Chapter Twenty-Six
Sera
Kev kisses me like he's making sure I understand.
Hard. Open-mouthed. No hesitation.
His teeth catch my bottom lip and I gasp, and he takes the sound like permission, kissing me deeper as his weight presses me back against the granite.
Cold stone bites into my ass.
The heat of him bites everywhere else.
Lex slides his palm up the inside of my thigh. Ezra nips my throat, his stubble rough against my skin. Three of them. Three pairs of hands. Three mouths wanting different parts of me.
I should be panicking. I should be off the counter and running.
Instead I kiss Kev back hard, fingers twisting in his hair as he groans into my mouth. Perfume blooms hot off my skin. Wet gathers between my thighs as Lex’s hand climbs higher, and my hips lift against him on instinct.
I want this.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
When Kev pulls back, we’re both breathing hard. He stays close, forehead pressed to mine. Lex’s hand pauses high on my thigh, waiting. Ezra goes still against my throat.
“This doesn't end, Sera. I know what real is.
I have a finely tuned ear for bullshit, and what's happening in this kitchen right now isn’t bullshit.
You're not the consolation prize. We’re not settling.
You're what we didn't know we were waiting for. I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”
He can’t be. Eventually they’ll see what I’m trying to tell them.
I curl my fingers around his where he’s cupping my face. “I can't change. Neither can you.”
“I'm not asking you to change. I am telling you I am not going to.”
Lex’s fingers dig into my thigh. “I didn't know it could happen twice.
When we found Aubrey we thought that was the gift of our lives.
Then we saw you that day, with Espie, and something in me went still and didn't move again.
I didn't have words for it. I still don't. I just know that I haven't put you down since the second I picked you up in my head.”
Ezra’s mouth presses against my throat, hot and deliberate. He kisses the place beneath my jaw and my pulse leaps against his lips.
“You think this is about circumstance?” Ezra murmurs. “About proximity? About us taking what we can get?”
He kisses lower, the edge of my collarbone.
“You think you're something we settled for because we were lonely or desperate?” His voice roughens. “Sera, you walked into our lives and everything changed. You’re not temporary. You’re not convenient. You’re ours.”
“I don't know why we didn't say any of this sooner,” Kev says. “Maybe because our heads were full of two traumatized omegas and keeping them breathing from one hour to the next. But wanting you was never the question, Sera. We were fucking idiots for not showing it.”
His words shatter me but I can’t let go. It will hurt too much when they realize that they are only pretty words. I have no doubt they feel this way now, but future them are another thing. It always starts out well. Until it doesn’t.
“You don't know me. None of you do. Not really.”
“It doesn't matter. My body knows. The whole pack knows. Every instinct I have says her, that one, she's ours.” Kev’s voice drops. “Instinct doesn't lie about this.”
He sinks to his knees.
Kev. On the floor. His knees on the hardwood and his shoulders at the level of my belly and his face — his face is right there.
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
My clit throbs so hard the sensation echoes through my whole body.
No male would want to lose his dick in a vice like that, Sera.
The beta’s voice arrives the second Kev lowers between my thighs. Twenty-eight years later and it still has a key to my front door.
I shove it back into the dark. Not him. Not now. He doesn't get to be in this kitchen. But the conditioning wakes anyway. My body wants to close up. Push Kev back. Clamp my knees together and get off the counter before I end up at the level of an alpha's mouth and make a fucking fool of myself.
Whatever expression is on his face, it isn’t obligation or curiosity. It’s hunger. The kind that looks half-contained, half-feral, like he’s spent too long denying himself and just realized he no longer has to.
His fingers curl around my thighs, next to where Lex holds me still. “I'm going to put my mouth on you, Sera. I'm going to make you come on my tongue and we’re going to figure out together how to make you stop thinking we don’t want you. Because we’re not. I’m not.”
He presses a kiss to my inner thigh, lips soft, stubble scraping, and heat zings straight to my clit but there are things I don’t understand. The shoe is going to drop. It always drops.
“We were stupid. We were so fucking stupid.” Another kiss, higher this time, his breath hot against my skin. “I should have told you the first night. The first hour. I'm sorry, Sera. I am so sorry I let think you were anything but ours.”
“You're gorgeous. Every single inch of you. And you have no idea,” Kev breathes.
“So fucking pretty,” Ezra agrees, sliding his hands down my shoulders. “You're shaking, Sera. Tell me if it's good shaking or if it's the other kind. I'll stop us right now if you need me to.”
My thighs are shaking. So are my hands. If I let myself want this, if I let myself hope, the price tag for that comes due later, and I cannot afford it.
Lex cups my face, making me look up at him. “Eyes on me, Sera. While he does this, I want your eyes on me. I want to watch what he does to you. I want you to know somebody is watching what you're worth.”
Kev hooks my knees over his shoulders. “I'm going to make you feel so good. Going to take my time. And you're going to let me.”
“Yes.” Despite myself I'm throbbing with anticipation. I want his mouth on me. I want to feel desired. Chosen. Just for once. So I'll let them take whatever they want to give for whatever reason they think is a good reason.
Then his mouth is on me. His tongue flat against my clit. My hips jerk toward his face. I can't stop them.
“Hold her,” Kev says against my pussy, the vibration buzzing through my clit. “Don't let her move.”
