Chapter Twenty-Five
Sera
Kev’s mouth was just on mine. His hands in my hair.
Before that it was Ezra.
Before that it was Lex.
Three of them, one after the other — their scents, their hands, their mouths — and I let it happen.
I let it happen.
I leaned into Lex. I opened for Ezra. And when Kev kissed me, something inside me cracked open so completely I forgot how to fight it.
What the fuck.
What the fuck is wrong with me.
I got carried away and now… I never get carried away. I force myself to ground even though I’m packed between hard slabs of muscle.
“Hey.” Kev's thumb strokes the corner of my mouth. His scent goes deep and dark, oakwood thickening, whiskey burning instead of pouring smooth. His gaze roams my face. This alpha sees too much. “Eyes on me, Sera. Come back to us.”
I push his hand away. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Mm.” His thumb moves over my lower lip, not liking my answer. “Looks like we haven’t done a good enough job.”
I stare at him. He thinks the problem is the kiss. That he missed a mark somewhere. Technique. Pressure. Timing.
A laugh catches in my throat and dies.
They undid me. I went under so hard it scared me. I haven't felt this destabilized since I was seventeen and pinned to a locker room wall by Brad fucking Henderson, hearing you're more butch than I am, babe before he walked away without looking back.
I shove the memory down hard.
“You're not fishing for a better answer than that, Kev.”
His mouth quirks. The whiskey in his scent eases off. He still doesn't look like a man who's getting the answer he asked for.
I breathe through my nose. Get it together. Get it together, Vidal, you are about to lose this room.
There's something off about all this. There has to be. They’ve been polite. Considered. And now they've got their mouths on me and are concerned they didn’t kiss me well enough?
Why now?
What did I miss?
“The problem is, if we’d kissed you properly, you wouldn’t be able to speak.” Ezra makes a low sound at my shoulder. “Because you’re fighting us.”
Fighting us. The alpha I had a brief relationship with in my early twenties is in my head.
Tall enough I didn't have to slouch when I kissed him standing up.
The morning after the third time I let him fuck me he sat on the edge of the bed putting his socks back on and told me my lock had nearly strangled his dick off and maybe I should look into something for that.
A friend overheard him at a bar a week later saying fucking a female alpha was interesting once. Like being in the MMA.
“I'm always still fighting,” I tell Ezra. “It's a feature, not a bug. If that's a problem we can just call it now and save ourselves the awkward part later.”
“Save ourselves —” Ezra's woodsmoke darkens. “Sera, no.”
“Look, I'm a grown woman. I don't need this dragged out, and neither do any of you.”
“None of us is asking for an out.” Lex, this time, even and serious. “Did you hear any of us ask?”
“You will. In an hour. In a week. I'd rather you do it now.”
“Sera. You’re not hearing us,” Kev says.
I’m hearing everything loud and clear. They think they want me. They’ll want to change me because I won't fit. I’m only here because of our omegas, and soon that won’t be a problem.
I've done this dance. I know the steps. You came on strong, you'll go off strong, let's just do the going-off part now without breaking anything important.
Time to cut to the core of the matter. “What is this? Honestly. What brought this on?”
“You,” Kev says.
“That's not an answer.”
“That's the whole answer.” His hand comes up and rests on the bench beside my hip. Bracketing me. “We've wanted you since you walked through that door with Espie. We've been stupid about it. We've decided to stop being stupid about it. That's what brought it on.”
“Convenient timing.”
“Don't.”
“I will, actually.” I find a smile from somewhere. “Three male alphas wake up one morning and decide collectively they want the female alpha sleeping down the hall. After zero indication. You'll forgive me if I'm not buying the story you're selling.”
Lex firms his grip on my hip, branding me. “It is not a story, Sera. This is real, not fiction. We’re just very bad storytellers if you didn’t get this in the first read. That’s on us. Not you.”
“And this is a story I’ve heard before. Not one of those happy-ever-after books,” I say.
Kev's jaw works. The whiskey in his scent burns hotter. He's holding himself an inch off me when he wants to be on me, and it's costing him. Good. Let him cost. The faster they get to the part where they decide the math doesn't work and walk it back, the faster I can stop bracing.
I need to end Ethan Wallace. That's all. Stay until the operation is done because the omegas will never feel safe while that asshole is still breathing. Then I leave. Clean. Before any of this gets bad enough to leave another mark.
Lex traces a slow line with his thumb over my hipbone. Ezra's breath warms the side of my neck and Kev is close enough that his scent is the only air in my lungs.
“She clearly doesn’t believe us. And this discussion isn’t over.” Ezra's voice, low. “So off with your shirt.”
My head turns. He's at my right shoulder, half a step closer than he was, his face angled down to mine. Hazel eyes steady. My teeth come together hard. So they think they can manipulate me? Bring me down with kisses, soft touches and determination.
Game on, boys.
If they want to call my bluff, I'll call theirs.
I'll let Ezra take my shirt off. I'll let them keep going.
The second one of them really looks at me, the second their pupils stop dilating and start seeing, the second they remember I'm not the body they want, I'll be ready. I’m not soft, or small, or vulnerable. I’m tall, muscled and too much.
“Sure,” I dare. “Take it off.”
