11. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Seb
Rollie’s heat is like living in a dream. Every fantastical moment buried deep inside him is like a taste of forbidden candies. A treasure I don’t deserve and could never earn. I want to memorize every moment of this time with him, to carve him indelibly into each of my senses.
No music could ever sound as sweet as Rollie’s lust-thick voice begging for my cock and calling me his mate. Mate. Omega. Mine. I call him the same in turn. Let myself babble out the future I’d have offered him if I wasn’t so damn broken before we ever met.
Together we paint an impossible picture in hushed pillow talk between rounds of sex. We voice our shared dreams of a typical mating and children that I know can’t ever come true for either of us.
I can’t give him kits or a clutch. But I can show him how he deserves to be cherished. My perfect omega. Rollie’s presence in my life is my greatest treasure, and I do my best to let him see that, just like he somehow still sees me as worthy of his love.
The only marker of time that matters is the ebb and flow of his need as the heat lasts several days. I’m aware that it’s fading on the final morning when he wakes me up for another round as he has several times since we started.
I savor every sensation when he wakes me up with needy kisses and clumsy stroking. Urge him to mount my hips and ride my aching cock. I’ve fucked him so often over the past however many days that I’m sure we’d both be chafed if not for all the slick and the heat pheromones raging between us. His scent isn’t as strong with it this morning.
The heat is breaking. This might be my last time to make love to him, without hiding my naked longing for him behind the pretext of a threesome.
I grip his hips to slow him down, the need to draw out this last time almost as urgent and the need to come inside of him again. Rollie bites his lip and whines at me. “One more time, Seb. Mate. One more—just breed me once more.”
He stops before he can say the thing we’ve been dancing around. One more chance to put my kits in his belly. It’s pure fantasy. And even then, the idea of my jizz knocking anyone up is stomach churning. It isn’t supposed to work like that for any omega.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out the familiar voice reminding me that I’m not a proper omega. That even this fleeting thought is proof I never was. That I deserve to be broken. I thrust harder into Rollie and he moans, rocking to meet me.
“Mm, yes, there. Seb. Oh! Need more. Harder, mate. Please.”
I reach up to pull him down into a kiss, rough and devouring. Trying to fall back into my familiar patterns of drowning out the howling voice of all my scars made manifest in a rush of sex and pain and…Rollie cups my cheek in his palm. A gentle caress. He won’t hurt me. Not the way I crave. The way that tears open raw, infected scars to let them bleed more.
“Make love to me, Seb? One more time. Just, don’t go away in your head like that?” Rollie nips at my lower lip, the twinge of pain focusing my attention and making my dick twitch inside of him.
“Ouch,” I whine, but it’s not the sting of his teeth that lands hardest. It’s the ache of knowing Rollie can see right into my soul. And he’d rather let me focus on a love bite than the well-worn barbs my own brain flings at me, right on cue.
“You’re going to stay with me,” Rollie promises. His nails score my shoulders where he’s resting his hands to balance over me again. Once he’s sure he has my attention, he twists the hoop in my left nipple too, giving me the sensations that make my dick twitch without the things that feed the voice of the void calling to me.
“Am I?” I buck up under him, half challenging him and half because I want to make him moan and ride me again and forget all about this little bubble of time where he’s focusing fully on me and what I need.
“Mhm. You are. Stop trying to distract me, mate.” Rollie grinds down onto me hard and scrapes his nails gently over my pecs, right to my nipples. He pinches and twists both of the silver hoops piercing them. “And we’re going to wring every last drop of pleasure out of our heat before it fades, Sebastian. You know why?”
“Why?” I ask him, panting as he soothes away the ache in my abused nipple with gentle strokes of his thumb, then goes back to teasing it. “Ungh, Rollie,” I whine, drawing out his name and fucking him a little faster to try to distract him from teasing me.
Rollie’s hips rock to meet mine, but he doesn’t break his focus at all. In retaliation, he flicks my right piercing, sending jolts of contradictory sensation directly to my crotch. He clenches around me as my dick lights up with sensation and I can’t quite still my hips, bucking up into him with more force.
“We’re going to make love now, because everyone says that good omega mates spend their heats making their mates come until they can’t manage another load.” Rollie twists both piercings again, just to the limits of what feels good.
“No. I’m not…” I shake my head, unable to articulate how deep a wound he just jabbed.