Lex and Ezra press me down against the bench, held tight. At their mercy.
“Let him take care of you,” Ezra murmurs at my ear and kisses me while Kev laps at me with long strokes, his tongue clever and relentless, circling my clit, teasing, dragging flat across the nerves.
His stubble burns against my inner thighs while he holds me open and Ezra deepens his kiss. Then he closes his lips around my clit and sucks, and I cry out, the sound bouncing off the kitchen walls.
“God, listen to her.” Lex sounds wrecked as he leans down. Wet heat surrounds my breast as he sucks.
It feels so fucking good.
“I like your moans, love. Tells me you like this.” Kev slides one finger inside me. Then two. Thick. Sure. He curls them until I clench around him.
“You're so wet.” His voice vibrates against my clit. “Soaking my hand. Let me give you what you need, Sera. Let me give you everything.”
“Don't stop.” I speak into Ezra’s mouth. I’m going to hell forever for letting them do this for me. Never gonna forget this. At least I know what it is to be wanted, no matter if this is only a once-off. “Please don't stop.”
“Couldn't if I wanted to.” Kev curls his fingers and presses against that spot inside me. He seals his mouth around my clit. “Come, alpha. Let go for me.”
Lex's teeth graze my nipple, sharp, then his tongue soothes.
“You're doing so good for us,” he murmurs against my skin.
“Listen to those sounds you're making. We're going to do this every time you let us. Every fucking morning if we have to. Until you stop being surprised that we want this. Until you stop bracing for the part where we leave.”
I know he's telling me things I want to hear. I won't hold it against him. I'll take them with me to relive when I have to. File every word, Vidal. You're going to need them.
Lex pulls back to watch my face, trailing his hand down my stomach until his fingers find my clit alongside Kev's tongue as Ezra eases back to kiss a line down my throat and over my collarbone.
Two sensations layered, his smooth fingertips circling while Kev's tongue works me, and I keen, a high desperate sound I've never made.
“Oh fuck.” I'm shaking, sweat slicking my spine, my thighs trembling in Kev's grip. “That's. You're... I can't...”
“I've got you. You're doing so well. Come for us, Sera,” Kev rasps.
“Come on, love. We want all of it. Don't hold any of it back from us.” Ezra. Hoarse. His teeth at my throat now, mimicking a bite.
“I want to hear you,” Lex adds, his fingers moving faster between my legs. “I want to feel you come apart.”
Pressure coils tight at the base of my spine.
I'm going to come on a granite bench in a kitchen at half past nine in the morning. I'm going to come for three men I've known for a week. I'm going to —
Useless.
The word arrives ugly. I can’t give them any more than this. No one wants a female alpha. No knot. Too strong. Too aggressive.
Shut up. I shove the word back down. Shut up shut up shut up.
“That's it.” Kev's voice against my pussy. “I feel you, love. Come for your pack.”
My back arches off the bench as I come hard. My nails scrape granite. My thighs clamp around Kev's head and he doesn't let up. He won't let up. He keeps his mouth right where it is and his fingers right where they are as I ride my climax, until my thighs slide loose around his ears.
Lex splays his hand over my stomach, holding me still. “God, Sera. Look at you.”
“Beautiful.” Ezra. Hoarse. “Fucking beautiful.”
Kev's chest rumbles. Low. Deep. I feel the vibration through his face still pressed to the inside of my thigh and it rolls up into my pelvis like a second wave.
Then Lex picks it up. Then Ezra. The whole sound finds itself between them, three notes braiding together, and it's going through me from everywhere at once.
A pack purr.
Oh.
Oh.
Kev kisses my hip. My belly. Pulls back. His chin is wet and shining. I want to grip his hair and pull his face up to mine and lick myself off his mouth. I want every person who walks into this kitchen for the next twenty-four hours to know what's on his face.
Fuck. This went further than I should have allowed.
He rises. Gathers me against his chest and holds me.
“Our girl,” Lex says against my temple.
I’m not going to fall into this trap. Too late.
My gaze drifts toward the glass doors. Both omegas are watching through the glass. Espie sits in the patio chair with morning light catching her dark curls, haloing them gold, her eyes locked on my face. Aubrey is tucked against her side, but his hazel-green eyes are on all of us.
“Shit.” It slips out. “They saw everything.”
Their scent drifts through the cracked patio door, arousal layered over their two-note bond.
Ezra breathes. “And they're both perfuming for us.”
Lex kisses my temple. “Look at them, Sera.
Look at our omegas. They're alive because of you. They came back to us because of you. This is what you do for them.” He takes my hand and grinds my palm against his erection.
“And this is what you do to me. To us. Don't you ever tell yourself again that you’re not deeply fucking needed. ..that you don't belong here.”
I’m desired.
I’m —
Then Aubrey whines. High and pained, his body curling in on itself. His face contorts. His scent thickens with distress.
“Shit.” Ezra is already moving toward the door.
Espie strokes his back, her small hand moving in circles, but her gaze locks onto mine. She leans down and whispers in Aubrey's ear, her lips brushing his temple. He nods. Small. Shaky. He nods.
Espie looks at me again. Her hand comes up. Slow. Trembling. Palm open. Reaching for me. A choice.
“Alpha.” Her voice cracks through the glass. “Please.”