Chapter 37
37
Layne
T he men of Pack De Luca are constantly making me feel. After being alone and living on the run, where every day was about surviving and not thriving, the new version of my life is as beautiful as it is daunting. Allowing myself to be in the moment of each emotion is necessary to rebuilding all the ways I was broken.
The concept of forever wasn’t something I ever thought I would get, though I hoped for it endlessly. But life sometimes has a way of making you focus on the negative. Thankfully, I’m getting better at banishing that mindset.
“I think I’m done,” I call out.
Clearly, they disagree, judging by the matching scowls Valentine, Dante, and Matteo wear.
The small smile on the shop assistant’s face suggests she’s seen a similar situation before.
“Layne, you are not done.” Valentine’s eyes get a frosty glaze to them, but he doesn’t dive in to being a pushy Alpha. Instead, he sends my heart soaring when he drops his suit jacket on the check-out desk and comes at me like a prowling big cat while rolling his sleeves up and tucking his tie under his holster again.
I take a step away. Just because he isn’t being pushy doesn't mean his presence isn’t overwhelming. He reaches out and grabs my arm before I can get too far, then he reels me in, holding my back to his chest. Leaning down, he talks quietly into my ear.
“I’ve experienced firsthand how wet you get, and you also know how hard I come. Your heat is going to be that, times ten, so from a practical point of view, you don’t have enough sheets or silky mattress protectors. I want to fill every one of your holes until your thighs are sticky with my claim. Then my brother will do the same, Matty too. Once you’ve ridden our knots and wrung us dry, we’re going to pass out. But in your heat, you’re going to need more. You’ll slide our fingers, or our cocks, in your tight greedy cunt, even when we’re sleeping because you’ll be so achy and needy, you won’t be able to hold yourself back. Your delirium will have you soaring one moment before we catch you when you swoop the opposite way. In the small reprieve your body gives you, your other side will surge to life. She’ll wrap herself up in sheets saturated with sex before crying things aren’t as neat and perfect as they should be because she knows what we have now isn’t enough. Stop holding back and take anything and everything you want, because we want to be there to adore and cherish you. Nothing is off-limits. Let us prove we are worthy of treating you like our queen.”
My body feels like it’s breaking out in hives. Good hives, though. Ones that race and tickle over my skin.
I push back, sinking farther into his arms. Relishing the haven I’ve found in them.
“Pillows are just as important. So are blankets, throws, and those flowing curtains you were oohing and aahing over. Get them, Layne. Let us help you make the nest of your dreams because this is who you are to us—our dream. Our all, like Dante calls you.”
“How did I find you?” I ask seriously. Because I keep pinching myself, wondering if I’m dreaming.
He answers by kissing the edge of my mouth, talking against my lips. “Close your eyes, Layne. When you open them back up, don’t hold back. Pick what feels right, lean into whatever nesting urge you have, and I promise, we will be right next to you through every twist and turn.”
“I don’t know how to do this. I haven’t done a heat with a pack before.”
“Not just a pack,” Valentine insists. “Your husbands. Your forever. The people who will support you, even when you are wrong. Now, open your eyes and spend some fucking money. Then we’re going home, you are going to set your nest up, so after dinner tomorrow night, I get to…”
“Okay! Okay!” I twist, sliding my hand over his mouth. “You’re testing my limits, Alpha.”
And, god, if I think I’ve got trouble keeping my heat in check, the way Valentine’s whole demeanor shifts as he starts purring when I call him Alpha not only shows his struggle, but it emphasizes how intertwined our connection is becoming as we fumble together.
The pooling desire in his eyes makes them sparkle like jewels. Coupled with the way his subtle scent winds me up, has the suppressors working overtime.
I see him tense before the voice of the shop assistant interrupts us. “Now, is everyone ready for round two? It’s my favorite part of working here, you know,” she says softly and sweetly. She’s got the kind of voice you reach out to listen to.
Both Valentine and I turn to face her, and she’s folding up and bagging my purchases, but she stops to look at me. “I guarantee, honey, your Alpha is right. You need to shop, and it needs to happen now. I have another pack coming in for their appointment in thirty minutes!”
With a final encouraging hug, Valentine steps back and flicks his chin. Something in me reads it like a starter's gun, and the next twenty minutes, I literally do a deep dive into trusting the direction of the nesting urges. I go aisle to aisle in a chaotic frenzy that makes sense to me, but probably no one else, with my pack trailing after, encouraging me.
