Chapter 6
ARDEN
Arden didn’t feel bad. He just felt…different.
His body had a low-level hum to it, as if he’d been outside on an endless, hot summer day. Running through the fields to the woods, perhaps, and roaming until dusk. His limbs were heavy and tired, weighted with satisfaction. His skin tingled, a little tight, as if burned by the sun.
It had rained yesterday, though. Hadn’t it?
Yes. It was overcast all day, and—
He was thirsty. He swallowed with effort and caught his breath at how sore his throat was. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with anything. He frowned, struggling to drag his eyes open. Strange. They were dry and prickling, as if he’d been crying, but he didn’t remember crying, and—
Arden’s eyes snapped open when someone made a low rumbling sound behind him and a heavy, hot weight was slung around his waist.
He’d been lying on his side. The weight—an arm. It was an arm—scooped him closer and tucked him tight against a long, hot, solid body. A knee nudged the back of his top leg and pushed it up. Hips fidgeted against his arse before the person behind him went still.
Arden was already still.
Arden was frozen in horror.
Who was in his bed?
Who???
He stared straight ahead, telling himself not to panic, then immediately changing his mind and telling himself to definitely panic, because no one should be in bed with him except Jack, and Jack—
Oh.
An image flashed up. No, it was more than an image, it was a physical, visceral memory, of looking into Jack’s warm black eyes, inches from Arden’s own, as Arden writhed on—
Not Jack.
Oh, gods.
On the footman.
Not just any footman. On Beckett, Jack’s lover. His beloved. The alpha Arden had been spying on for the better part of a week, fascinated by the man who’d captured Jack’s heart, and whose future Arden had ruined by marrying Jack.
Arden grabbed the arm around his waist and tried to pull it away, digging in his fingers in a desperate scrabble. He got exactly nowhere. The arm tightened at once and Beckett gently bit the back of his neck.
Arden wailed in panic.
The body behind him jolted—what was he surprised about, Arden thought hysterically—and then—oh thank the gods, thank the gods—Jack was there.
“Jack!” Arden said, loathing the way his voice came out in a feeble warble.
“Shh, shh.” Jack was in his shirtsleeves and breeches and he climbed onto the bed with Arden, who was doing his best to arch away from the man behind him. “No, Arden. Hold still. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Arden panted. No, he wouldn’t, why would Jack—oh, fuck. “Ahhhhh,” Arden shrieked when searing pain flared in his arse.
Beckett growled, the teeth in the back of his neck gripped him tighter, and he was shoved facedown in a pillow. He didn’t complain about it. He was too relieved that the pain had stopped, thanks to Beckett squashing him flat and locking them together as closely as possible.
Locking…
Good gods. He was knotted.
He might not have known enough about heats and his own stupid body to have prevented this from happening, but even Arden knew about knotting.
At least, he’d heard about it, once, when a couple of maids were dusting the library at Dalbryn, and they hadn’t realised that he was tucked up on the window seat behind one of the curtains, listening in horror.
Arden twisted his head, spluttering to get strands of hair out of his face. Jack reached out to brush it away for him.
Beckett got there first.
Arden stared at the large hand that smoothed the hair from his eyes, from his mouth.
“You’re all right,” Beckett said. “You’re all right.”
Arden clenched his fists either side of his head and to his absolute mortification, at the sound of Beckett’s deep baritone, at the sensation of it vibrating against his back and rolling through him like a warm tide of honey, he hollowed his spine to push up into Beckett’s groin, and whined.
Jack slid over the sheets and pressed himself alongside Arden.
Arden’s breath caught when the large hand which had tenderly stroked his hair—and done other things to Arden, things that Arden was trying very hard not to think about right now—flashed across Arden’s line of sight and gripped Jack’s shoulder, halting him.
Jack’s eyes tracked up to Beckett. He smiled, turning his head slowly, and pressed a kiss to the tense wrist.
Arden’s heart broke a little at that.
He…he knew that Jack cared about him, too.
That he loved him. He didn’t love Arden the same way he loved Beckett, of course.
