Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sera
Iscramble off the bench and bolt outside.
Naked. Flushed. Still shaking from what they did to me on the counter.
I should care about that. About the wetness between my thighs. About the fact I let it happen.
But Aubrey's scent is wrong, and my instincts are tearing me apart.
I can’t let my omega hurt.
I slide the glass door open. Cool air hits my bare skin and my nipples bead, goosebumps prickling down my arms. I shiver and keep moving.
Footsteps follow. Kev, Lex, Ezra. They feel it too. The burnt sourness yanks the same thread in all of us, our scent-match dragging us out the door.
Espie extends her hand toward me. Palm up. Fingers trembling. Aubrey curls tight against her chest, body shaking with each breath. Small broken sounds. His whimpers carve straight through me.
Their bonded scent wraps around me. Gardenia and clover, cedar and chamomile, woven so tightly together I can't pull the threads apart. The bonding bites stand fresh on both their throats. Espie's teeth on Aubrey. Aubrey's on Espie. They found each other first.
I smell of arousal and release. Of alphas and sex. I don’t know how they’re going to react. Blood orange and oakwood and Earl Grey and fresh linen layered into my skin so thick I taste it on my own tongue.
I lock my jaw. Too late. Work the problem.
Espie breathes in. Swallows hard and when her gaze shifts back, her pupils have blown. But she’s not backing down. Not flinching back. Good. That’s good. “He's hurting. Please, he needs you, Alpha.”
The pavers press cold into my bare knees when I kneel and reach out slowly. “Aubrey, honey. Can I touch you?”
He cracks open eyes he had clenched tight. Pupils dilated. His nostrils flare as he scents me and a heartbreaking whine falls past his lips. “Please.” He curls his fingers around mine, warm and trembling, and holds on.
“I'm here,” I murmur. Don't fuck this up. Don't you dare fuck this up.
He tightens his fingers on mine. His mouth opens. Shuts. Opens again.
“Please Alpha, it hurts.”
“I know.” I stroke my thumb across his knuckles. “Tell me what you need.”
He cries out and doubles over. His scent spikes, that burnt sourness sharpening. Espie makes a noise that guts me and pulls him tighter against her chest.
Lex's breath goes ragged. Ezra shifts his weight like he is physically holding himself in place. Kev doesn't make a sound. I don’t have to turn around to know his whole body strains toward the chair.
Aubrey breathes through the cramp. Lifts his gaze to mine. “Kiss me. Please.”
I lean in slowly, giving him every chance to pull back, but he doesn’t.
His lips tremble against mine, and I keep it gentle.
I stroke my thumb along his cheekbone, anchoring him.
For a long moment he only receives, my pulse hammering hard enough that he must feel it through our joined hands.
Then his mouth softens as he kisses me back.
Hesitant. Tentative. Like he is remembering how this is supposed to work. His lips move against mine, learning me, and my ribs do something complicated I am not going to think about right now.
I pull away before I push too far. His face contorts as our kiss ends. He curls in on himself, hips shifting. He is hard. The fabric of his sleep pants tents and dampens against his cock. His body demands what the kiss could not give him. Heat that won't be denied.
His gaze lands on me. “I need more. Please.”
Espie watches me, white-faced. “Help him. I trust you, Sera. Please. Help him.”
I trust you. The cost of those words on her face nearly undoes me.
“I won't take anything he doesn't give me. I promise you that.”
Her throat works. She nods once. Sharp.
I shift position and gently put my hands on his thighs. “Going to kneel between your legs, Omega. I’m going to touch you where it hurts the most. Is that okay, angel?”
“Yes, please,” Aubrey breathes.
I settle on my knees between his thighs.
His scent hits me full force here when he parts his thighs, thick with heat and need, the sweeter note of slick underneath.
His scent floods my mouth and heat builds behind my sternum.
My clit throbs, the fresh memory of three alphas' hands still riding me whether I want it to or not.
I press my palm against the hard length of him, curl my fingers around his length and stroke. He shifts his hips into my touch, hungry. “Don't stop.”
Espie adjusts behind him, pulling him against her chest, arms wrapping from behind, chin hooked over his shoulder. The bonding bite on his throat sits inches from her lips.