Rollie can’t know that his words open up an entire chasm of terrible memories. Being told similar things in total earnest by the first alpha I ever loved. My ex meant those things, expected me to live up to every stereotype of what an omega should be. And the minute creep meant I couldn’t anymore he threw me out like trash. I believed him. Still do when I’m at my lowest.
My chest is too tight, lungs constricting until I’m certain I can’t gasp in another breath, and I soften inside of Rollie. I can’t fuck him if that’s what he wants. A traditional anything. I can’t breathe, because this is so far from anything I ever believed about him…Rollie stills on top of me, no longer trying to fuck himself on my deflating cock.
“I can’t.” I don’t know if I’m saying that about the sex or my ability to breathe or what. But it’s the honest truth. Rollie gets off of me and fusses over me.
“What’s wrong? Sebastian? What can’t you do? Honey, what can’t you do? I…did I say it wrong? You’re scaring me. Can you breathe with me, baby?” Rollie asks.
My earnest mate scrambles up to kneel near my head and hovers over me as he tries to figure out what’s wrong. He wrings his hands in a gesture so reminiscent of his raccoon side that I’d laugh if I could get any air into my aching lungs. What isn’t wrong with me?
Rollie reaches for my face, like he wants to check my airway. I breathe in his scent reflexively, soothing and sweet. Even tinged with worry and fear for me. It’s still got that extra zing of a heat, but that’s fading faster now that I’ve got his adrenaline pumping. Fuck. Rollie counts out some breathing exercise he must have picked up from Winny or Ty with their therapy bullshit.
I follow along, inhaling him as deep into my lungs as he can get. Savoring this moment, in case this heat is the only time I get to experience what it would be like for him to love me as a mate. A few more stolen moments of bliss. Even a panic attack is better with him next to me.
We breathe together until the fist clenching around my lungs relaxes entirely and the immediacy of my resurfaced memories fades. With a moment to think rationally, it’s obvious that Rollie would never expect me to live up to someone else’s notions of who we should be. I know that in the hollows of my bird bones. This was dirty talk gone awry.
Normally, echoes of my trauma are exactly the sort of unintended wounds I seek out to flay myself open. Punishments to absolve me of all the ways I can never seem to feel right in my skin. All the ways I asked for every hurt and every invisible scar. Except the only balm that ever truly soothes my soul for more than a moment is right here lying next to me.
I nuzzle into his neck, getting as close as I can to the shifter I love without crawling inside him. I kiss Rollie’s throat, mouthing at his skin, tasting days of sex and heat pheromones on him. We are going to need a shower. After. Right now I need one more chance to make love to him. Once more chance to connect. To be his treasure.
“Better?” Rollie asks, squirming when I lick his throat, needing every trace of him I can get. I need to taste every inch of him. Lap up more of the thick sweet ambrosia that is his slick.
“Yeah. Sorry. Bad memory.” I shrug it off and he tries to gather me into his arms, cuddling me.
“Want to talk about it?” Rollie offers. He’s sweeter than I’ll ever be able to believe I deserve.
“After. You’re still in heat.” It’s deflection and we both know it. Rollie doesn’t push, but he doesn’t let me get away with pretending nothing happened either.
“Mhm. Doesn’t mean you’re required to service me, Sebastian. I can take the plug into the shower and ride out the last of it alone if that was too intense. You get to say no. And you will still be the very best omega I know either way. That’s all I meant. That I have no regrets about sharing my heat with another omega—with you. You are my best treasure, Seb.”
“Uh huh,” I nuzzle closer, tipping my head toward him so he’ll scratch his fingers over my scalp. Preening me as best he can with stubby human fingers instead of a beak. I sigh as he pets me, his love so clear in every touch, it’s impossible to deny.
“I’m sorry I made you doubt that for an instant. When I was out of my mind with the heat, before I realized that’s what it was, and Harvey had me wait for a ride home in the break room, my raccoon wanted to dig through the walls to find a safe den to hide. You know what he wanted?”
“To go home?” I wave a hand toward our room and all the pretty things we’ve decorated it with, a perfect nest, or a cozy den. Just what both our animal natures need, despite my insecurities making it hard to claim the space for my own, or really count on anyone to want to be an us with me.
“You, Seb.” Rollie kisses my temple, a fond counter to the exasperated amusement in his tone. “ You are all I pictured when I needed to feel safe.”
I don’t have words for that. Denying him would be spiting myself. Arguing with him over his emotions is pure folly, even if I’ll never quite trust that I could possibly inspire feelings like that from any potential mate.