Arden and Jack had been friends for as long as Arden could remember, and then…
then, when Arden had needed him most, Jack had shown up, snatched him from under Lassit’s nose, and married him.
Even though Jack was a man who liked other alphas, and this alpha in particular, he’d married Arden.
Even though Jack was large, and rough, and powerful, and he liked the same in a partner.
Arden had known that for years, since the day he’d overheard Jack and Lassit talking, and Jack had…well, he’d said what he thought about omegas in general, and so logically also about Arden.
Jack loved him anyway, Arden reminded himself firmly. It didn’t matter that he didn’t love him the way he loved Beckett.
It counted.
How had he ever got himself into this pickle, he thought with a surge of desperation, staring at Jack’s familiar face even as he lay naked in Jack’s bed, under Jack’s lover. Then Arden remembered his father’s funeral, and Lassit’s face, and what Lassit had been going to do with him.
While he may be so uncomfortable at this very moment, socially speaking, that he wanted to cry, this wasn’t a pickle.
Being under Lassit’s control? That was a pickle.
Besides, his thoughts were racing and his heart hurt, but his body was having a wonderful time.
Waves of satisfaction pulsed through him, and set him moving. Not much. Just a little. He was, he realised, doing his best to rub himself against the alpha on top of him. He was clenching around him with small, teasing, butterfly pulses that coyly demanded attention.
Arden’s body was delighted when it got the attention it wanted and Beckett began to move with him, slow and easy, sighing over the back of his neck and making him shiver.
His body was delighted. The rest of him was mortified.
He met Jack’s eyes for a split second, then made an awful, mouselike little noise and buried his face in the pillow.
“Can I touch him?” Jack said quietly.
“Yes, of course,” Arden mumbled, thinking that Jack wanted to touch Beckett, and puzzled that he’d ask.
At the same time, Beckett said, “Yes. No. Sorry. No. Not…not yet. You can touch me, though. If you want.”
Confused, Arden lifted his head.
Jack was gazing over at Beckett with a challenging look on his face that Arden hadn’t seen before. Sexual challenge, Arden thought.
Probably why he hadn’t seen it.
“Are you going to growl at me again?” Jack asked.
Beckett did, then gave a short laugh.
Jack’s face lit up and he stroked a hand lingeringly down Beckett’s side.
Arden guessed that’s what he did, anyway. It was hard to see at this angle.
Beckett’s growl was more of a purr this time, and the muscles pressing Arden down into the mattress tightened and released in a lovely ripple of sensation against Arden’s back. Arden tried and failed to hold back another stupid, unwelcome whine.
Jack’s attention came to him, and the smile stayed on his face. “Hello, sweetheart,” he said.
Arden blinked.
Jack leaned down, bringing their faces closer together. Beckett quickly moved his arm in front of Jack, blocking his view. Both of them sighed.
“Sorry,” Beckett said. “I’ll move it, hang on.”
Jack waited patiently as that tense wrist shifted back a whole inch.
“That’s as far as I can go,” Beckett said. “I’m sorry. I’ve never…not like this.”
“Thank you for trying.” Jack leaned in to kiss his wrist again.
The sight made Arden clench again, which made Beckett groan and Jack grin.
“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Jack said.
It took Arden a moment. “Oh,” he said. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” Jack said.
Above him, Beckett gave another of those short, dry laughs.
“Um. Embarrassed.”
Although Jack didn’t seem surprised at this, he said, “Whatever for?”
Arden opened his eyes wide meaningfully.
Jack shook his head, eyebrows high.
“For…you know.”
“For…?”
“Jack,” he whispered, as if Beckett couldn’t hear him. “I’m fucking your footman. Ah!” He gasped when Beckett’s hips suddenly pushed into him, bouncing Arden a little.
A low voice growled in his ear, “The footman is fucking you, duch.”
Beckett didn’t like being called the footman. Arden made a note.
“My lover is knotting you,” Jack said, correcting them both.
“Yes,” Arden said. “Sorry.”