“Sera's going to make it better. Just hold on to me,” she murmurs against his ear.
He laces his fingers through hers and brings their joined hands to his heart.
I stroke him through the fabric. He rocks his hips into my touch, chasing, hungry. His face scrunches. This is hurting him more. Touch is not enough.
“Alpha. Sera.” His voice breaks on my name. “I need your mouth. Please.”
“Oh, fuck.” Lex chokes as he fists his erection.
“Okay, if this is what you need, I’ll give you anything,” I say.
Aubrey nods and I ease the fabric over his hips. His cock springs free, curving toward his belly. The scent of his slick hits me, and my mouth floods. The throb between my own thighs sharpens. I am wet for him. I shove all of it down. This is not about me.
I wrap my hand around him. He throbs in my hand, burning up. He drops his head against Espie's shoulder and his eyes flutter closed. The sound he makes is grateful and nothing like pain.
He groans when I tighten my grip. The sound goes through me like a wire pulled tight. My eyes nearly roll at the scent of him.
“Gonna take you in my mouth now, angel,” I whisper.
His shuddering breath is my only answer when his abdomen clenches with another cramp.
The first touch of my tongue to the tip of him jerks his whole body.
Salt and musk and sweetness flood my mouth.
I trace the head slowly, learning the shape of him, the ridge underneath.
He is flushed and leaking and trusting me with this, and I’m going to make it good for him.
“Oh gods.” He fists my hair. “Sera, that's…”
He fills my mouth, hot and heavy against my tongue, and I hollow my cheeks and suck gently. The moan that tears out of him echoes across the patio.
Espie catches her breath. When I glance up, a flush spreads across her cheeks. Her attention is fixed to Aubrey’s cock in my mouth. Her scent shifts. The sharp fear-edge softens into warmth, sweetness, thickness. She is watching me suck her bonded omega's cock, and she is slicking.
She presses her lips to his temple. “She’s taking good care of you, Aubrey.”
I pull back slowly, tongue dragging along the underside, then sink down again. I find a rhythm that is slow and wet and thorough. His taste floods my mouth. He makes gutted, beautiful sounds. Pleasure sounds. Not pain.
He trembles under my hands. His stomach clenches and releases with every pull of my mouth.
A flush spreads down his chest, visible at the collar of his sleep shirt.
He threads his fingers in my hair, and rocks his hips in tiny helpless thrusts.
I cup his balls, gently rolling them in my hand.
His scent is thick here and my eyes roll back in my head.
Every breath I take infuses into my blood.
Kev, Lex and Ezra stare at the omegas. Of course they want them like this. They’re scent-matches but they are the alphas the omegas will ultimately need. My mouth is soothing Aubrey’s spike, but he’ll need more than my mouth when his heat hits.
At least I can give him this. Give him relief, if only for a moment. Something good to carry afterward.
I take him deeper, breathing through it as his head presses against my throat. His scent changes almost immediately. The burnt, acidic edge starts to fade, sweetness unfolding beneath it instead.
It’s working.
Thank the gods, it’s working.
Aubrey’s eyes slit open. Find the alphas standing behind me. He lifts his hand toward them. This is it. This is all I get.
“We're here, love. You’re okay,” Kev says, just above my ear.
Lex lays his hand on my back. Ezra finds my arm. Their scents merge around us, adding layers around us. Aubrey flicks his gaze to the hands on me. He tenses for a moment. His thighs harden under mine. His cock pulses against my tongue. He holds his gaze on those hands.
“It's okay,” Espie murmurs to him. “They're helping. They're pack. They won't push, I promise. They won't push.”
“Pack,” Aubrey breathes, and his scent shifts at the word, sweetness threading through the cedar.
I give him everything. Every pull of my mouth, every swirl of my tongue.
The taste of him thick on my palate. The wet sounds of my mouth working him.
His fingers trembling in my hair. I stroke his taint and he jerks.
His sounds turn more urgent, higher, bitten-off moans and catching breaths.
His hips rock faster, losing rhythm, his whole body tensing toward release.
