doesn't sound like mine.
It's raw and desperate and demanding. The heat has burned through every hesitation and every filter I ever built.
What's left is pure need, so consuming that when Amos pulls off my cock I cry out in protest. "I need both of you touching me right now. Not one at a time. Both."
Amos pulls back long enough to look at Dominic over my body. The communication between them takes less than a second, and then they move.
Dominic slides behind me and pulls me against his chest, my back flush against him, my head tipping onto his shoulder.
His cock is already hard against the small of my back and his hands wrap around my chest, one palm flat over my heart and the other sliding down my stomach toward my cock.
Amos settles between my spread legs, his hands on my thighs, his mouth tracing a path down my sternum that makes my hips lift off the mattress.
"I know." Dominic's hand wraps around my cock and strokes once, slow, and my whole body jerks in his grip. "Your body knows what it wants. Let it have it."
Amos' mouth reaches my cock and takes me in alongside Dominic's hand, his tongue working the shaft while Dominic's fingers grip the base.
The dual sensation makes my vision white out for a second and the sound I make is loud enough that my own voice startles me.
My hips buck up into Amos' mouth and Dominic's hand tightens on my chest, holding me still against him.
"Easy, firefly." His mouth is against my ear and the vibration of his voice goes straight down my spine. "We've got you. Stop fighting it."
I'm not fighting it. My body has moved past the point where fighting is an option. "I need you inside me." I grab Amos' shoulders and pull him up my body. "I need you inside me right now. I can't wait."
Amos pushes inside me with a groan that I feel through his chest. The stretch of him fills the aching emptiness that the heat carved into my gut. My body clenches around him so hard his rhythm stutters on the first thrust. His hands brace on either side of my head, his face close to mine.
The relief lasts thirty seconds. Then my body starts reaching for Dominic.
It's not a conscious choice. My hand reaches behind me and finds Dominic's thigh, pulling him closer.
"Dominic." His name comes out broken while Amos thrusts into me. "I need you too. I need your hands on me, I need your mouth, I need..."
Dominic's hand wraps around my cock from behind, stroking me in rhythm with Amos' thrusts, and his mouth finds the back of my neck and bites down hard enough that my spine arches.
Amos' cock inside me and Dominic's hand on my cock and Dominic's teeth on my neck send me over the edge so fast I don't have time to warn either of them.
I come in Dominic's fist with a shout that cracks in the middle, my body locking around Amos, the clench pulling Amos over the edge with me.
His knot starts to swell and he buries himself deep, his forehead dropping against mine while his release pulses inside me.
The orgasm doesn't break the heat. It dulls the edge for maybe ninety seconds before the fire starts building again. The need coils tighter in my gut even with Amos knotted inside me and Dominic's body warm against my back.
"It's building again already?" Amos lifts his head enough to look at my face, his expression shifting. "Niah, it's been less than two minutes."
"I know." My hips are already rocking against his knot, chasing friction that his locked body can't provide. "I know, I'm sorry, I can't help it, my body won't..."
"No need to apologize, firefly." Dominic's hand finds my jaw and turns my face toward him.
He kisses me over my shoulder, his tongue sweeping into my mouth while Amos stays locked inside me, and the kiss is rough enough that my lip splits against his teeth and the copper taste mixes with his scent in my mouth.
Amos' knot deflates faster than usual, twelve minutes instead of fifteen, and the second he pulls out my body starts crying for fullness again. The emptiness hits me so hard I curl forward on the mattress, my face pressing into the nest, my hips lifting in the air.
"Dom." Amos says it while pulling back, his hand steadying my hip. "He needs you."
Dominic doesn't make me wait. He enters me from behind while I'm face down in the nest, his hands gripping my hips. His cock stretches me wider than Amos, my body taking every inch before he's finished pushing in, and the first thrust drives a sob from my lungs.
"I need more." The word comes out muffled against the cardigan beneath my face. "Harder. Please."
His pace is punishing from the first stroke and my body takes every inch of it and demands more. Amos positions himself at my head and his hand cups my cheek, tilting my face up, and when I open my mouth around his cock the dual sensation of being filled from both ends makes my eyes roll back.
The rent-an-Alpha heats were nothing like this. Those heats were transactions. An unfamiliar body doing a mechanical job while I lay still and counted ceiling tiles.
This heat recognizes these Alphas. My body doesn't just need to be filled. It needs to be filled by them, specifically, and the recognition is so overwhelming that tears leak from the corners of my eyes while I moan around Amos' cock.
Dominic's hand slides up my spine and grips the back of my neck, holding me steady between them. The three of us find a rhythm, Dominic thrusting deep while I take Amos into my throat, the nest fabrics bunching under my knees.
I come again without anyone touching my cock.
The orgasm rips through me and my body clamps down on Dominic so hard he swears.
His hips stutter before he drives in deep, his knot swelling inside of me.
Amos pulls out of my mouth and finishes across my cheek and jaw, his groan vibrating through his whole body, his hand still fisted in my hair.
Dominic's knot locks us together and he pulls me upright against his chest, my back against him, his arms wrapped around my torso while his release fills me in pulses. My whole body shakes with the aftershocks, my thighs slick, and my face wet with tears and Amos' release.
Amos is off the bed before I've stopped shaking. He comes back from the kitchen with a glass and a damp cloth, wiping my face clean before pressing the glass to my lips. I drink half of it in one pull, the cold water hitting my overheated system hard enough that I shiver.
"Slow down." Dominic's hand steadies the glass from behind. "Small sips. Your body needs to absorb it."
I take small sips because arguing with Dominic while knotted on his cock is a battle I'm not going to win. Amos climbs back onto the bed and presses against my front, sandwiching me between them. Dominic's thumb comes up and traces my lower lip, my mouth closing around it on instinct.
"How are you feeling?" Amos' hand rests on my chest, monitoring my heartbeat. "Scale of one to ten."
"Three for now. It's coming back already. I can feel it coming back."
"How long between the first and second wave?"
"Minutes. Maybe less." My teeth press against Dominic's thumb, a sound escaping me that's half whimper, half frustration.
"The heats I had taken care of by a rent-an-Alpha were controlled and predictable, sometimes lasting no longer than eight hours.
This is already more intense than any of those and it's only the first morning. "
"This heat is different because your body isn't tolerating a stranger. It's responding to mates." Amos' thumb traces my cheekbone. "Your body has seven years of suppressed cycles burning through. The first day is going to be the worst."
"You don't know that."
"No." He meets my eyes. "I don't know that. But I know we're both here and neither of us is going anywhere."
Dominic's knot deflates and he pulls out slowly, his release leaking from me onto the nest. Everything is soaking into the nest, turning it into something that smells like all three of us at our most raw.
I can feel the next wave coming on, my skin prickling with sensitivity that makes even the brush of the sheets feel like too much and not enough at the same time.
"The next wave is close." I pull Dominic's thumb from my mouth and push myself up on shaking arms. "I can feel it building." A small sigh filters through my lips as the next wave surges forward. “Please.”