Chapter Twenty Nine
A day and a half later…
“Ireally think that I’m almost done with my heat,” I said as I leaned back against the headboard and stared at the three alphas who were sprawled out in the nest in front of me.
“You said that three rounds ago, Lennon,” Maverick groaned as he chugged the rest of his water bottle before throwing an arm over his eyes.
“Yeah,” Brooks said as he glanced up at me from where he had his face planted in the sheets, “And you still have that damned look in your eyes.”
“What look?” I asked innocently as I crawled down to sprawl out across his back, relishing in the feel of his skin against mine even though I could feel their exhaustion from the three bonds we shared.
“Like you’re going to eat me alive,” he grumbled but accepted my kiss anyway, his mouth pressing lazily into my hungry one.
“Someone go get Dallas,” Zeke piped up from where he was half-asleep with a pillow over his head. “It’s his turn.”
Then, as if Zeke’s words had conjured the fourth alpha up, a knock came at the door.
“Come in,” the three guys said in relieved unison as they hopped up.
Brooks swaddled me up in a blanket and I watched them leave my nest with a sense of unease.
I hadn’t seen Dallas since my first look at this room when he’d left them to comfort me and I still couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to reject me again even though he had clearly stayed in the house during my heat.
The door to the nest room opened and Dallas stepped in, looking as nervous as I felt.
He was dressed like he’d just come in from a run, a pair of shorts and a tank top clinging to his lithe figure. It was more skin than I’d ever seen from the alpha before and my eyes were instantly drawn to his tanned skin and the tattoos that seemed to cover every inch of his arms and chest.
I hadn’t realized he had so many tattoos before.
His suit hid most of them normally except for a peek here and there.
My insides heated at the realization that I liked the way they looked and I wanted to get a better view of them.
The guys spoke with him quietly and I leaned forward, trying to listen without any luck, sending my displeasure at being kept out of the loop down the bonds I shared with Maverick, Zeke, and Brooks.
“It’s nothing crazy, Len,” Maverick said over his shoulder, shooting me an affectionate smile. “We’re just telling him not to panic if you try to bite… or scratch… or mount him at a moment’s notice.”
My face warmed.
“That was when I was in the middle of my heat!” I protested, embarrassed by their words. “And I only bit you and Zeke because you were teasing me too much.”
The now bruising bite marks all over their arms were a testament to the rigorous playtime they had put me through when I was in the throes of my heat and the displeasure it had brought me when all I wanted to do was to come.
I watched as the three men gave Dallas reassuring pats on the back and then they were gone and we were left to stare at each other.
Dallas was the first to speak as he toed at the thick pile of discarded nesting materials on the floor in front of him with his sneakers and pushed his glasses up his nose.
“Hi.”
He looked nervous and unsure of himself—something I wasn’t used to seeing from the alpha who was usually the man with the plan.
The logistician as he and the rest of the team had called him.
Now he looked like he didn’t know where to start.
“Hi,” I repeated, wishing this would be easy between us and wondering what I could do to make it that way. “Come here…”
He looked up at me and our eyes met.
“Please?” I asked, holding my hand out to him as I scooted over to the edge of the nest.
Dallas hurried to kneel down on the outside of the nest, bringing his scent with him.
He had been running, I realized as I saw the light sheen of sweat on his skin and tasted his apple whiskey scent as it zinged across my tongue.
“Why did you go running?” I asked, curious as I tried to control the sudden urge to drag him into my nest, communication be damned.
“I couldn’t be inside anymore,” he answered in a mumble, watching as my fingers slid up his arms and started to trace the colorful plants and flowers that had insects hidden behind their vibrant petals.
I tilted my head, my expression asking another question wordlessly.
Dallas sighed, leaning against the padded edge of the nest and letting his arms hang over so that I could continue to explore.
“The scent of you all was driving me crazy. I could only pace so much, Lennon, so I thought a run would help.”
“Did it?”
Dallas shook his head, his eyes full with a bitter mirth. “Not even a little bit.”
His words did little to assuage the confusion filling my mind. “Then why not come up here and join us then? You know how I feel and even if we’re not bonded it’s pretty obvious how you feel,” I said, nodding to the erection currently tenting his shorts.