Dante takes the dogs outside for a pee while Valentine finishes up our purchases at the counter. I take the chance to catch my breath in Matteo’s arms.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask quietly, sitting on his lap in the small lounge the Omega shop offers. The late afternoon sunshine hits like a spotlight over us.
“No chance. I think you’re pretty incredible.” His fingers trace over mine. “Everything is new, but it is for us too.”
I twist around. “Have you ever done a heat before?”
“Layne,” he says, tipping his head to the side, “you forget I’m a Beta. I’m pretty sure no Omega would actually ask a Beta to be a part of their heat.”
“Lucky me, then,” I answer back almost immediately. “I can’t imagine you not being there.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and I sit up straighter, waiting for an explanation. It comes, but when he speaks, it’s without his usual exuberance. “I won’t be able to satisfy you physically. You will crave, and I won’t be able to soothe any of it. Your body will hurt, and the only thing that will ease your ache is what your Alphas can offer.”
“I don’t believe that. Not for an instant. If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t be able to relax.”
“You would,” he argues.
I look away from him, trying to put the thoughts flying around in my head into something coherent. I eventually find a way to explain myself better. “I need you, and your perfect dick, exactly the way you are. Matteo, you are the light, showing me where home is. Without you, I wouldn’t be here, and we both know I’m not referring to how we met, but how we stayed together. Don’t ever doubt how important you are to me, and them.”
Then it’s Matteo’s turn to look away. I study his features while he works through what I said and sorts out his own emotions. Of course, this sweet Beta has a resilience I can only strive to match. “You think I have a perfect dick, huh?”
“You know it. Now, take me home, let me sleep in your bed. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“On one condition,” he says seriously, his smile fading.
My eyes go big, and I start to agree without knowing what the condition is.
“I want to fuck your face until you choke on my perfect dick as I shoot my load down your throat. You won’t be able to scream or say a fucking word because I’ll be holding you still with my hands on your hips while my tongue will be inside your tight little cunt, and your pussy juices will be wetting my chin.”
I squawk so loudly, Valentine turns and glares at Matteo and me. But this dirty-talking Beta isn’t finished. He snags his hand around the back of my neck and holds my ear to his filthy mouth while pumping two of his fingers between my shocked lips. “Then I’m going to finger your asshole like this until I’m hard enough to fill up that hole until my come leaks out of it too. Only then will I let you rest, but just when you're drifting off to sleep, I’m going to ram my perfect cock in your…”
I do what I did to Valentine before and slap my hand over Matteo’s mouth, but he keeps talking around my hand and plundering my mouth with his fingers. I catch enough of what he says to nod, agreeing. Just to shut him up, of course. Except, when he feels me gagging, he starts getting even more explicit.
“Matteo! I swear to fucking god, take your fingers out of my wife’s throat before I shoot you from here!” Dante snaps.
Matteo’s eyes blaze, and his scent explodes out of him like an atom bomb, mushrooming around me, leaving me testing the constraints of the drugs I’m on, taking them to another level.
“Later,” Matteo says to me. “We will finish this discussion later.”
Holding my stunned gaze, he licks off his fingers, appearing way too satisfied with what he’s doing.
“And, just so we are all clear, Layne is sleeping in her nest or her bedroom. I’m not sneaking in. Neither is my brother. Or you. It’s her last night of ever having any space to herself. Shelve whatever fucking plan you had going on over there, Romeo.”
Dante isn’t playing around when he yells at Matteo from across the room. Twisting to see him, I can read the tension on his face, but his mood makes me laugh, which probably isn’t the right thing to do. Once they start, I can’t stop the giggles.
Without a care in the world, Matteo helps me out of his lap before straightening himself up. He can’t do much to hide the impact of what he was saying to me, but he buttons his suit jacket, at least half hiding his bulging hard-on. He hands me a bottle of water and walks away. Everyone leaves me alone while they run the bags to the car before Dante comes back and gathers me and the dogs.
“Hungry?” he asks after we say our goodbyes to the staff.
My eyes flare, and I throw my hands up to stop him from coming closer. “Oh my god, don’t you get all slutty too. I’ve already taken too many tabs.”
“I was talking about food,” he mock growls before wiggling his fingers suggestively. “But, at the same time, I don’t mind stopping on our way to the car and alleviating any sexual tension you’ve got going on.”
“Not exactly fair, considering I’m sure Valentine and Matteo would offer the same. Dante, I need to go to the bathroom. I'll be back in a minute.” I laugh because he’s still waving his fingers around like the weapons they are.
I leave to race back inside the shop, toward the bathroom.