“I'm going to…” His voice cracks. “Sera. Sera, I…”
I suck hard. The orgasm rips through him. He arches in Espie's arms, clamps his thighs around me, and makes a sound that is half sob, half moan. He throbs against my tongue, hot and pulsing, and I swallow around him, work him through it, take everything he gives me while tears stream down his face.
Gods. He tastes good. Better than good. I could keep him in my mouth all afternoon and not tire of it.
The allure of an omega.
A sound builds in his chest. Low and rumbling. It vibrates against my lips where they are still wrapped around him. Soft at first. Then steadier. Stronger. It spreads through his whole body.
“He's purring,” Ezra whispers. “Kev, he's purring.”
“I hear it.” Kev's voice is ragged. “I hear it.”
I soothe Aubrey through his aftershocks with soft licks, soft touches, until he is boneless and spent. I pull away slowly. I tuck him away. I press my lips to the inside of his thigh, where it meets his hip, before I think better of it. He let me do this for him. He trusted me with this.
“I didn't…” His voice rasps. The purr stutters around the words and picks back up. “Sera. I didn't know it could feel… that wasn't…”
He stops. He cannot finish. He drifts his hand down and cards his fingers through my hair, light as nothing.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
There is nothing to thank me for. He gave me this. He let me back into a body that has every reason to refuse me.
Underneath Aubrey’s honey-thick arousal, is a ripple of omega heat that is not Aubrey's. Faint, but building. Espie’s heat is coming too.
My time has come.
I imprint this scene in my brain to remember always. It’s more than I thought I’d ever get.
Espie shoots out her hand and closes her fingers around my wrist, as I stand. “Stay.”
I freeze.
“Please. Stay with us.”
Aubrey stirs against her chest. He has half-closed his eyes, the purr soft in his throat.
“Yes.” Sleepy. Half-formed. Mine to keep. “Sera. Stay.”
“Are… are you sure?” The temptation is there. To join them. Curl around them. It’s… too much.
“Please.” Her fingers clench. “We want you with us.”
There is no universe where I tell her no. Espie shifts from beneath Aubrey and they both shuffle to give me space. Slowly, so slowly I lay next to Aubrey. I go stiff when he sighs and curls into me.
Espie leans on her elbow, watching me. Then leans forward, holding my gaze until her lips brush against mine. Barely a touch. She is testing. I stay absolutely still. I let her lead. I give her nothing but softness.
Every muscle in my body wants to pull her closer. She parts her lips against mine and lifts her hand to cup my jaw, tentative, like she is not sure she is allowed.
She touches her tongue to my lower lip, hesitant, and I open for her. I let her in. I let her taste me, taste Aubrey on my tongue. She tastes of everything I can't have and I store the moment somewhere I keep things I am not allowed to keep.
I keep my hands where they are. She is the one who leads this. She kisses like she does everything else. Carefully at first. Testing. Then her teeth catch my lower lip and I groan. She pulls away. Looks at me. Her eyes are huge, her mouth wet, her breath faster than it was a second ago.
“Sera.”
Just my name. She says it like a question.
“I'm here, sweetheart. Take whatever you need.”
Her hands come up to my face and hold me there and her tongue slides into my mouth. Her perfume blooms hot and sweet. I hold very still because if I move I will break this. She pulls back an inch, then settles next to Aubrey.
Her lips are wet. Swollen. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is a mess. She’s soft. Breakable. Adorable. There is no other word for it.
This has become dangerous now. I’ve tasted both her and Aubrey and letting go isn’t an abstract thought any more. Letting go is going to hurt.
I find Aubrey’s gaze locked on me, a frown between his brows. I’m not sure what he’s reading on my face but I offer him a smile.
He grips my wrist gently and tucks my arm around his waist before settling against me. Kev is holding a blanket nearby, and suddenly I notice the chill against my skin for the first time.
“Lucky you.” He lays the blanket over all of us, eyes gleaming. “Lucky us for watching it, too.”
“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” Ezra whispers.
“I can’t wait for their heat. Imagine what the three of them are going to look like when that happens,” Lex murmurs.
I almost believe it. For one second I almost believe this is mine. That I have a place here. That this could be a life.
Then my phone buzzes where its discarded on the kitchen bench. And I remember.
This isn't real. Not for me.