I don’t have any words, but neither does the voice in my head that always knows just what failing or deep-seated character flaw to fling in my face. I know that viscous voice of self-hatred isn’t gone for good. The reprieve is no less wonderful for being temporary.
Rollie can somehow shut up the vile brute in my head, and if I didn’t already adore my omega mate before that, I’d fall for him all over again. If only just for his ability to lance the pressure from old hurts and turn them into—I don’t even know. I shake my head, speechless.
“Anyway. I want you to feel safe too, Seb. But I kind of, uh, need to take care of this—we can talk and snuggle more after?” Rollie kisses the tip of my nose, then gently rolls out of my arms to reach for the knotting plug.
“No, let me.” I grab his wrist, circling it gently. “I want to make love to you.”
“You sure?” Rollie checks warily, but he doesn’t try to pull away from me.
“Beyond certain.” I nod. The only voice echoing in my mind when he beams at me is his, reminding me that I’m his good omega. His best omega. His mate. “Want to breed my mate one last time for this heat.”
I kiss him then, pulling him back on top of me. Rollie and I make out lazily at first, and then more urgently as his slick coats our groins. I’m hard again, aching to pound out my release inside of him.
I ignore the deep tingly ache at the base of my dick that I’ve read about in books. I’m probably imagining the sensation of a newly formed knot bud to go with my other unwanted alpha traits. That has to be it.
“Mm, need you, Seb, come inside me?” Rollie strokes my length. “Need your pretty little omega cock buried inside me.”
“Yeah. Right here, where you’re too tight for any alpha, all mine.” I nudge between his slick pussy lips, urging him to open and take me.
Rollie spreads his legs, riding me. I grab hold of his meaty thighs and flip us around so I can drive in deeper, the instinctual need to bury myself inside of him urged on by his every needy sound and throaty moan.
“That’s it, my treasure. So good. You’re so good.” Rollie moans the last word as I fuck into him hard enough to have us inching across the mattress.
Damn, he’s so good, and his praise rings in my ears impossible to accept, except Rollie doesn’t lie. He hates lies, so he has to believe that impossible declaration—he thinks I’m good. He presses his palm over my heart and I’m certain he isn’t referring to my sexual prowess. Or at least not entirely, the amount of slick squelching out of him every time I thrust speaks for itself about how turned on he is.
I can’t handle the idea of disappointing him when he realizes I can’t live up to who he thinks I am, so I give him one thing I really am good at. Sex.
“You love this. Love it when I come inside your hot little hole and leave you a sloppy mess, huh?” I tease as I fuck him harder.
“Mhm. Yes. So messy. Need it. Need more.” Rollie is panting and writhing under me and I know he’s close.
His heat is telling him he needs more than I can give him without a toy. I was worried that his need for a knot would sting every time, a glaring reminder that we can never work out in the long term. Except we do work and the knotting plug does give him the extra stretch he needs to sate his instincts.
“You’re fucking desperate for a fat knot and a belly full of kits, but you’re going to make do with this plug and my load dripping out of you for the rest of the day, aren’t you my sweet mate?” I tease as I push the plug into his well slicked ass and press the button to make it swell to full size inside of his ass.
“Yes!” Rollie arches under me.
I pin him down and fuck him harder.
“Oh, yes! So good.” Rollie keens, nails scoring lines of stinging heat down my back.
Everything about being with him feels so right. I can’t help fucking into him faster. For once, I’m fully present with the shifter sharing my bed as he gasps and moves with me, meeting me and taking me to the hilt until his eyes roll up into his head. Rollie’s gorgeous face is a portrait of an omega freeze-framed just before he comes. Like he’s caught the wave of his own pleasure and wants to ride it forever before letting it crash down over us both.
“Mmm.” Rollie shudders against me, his cunt squeezing my cock and making that tingly feeling spread along every inch of my dick. It’s like he is milking every drop of pleasure out of me.
“Fuck, you’re incredible.” I cling to him, fighting back my release to let him take as much as he wants.
With an effort, I slow down to match Rollie’s pace; let him control the steady build of this final orgasm. It feels momentous. So much bigger than just busting a nut with him.
“So close. Wanna come together.” Rollie can read me like a book, even in the throes of passion and caught up in the last remnants of what might well be his only natural heat.
Whatever this does or doesn’t mean for our future, it is special. Important. He’s important. We both want to savor every moment. He locks eyes with me as I move inside him, those soulful blue depths beg me for what he truly wants. What I suspect he’s wanted for a long time, and been too afraid to ask for.
