Chapter Eighteen #2
Her scent. Gods. Her scent.
A shift low in my belly. Not the heat cramp. Something else. A heaviness. A flicker. My skin goes from tight-with-pain to tight-with-something-else. Not shame this time. Response.
My body is responding to her. I…want her. It's been so long I'd forgotten what desire felt like. What an alpha could do.
“I've got you, Omega.” Her thumb strokes my collarbone. “Breathe for me, Aubrey. Breathe.”
“Alpha. Please. I need. I—”
“I know what you need.” Her hand slides up to cup my jaw and she tilts my face and her mouth pauses just above mine for a breath.
Asking. Then her lips come down on mine.
I startle. I want. Alpha, my biology screams at me, and the word doesn't come with teeth this time.
It comes with my body leaning toward her instead of away.
Her lips are full and hot and they fit against mine perfectly.
Her tongue slides across my lower lip first, slow, tasting, and then in, claiming the inside of my mouth one careful inch at a time.
She doesn't rush. Every place her mouth touches mine sends a pulse down my spine that lands behind my navel.
Her hand on my jaw tilts me into a better angle and I let her.
I let her move my face. I let her open me wider.
The cramp eases away but I fist the front of her shirt and I drag her closer.
I chase her tongue with mine. She makes a low noise against my lips, a rumble in her chest that vibrates through into mine.
Something runs down my spine. It isn't the cramp.
It's lower and warmer and it knows where it's going.
Heat is gone. This isn't heat.
This is wanting.
My cock is hard against my belly. I'm hard. My hips are pressing up without my permission and my brain is not flinching. My brain is not fighting them. Something in me has stopped standing guard.
Her thigh shifts against my hip and I make a sound into her mouth I don't recognize. Low. Hungry. A male sound, not an omega whine. Her breath hitches. I want her closer. Want her in my lap. Want to know the scent of her skin under the fabric, and how it changes when she loses control.
The need hits hard and sudden, deeply male and painfully mine, and I have to lock my jaw to keep emotion from breaking loose with it.
My hips pump up against her. Once. Again.
Looking for friction. Looking for anything.
The fabric of my pants is too much and not enough and I feel my cock straining against the seam and I make another sound into her mouth that I don't recognize, lower this time, more like a whine and more like a growl and I don't care what it is, I just need her to do something about it.
She breaks the kiss. Her forehead stays against mine. Her breath is hot on my mouth.
“Aubrey.” Her voice has gone rough at the edges. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes.” It comes out before she finishes the question. “Yes, Alpha, please, please, please.”
I don't even know if I sound like myself.
I don't care. My hips are still pumping up against nothing and she's already moving, her hand sliding down from my jaw, slow, broadcasting every inch of it, down my throat, down my chest where my heart is hammering, down my stomach where my muscles are jumping under my shirt.
She gives me time to stop her. I'm not going to stop her.
My body is reaching for her hand. My body is begging her hand to keep going.
Espie's mouth finds the side of my neck.
“You're doing so well.” Her breath against my pulse. “Aubrey. Look at you. So good. So good for her. Let our alpha take care of you.”
She kisses my throat. She kisses the scar left by the collar. Sera cups me through my pants.
My hips buck into her palm and she makes a low approving rumble in her chest and curls her hand around the shape of me, takes the weight of my cock through the fabric, learns me with one slow firm stroke from base to tip and I am gone. I am gone.
“That's it,” she says, and her hand strokes me again. “That's it, Omega. I've got you. Take what you need.”
Espie's lips on my throat. Sera's hand on my cock.
Her scent thick around me and Espie's gardenia threaded through it and the want has me by the spine and I push up into Sera's hand and her thumb drags over the head of me through the cotton and I feel myself leaking already, hot and slick, soaking through.
Sera strokes me again, firmer, her grip closing around me with intent, and the heat in my belly that had been banked roars back as something else entirely and pulls everything in me toward the place where her hand is.
“Alpha.” It's a wreck of a word. “Alpha, I'm—”
“I know.” She kisses my mouth, soft, swallows the sound I make. “Let go. I've got you.”
The orgasm hits me, and my hips slam up into her palm and I shake apart in her hand and Espie's mouth is on my pulse and I'm making sounds I can't control and Sera is murmuring good, that's it, good into my mouth and my whole body is going hot and wet and shuddering against the fabric of my pants and I don't care, I don't care.
My breath comes back in long, broken pulls.
Sera's hand stays where it is, gentle now, no pressure, just covering me through the wet warm mess of my pants and not pulling away from it.
Espie's mouth is still on my throat, light kisses, smaller and smaller, like she's putting me back together a millimeter at a time.
“There you go,” Sera murmurs. “There you go, sweetheart. I've got you.”
Sweetheart.
When she pulls back we are both breathing hard. Her forehead rests against mine. “Better?” Her voice is gravel.
“Yeah.” My voice comes out rough. “Yeah, I'm— the pain is gone.”
“Good.” She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “That's all that matters.”
But it's not all that matters. Not anymore. Not after that kiss.
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate. I'm looking at Sera when I say it, but I mean it for both of them. For Espie who held me through the spiral, who begged me to let Sera help even though it must have cost her something. For Sera who came when I called and kissed me like I mattered.
Sera shakes her head, and her face pinches with an expression I can’t name before her forehead smooths out. “Don't thank me.”
“I have to. You didn't have to—”
“Yeah, I did.” Her voice is rough. “You needed help. I could help. Simple.”
“It's not simple.” I push myself up a little, and Espie adjusts to accommodate me. “Not for me. Alphas don't just... help. Not without wanting something back.”
Something flickers across Sera's face. Hurt, maybe. Or anger. But when she speaks, her voice is careful. “I'm not gonna pretend I don't want anything. I can't lie like that.” Her eyes hold mine. “But what I want doesn't mean shit if you don't want it too. That's the point.”
I pull back.
Not far. Just enough to break the closeness, to put a few inches of air between us. Sera's hand falls away from my arm immediately. That's worse, somehow. That she lets me go so easily. That she doesn't fight for the contact.
No. That's better. That's the whole point. She lets me go because I pulled away, and pulling away is allowed.
Allowed. The word rattles around in my skull like a stone in an empty room.
Espie's arms lock around me, her body warm against my side. Grounding. Safe. Gardenia and clover wrap around me like a blanket. This I understand. This I trust. Two omegas holding each other against the dark.
But I can still taste Sera on my lips. Coffee and basil and that darker something underneath. The ghost of her hand is in my hair, the rumble in her throat against my mouth when I bit her lip. My body is humming with it, lit up in ways that have nothing to do with heat.
I liked kissing her.
Not just tolerated it. Not just endured it for the relief it brought.
I liked it.
I wanted more.
Part of me still wants more, even now, even with the pain gone and my head clear.
I liked kissing an alpha.