I don't expect the heat flaring in his eyes as he lifts my shirt over my head.
Slow. Cool air washes over my stomach, my ribs, my shoulders.
Three pairs of eyes map me, top to bottom, like they're memorizing terrain.
Here it comes. My brain bracing for the line that always comes next.
Too muscular. Shoulders too broad. Too much alpha in a body that's supposed to be soft.
Lex curses under his breath, and he settles his hand warm against my shoulder. “Look at you.”
“Past looking.” Kev's voice has gone rough, his gaze dragging down my body. “Wanted to touch since you walked through that door.”
“Don't,” I say. My face burns. My scent spikes. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. “Don't say things like that.”
“We've got you flustered.” Ezra sounds delighted. Asshole. He trails his fingers down my arms. “That's adorable.”
I scoff. “Female alphas are not adorable. I have claws and I use them. That scares most males away without a glance.”
“Adorable,” Lex confirms, his thumb tracing my collarbone, finding the dip at the base of my throat where my pulse beats against his fingertip. “Also terrifying. Also the most beautiful female I've ever seen.”
“Don’t —”
He catches my chin and tilts my face toward his, gray-blue eyes serious underneath the heat. “I'm telling you the truth. That's all this is.”
They guide me backward with hands on my hips, my waist, my shoulders.
My lower back hits the kitchen bench. I grip the edge and look up at them.
They think they want this? That they can herd me into a corner.
Well, good. Let's see how long they keep this up.
Let them tire themselves out. Let them get their fill of interesting once and let me have every second of it for later, alone, in the dark.
Because I’m going to need it.
“God, the visual of you right now. Do you have any idea what you do to us?” Ezra rasps.
“You wreck us.” Lex leans in, his mouth close to my ear, his breath hot.
“Every single day. Every time you walk into a room.
Every time you laugh at something Kev said.
I have written four poems about you and burned three of them and the fourth one is the only honest piece of work I've done in a year.”
A shudder goes through me. I can't catch it back. I've read his poetry. The whole pack has copies of his last collection on the bookshelf in the living room and I picked one up the second night I was here and read it standing in the hallway at midnight and had to put it back down.
Kev's hands go to my belt. Slow. Watching my face.
“Stop me at any moment,” Kev rasps. He’s not a young man. Silver threads his dark hair, but he’s dominant. His body is hard against mine. Fine lines fan from the corners of his eyes, and a faint crease marks between his brows. He’s handsome and I’m fucked because I noticed.
I stare at him and he works my buckle. A threat. A challenge. If he won’t back down, then I won’t either. I lift my hips and he slides the fabric down my legs, taking my soaked panties with the denim and I’m splayed on the bench with them crowding over me.
“Look at you.” Kev's voice has gone reverent. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”
“And ours.” Ezra reached under me, his chest brushing my breasts, cotton soft against my skin. He finds the clasp of my bra. Pinches the clasps loose.
I look at them. I shouldn't, but I do. Lex's sleeve pushed up to the elbow, his forearm corded and veined, his hand fisted on his thigh like he's holding himself back from putting it on me. Ezra’s firm chest beneath his tight Henley. Kev with his jeans pulled tight across his thighs.
Then lower.
The heavy line of Kev’s cock is hard against the denim, thick and straining at the seam. He’s huge. My eyes drag sideways. Lex. Same. Ezra. Same.
Three of them. Hard. For me. Shouldn’t be possible.
I choke on spit.
“Are those words of permission, love?” Ezra says.
“I’ll take them. As well as her bra,” Lex says, drawing the straps off my shoulders and there’s nothing in me that wants him to stop.
Lex holds my gaze as the bra drops. My nipples pebble and his pupils blow wide. Then his gaze drops.
“You're perfect.” Kev’s voice cracks.
“We're so lucky,” Lex adds, his palm hovering over my breast. “That's what I keep thinking. How fucking lucky we are that you're here.”
Lucky. Sure. This will end. It’s only a matter of time. I go to cover myself but Kev cups my face with both hands, stopping me from moving.
“Hey. Where'd you go just now?”
“Nowhere. I'm here.”
“You went cold and I lost you for a second. Tell me what you're thinking. I won't argue with whatever you say. I just want to hear it.”
“I said I'm right here.”
“That isn't what I asked, love.”
I look at him. Whiskey-dark eyes, steady on mine. He's not blinking. He's not breathing wrong. His hand is still on my face and it's neither pressing nor pulling. He'll wait all day if he has to.
Fine. Looks like I have to spell it out.
“Look, I like whatever we’re doing now, but this has a time limit.
We all know that. I've done this dance, Kev.
The novelty wears off. You wake up and look at me in the morning and remember I'm not — “ Omega.
My throat closes for half a second. I push through it.
“I'm not what you actually wanted. I'm what you settled for in a kitchen at the end of a long week, and we'll all be embarrassed when it's done.
So I'd rather we call it now. Before any of this gets bigger.” I meet his eyes. “I'm being realistic. That's all.”
A growl rises from deep within Kev’s chest. His eyes flash and his scent drives into me. “Is that what you think you are, Sera? A temporary arrangement?”
I’m genuinely perplexed. “What else is there?”