Jack hummed at the back of his throat. “Why are you sorry? I’m not.”
“Because I—wait. You’re not?”
Jack tilted his head. “Did you think I would be?”
“Well…oh. Oh. Ahhhhh. Yes. Ohhhhh.”
Beckett was circling his hips lazily as Arden spoke, making it impossible for him to maintain his concentration.
He threw back a hand and gripped the top of Beckett’s thigh, which he could just about reach. Beckett snatched his hand, and the other one, and dragged them both up and over his head, pinning them.
“Why would I be sorry that you’re getting what you need?” Jack said, thankfully ignoring the happy little hum Arden had made in response to being pinned.
“Oh. I thought…never mind. It’s silly. I’m being silly.”
The fact of it was, as an omega, Arden knew that he didn’t appeal to Jack sexually. And, since Arden was thirty-one and he’d never had a heat, it was fair to assume that Jack had considered himself safe from having to fulfil an omega’s needs.
Or from having his footman do it.
“Arden,” Jack said.
Arden huffed, even as he pushed back into those lazy circles Beckett had restarted. “I didn’t know this could happen.”
“Neither did I, sweetheart. I’d have managed things better if I’d suspected.”
“I thought I was too old. Marl had to tell me what was happening.” He glared at the flash of humour on Jack’s face. “Jack, it was humiliating.”
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“Well, I don’t think you should laugh at Marl, either,” Arden said. Jack grinned at him, unrepentant. “Can you imagine? He had to explain.”
For a good few hours, Arden had refused to believe the stately butler. He’d insisted it was nothing more than a fever, until he finally had to accept that no fever he’d ever had before had involved a spasming hole.
Spasming wasn’t all that was happening down there, either. There was a curious softening that he was not prepared for, and had him clenching his buttocks tightly closed until they ached.
Fine. Ridiculous and impossible though it sounded, he was having a heat.
It got worse.
Marl had to tell him what else to expect from a heat because, other than hearing snatches of the maids’ conversation that one time, which had given Arden some horrifying images to bury deep down, along the lines of mighty battering rams, clubs, and then swelling inside you so you couldn’t get free even if you wanted to, Arden didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything!
He’d thought he could wait for Jack.
“Your Grace,” Marl had said calmly. It was nice that one of them was calm. By that point, Arden couldn’t hold back the pained little grunts that were shocked out of him with every breath. “This is very normal.”
It didn’t feel normal. It felt like he was dying.
“Any alpha on the estate will stand proxy for His Grace. It’s simply the way these things are done.”
Why hadn’t someone told him?
“May I send for—”
“Beckett,” Arden had gasped. “Please. Beckett.”
So, yes. He was embarrassed.
Worse than that, he was falling into it again, dropping deep into the thick, hot haze of arousal that had stolen first his composure and then his wits, turning him into a hungry, demanding creature he didn’t even recognise. He whined unhappily.
Beckett’s lazy thrusts hitched but didn’t stop. “What’s wrong?” he asked, then gasped when Arden pulsed around him without meaning to.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Arden said.
It was Beckett’s voice.
Arden liked his voice. He’d always liked Jack’s voice, too. Both of them sounded deep and calm and powerful. Beckett’s held something else in it. Arrogance, Arden thought.
And he liked it.
What a fickle creature he was.
What a—
“Oh,” he moaned. “Ohhhhhh.”
Beckett had increased the speed of his thrusts, and Arden was being bounced lightly against the mattress. He gritted his teeth to hold back the noises he was making. They escaped anyway.
“Again, sweetheart?” Jack said with sympathy.
Arden nodded. “Sorry,” he gasped. “Sorry.”
“Please stop apologising. There isn’t anything to apologise for. This is perfect. You’re perfect. Yes, Beckett, and you.”
Beckett, his harsh breaths catching at the top of each thrust, added a snort of amusement at Jack’s words.
“I am a lucky man,” Jack said.
It was the last thing that made any sense to Arden before his mind sank deep into his body, and he once again went wild.