We agreed to play at being mates for the duration of his heat, but it’s obvious he doesn’t want it to end now that we’re on the precipice. Neither do I, even if it terrifies me to consider tying myself to him like an anchor. He deserves so much better than me. He deserves exactly what he wants. I don’t know the right thing to do here, but for now, all I need to do is give him exactly what we already agreed to. A perfect heat with his mate, pretend or not.
I press my forehead to his, nuzzling our noses together. “Not gonna last much longer sweetheart, you feel too amazing.” I press gentle kisses to his cheeks.
“Come.” Rollie commands, voice gravelly with unspoken emotions.
I don’t hold back, thrusting fast and furious as he comes undone around me. Wave after wave of his cunt undulating around my dick. I gasp as lightning flares in the base of my cock and the orgasm feels like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
I grip Rollie tight, and he clings to me. We anchor each other as we’re set adrift in an endless tide of pleasure. I kiss him, needing to connect to him more, to be inside him in every way possible and let him inside me as his tongue fucks into my mouth and we swallow each other’s desperate needy moans.
My entire cock is a rocket exploding into the night sky in a shower of sparks. I cling to Rollie, push my tongue and cock in more insistently, needing to be connected to him. Grounding myself in his presence as pulse after pulse of pleasure bursts out of me to fill my mate. He’s squeezing me so tight in his arms, like he needs me to hold him together as much as I need him.
A new sensation joins the symphony of heat-enhanced pleasure. His pussy clenching around me always feels incredible, but this is more than that. It’s like a fist wrapping around the base of my dick, fucking a secondary orgasm out of me while I’m still shooting. Like my entire existence is nothing but an expansive pleasure taking root and flowing forth to fill the tight hole around it and without Rollie’s body there to cradle me I might just fly apart at the seams.
Whatever that new feeling is, Rollie moans and rides me through the entire thing, his internal muscles still working my length. There’s no way it lasts as long as it seems to, the pair of us riding out the aftershocks for what has to be a blink even though it feels like I might just keep fucking my cum deeper inside of him for an eternity.
It’s sheer bliss. I’m buried inside of the omega I might finally be able to admit out loud I love as we both revel in the best orgasm of my life. I want to shout our love from the rooftops, no more caveats or pretending he’s not the only forever I want. I hope it’s the best sex of his life too. I never want to have to separate, so I hold him. And kiss him, and rock our bodies together until I’ve softened enough that moving makes my dick slip out of him and both of us gasp and wriggle closer together. Rollie gathers me into his arms and kisses my forehead.
“Mm. Best sex ever,” he jokes as he nestles his head on my chest.
“Mhm. Ten thousand out of ten, no notes. You’re pure perfection,” I tease him.
Rollie snorts, like he thinks I’m joking and then he sighs. “I think my heat is over.”
“Yeah?” I snuffle at his hair. “Hm, can’t tell. Let me see.” It really is hard to tell when we both smell thoroughly of sex and the room reeks of his heat pheromones. He’s probably right, but I still take the easy excuse to nose into his armpit and inhale, much to his chagrin as he laughingly shoves my face away.
“Hey! I need a shower, you perv.”
I chuckle at him and tuck him back against my chest. “Yep, your heat is definitely over. You didn’t care how deliciously ripe you smelled while it was still going strong.”
“Rude!” Rollie nips at my nipple, then sucks it into his mouth. His wet heat engulfing the sensitive nub would normally have my dick perking up, even just a twitch. But I don’t have a drop of libido left after that last round.
“See? No more wild heat pheromones making my dick spring back to life at the drop of a hat either,” I tease, gesturing at my very spent dick where it remains limp against my thigh.
“Guess that means we have a lot to discuss?” Rollie bites his lip and glances around the room, avoiding eye contact.
“We do.” I want to chicken out. Tell him we can shower first. Eat. Check the time and heck, the date for that matter. Check in with family and work and dive back into all the routines that his unexpected heat forced us to put on pause.
We could easily latch on to finding any and every excuse to never talk. Never put this bond we’ve built at risk by demanding it hold the entire weight of all my baggage.
I can come up with a million excuses and circumnavigate the globe by moving the goalposts on this. But Rollie deserves to have the mating he just showed me a glimpse of. He deserves everything and not having the conversations we need to is holding us both back from that. Even if we ultimately decide we can’t find it together. Whatever my brain tells me about how richly I deserve a lifetime spent in limbo, he doesn’t. So I don’t make excuses. I card my fingers through his hair.