Dallas scrubbed a hand over his face, pushing his glasses up into his curly auburn hair. “I guess I just wanted to wait to have this conversation when you were a little more, I don’t know, coherent? I didn’t want to confess my feelings if you weren’t going to remember it.”
My face warmed a bit because there was some truth to that. The last forty-eight hours were a complete blur of orgasms, alphas, and bonds.
This was the first time I felt truly like myself, even if there were some lingering heat effects still making me want to jump the bones of the alpha in front of me.
“So you do have feelings for me?” I prodded, my heart in my throat.
Dallas snorted like it was obvious. “I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t, Lennon. Any sane man would have run screaming for the hills the moment your grandfather looked at him sideways.”
I scrunched my nose at the mention of my grandfather. “But you’re not going to?”
He shook his head, his expression turning suddenly resolute as our eyes met. “No, I’m not going to run anymore. I’m tired of pretending like I don’t care and that I don’t love you.”
I sat straight up with surprise at his words, my breath catching in my throat.
“What?” Dallas asked, his face twisting with concern as he leaned forward. “Are you feeling sick? Is your heat flaring up again?”
But I just shook my head, my eyes filling with tears.
“Lennon, talk to me.”
He reached for my face, cupping my cheeks in his warm hands and I leaned into his sweet scent.
“You’re the first one to say it,” I whispered to him.
Green eyes blinked with surprise. “What?”
“You’re the first one to say you love me out loud.”
Dallas’s auburn brows drew together. “Then what the hell were those guys doing the past two days then?”
I shrugged. “There wasn’t a whole lot of talking between the sex.”
I knew how they felt—it was pretty obvious when they were sending their emotions down a shared bond. But he was the first one to say it out loud.
Which made it feel special.
“I think I love you too,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit shy.
“You think?” he asked, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a smirk. “I come up here and bare my soul to you, Lennon, and you think you love me back?”
I tightened the blanket around my shoulders with a petulant huff. “I dunno, I haven’t gotten to experience you in full yet, what if you’re bad in bed?”
The alpha scoffed like that was the dumbest thing he had heard in a long time. “I am not bad in bed, Lennon Holloway.”
As if to prove himself, he gave me a gentle shove back into my nest and I fell back, the blanket that had been tucked around my shoulders falling away and revealing my love-bitten body to his green-eyed perusal.
“In fact, may I enter your nest and prove it to you?”
My insides twisted, albeit more weakly than they had before when I was in the thick of my heat, but I nodded anyway.
“Undress first,” I told him, wanting him to reveal more of his tattooed skin.
Dallas hiked the tank top he was wearing up slowly, revealing inch by inch of his stomach and the smattering of the images permanently painted on his skin.
“Why did you get so many?” I asked as I accepted the shirt for my nest, pressing it to my nose and inhaling his apple whiskey scent deep into my nose.
Dallas lifted his shoulder into a shrug before untying the string of his running shorts. “It started when I was eighteen on a dare and then whenever we had extra money I’d go. It was something that no one could ever take away from me—it would always be mine.”
I nodded, liking the way that sounded as I looked down at my completely bare skin, save for the three new bondmarks that would soon be joined by a fourth one. His.
“Would you get one with me?”
Dallas paused. “Like a matching one?”
I nodded.
“Would your mother banish me to Antarctica if we did that?”
“Who cares?” I asked, realizing that I actually didn’t care what she thought anymore.
Never in the almost twenty-seven years of my life had I not cared what my mother felt about any decision I made. She’d always been my sounding board.
But now the idea of having a matching tattoo with Dallas made me feel… excited? Like a true adult? I wasn’t quite sure yet.
“Let’s think about it for a bit,” Dallas said. “When you aren’t still high on pheromones, and when I can feel what you feel. Then we’ll talk.”
I narrowed my eyes at him for a moment before shrugging. He’d understand me soon enough.
Dallas held his shorts out to me and I stared at them for a moment before reaching out and gripping his wrist, tugging him over the edge of the nest and into me.
Our first kiss was an awkward knocking of unsure lips and murmured apologies, Dallas’s fingers weaving through my messy hair.
Then we found the right angle, Dallas’s lips hesitantly moving with mine before deepening hungrily, his tongue sliding slowly along mine in a slow, needy twist.
This was what I had been waiting for from the stubborn alpha. This all encompassing fire.