I’m not ready to talk, and I’m even less ready to relinquish this easy familiarity with his body. “What should we talk about first?”
“I don’t even know.” Rollie sighs. Then he yawns. I can’t stop myself from yawning too, and that has us both giggling. “Um, I think I need a nap first. Would you, um, shift with me? I just know we have a lot to talk about, but I really don’t want to think yet. I only want to raccoon. And my raccoon side feels very smug about our den smelling like us.”
I survey our room. My inner raven puffs up with pride at the nest we’ve lined together. I get up and pile our colorful blankets and assorted throw pillows back onto our bed. I smile as I touch them all.
Objectively, we have way too many pillows, but they make a very nice cuddle pile. It’s a jewel-bright kaleidoscope with metallic accents. Each of the various throw pillows has its own unique shape and print. Fabrics ranging from shaggy fluff that feels like hugging a cloud to shiny sequins. Silky satin, thick brocade, intricate beading. A sensory feast. Treasures we brought home either together or to show each other.
Our entire room is like that. A hodgepodge collection of things that caught my or Rollie’s eyes and that we added to this space to build a cozy little home together. Rollie is my home. And together we’ve built a nest worthy of bringing a hatchling into.
That thought of futile nesting deflates the swelling emotions in my chest. Yeah. I don’t want to think right now either. I want to preen my sweet raccoon mate and pretend things can be as simple as our love letting us create a family together that can overcome any obstacle.
“Yeah. A nap would be good. You need a good preening.” I ruffle his hair and Rollie bats my hands away with a pouty scowl. So damn cute. I want to kiss his adorable pouty lip. And that’s my cue to shift because we need to talk before I just bulldoze in assuming that things he said in the throes of his heat are what he still wants now that it’s over.
Rollie watches as my feathers sprout over my skin. Shifting in front of another person is intimate, but it’s far from the most intimate thing I do with my best friend on a regular basis. I squawk at him to shift too, then flap up to our bed so I can get cozy with him.
If I wasn’t so focused on him I might have missed the next words that he barely breathes when he thinks I’m too busy fussing with the pillows to notice. Even so, I almost miss it under the sound of him bundling our sex toy collection into a towel to clean them before storing it all back into the plastic tote where it stays most of the time.
“Love you, mate,” Rollie shakes his head at me in fond exasperation.
Mhm. Mate, the title settles my nerves and I fluff out my feathers for a lazy preen while I wait for him to tidy up enough to join me. Each toy lands atop the others with an oddly satisfying thud. Rollie mutters about how we need to disinfect them all after our nap. True, but that hardly matters to my raven right now.
I dismiss his continued mumbling as boring human things. I stretch out one wing and idly check my flight feathers. And I might croak a little to remind him it’s naptime.
My silly raccoon. They are notorious for getting days and nights crossed. Good thing he has me to remind him. I sidle closer and call again. Rollie glances at me and holds up a finger. That usually means wait a minute. Boo. I’m sleepy now. I clack my beak in irritation. Rollie chuckles.
“Impatient as always, bird.”
I preen my shoulder pointedly when he glances my way, showing off my feathers, and reminding him that mates preen each other so he needs to join me in our nest now.
“Yes, I’m stalling, you daft bird.” Rollie glances at me with a soppy smile. “Don’t know how to get it through your thick feathery head that I love you. I want to be your mate. Only ever yours.”
I caw at him. No fair talking when we agreed to nap first. Before I can shift back to scold him properly, or just say what we need to say, Rollie plops down next to me and offers me his hand. I snuggle in under his palm and he smooths my feathers.
I preen his fingers with my beak. Rollie lets me finish the gesture, then he lifts his hand away and shifts. His raccoon is soft and sweet and adorably fluffy. I march right up to his head, preen his pretty facemask, and then settle in to nap next him, tucking him under my wing like a chick that needs to be protected and kept warm and adored. Rollie nuzzles his face into my side and curls his elegant striped brush of a tail around us.
Talking can wait. Sleeping together like this is for family. Mates. I never have the right words with Rollie, but somehow, he always seems to understand. And I am going to tell him. Later. He is everything good that I want and at least in my feathers, I’m finally ready to reach out and ask if I can have this with him.
Rollie is my treasure and I sleep well beside him, no need to hide just how close I want to be to him any longer. I have the most restful sleep I can recall ever having with my mate in our nest.