Chapter 37 Mercer
MERCER
The bouffant-haired receptionist did a glacial sweep between my ID photo and my face. Jae’s ID. Jae’s face. I bit back a rant that would get me tossed out onto the street. She’s doing her job. Don’t be an ass.
“Your brother instructed us to give you key cards to his room. I have to be thorough,” she informed me pompously. A second examination. I was starting to think this was a power trip.
“I understand.” Even though I did not. It was past midnight. No one at this desk wanted to be here.
“Jae…Yoon…Park.” She butchered the inflection spectacularly and lifted a skeptical brow. “You two are brothers? But your surnames are different.”
Jae’s face was a looming thundercloud. “We grew up in a pack. Want our childhood photo albums, too?” he replied churlishly.
Oblivious to her tactlessness, she slid our IDs back to us. “No, that’s fine,” she said breezily. My hopes soared but then plummeted back down at the appearance of a clipboard. “Please read and sign this waiver.” Another clipboard materialized. “And agree to the specialized cleaning fee.”
I practically ripped through the pages to sign. We all knew I wasn’t reading that paperback of terms and conditions. “Will that be all?” I asked flatly.
She finally handed me two key cards with a plastic smile. “Enjoy your stay!”
I muttered darkly as I headed toward the elevator with our hastily packed suitcases. Jae was right behind me, still seething. I never liked when he was treated differently from Lucien and me.
“I forgot that happened sometimes when Appa wasn’t around,” I said, keeping my tone light as I pressed the up button.
“Forgot what happened?”
“People thinking you were a family friend or a lost child following us. But no, we’ve been stuck with you since you were two,” I sighed.
Jae blinked before letting out a bark of laughter. “Fuck you, Mercer.” But his grin was back.
Apprehension and nerves settled in as we began to ascend. “I don’t know what to expect.” My words were sticking in my throat. “Have you…ever been with an omega in heat before?”
“No, I avoided all of that,” Jae replied quietly, watching the glowing numbers tick over.
I didn’t need to ask why. In our rare catch-ups over the years, there was never any good-natured prodding you might find in other families.
Why don’t you have a pack yet? Are you ever going to bring home an omega?
I was sure it wasn’t for lack of opportunity, but they didn’t wish for it like other alphas.
After all, we’d all lived the splintered, debris-littered wreckage of what happened when it fell apart.
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
“No,” he said immediately. He ran a restless hand through his hair. “Summer needs me so I have to be here.”
There had been a quiet hope growing ever since I returned to Starlight Grove, rebelling against everything I thought I knew. But with it came the fear that I was the only one who felt it.
“Maybe we don’t have to dread being in a pack.”
My words hung in the air between us, a tangible, weighted presence. I watched as Jae wrestled with the confusion of feelings it brought up. Then crumpled and pushed it away until he could throw me one of his trademark grins again.
“Ask me after the heat,” he joked. “Who knows what will be left of us once Summer is done.”
Not the worst response he could’ve given me. But definitely bad enough that I never wanted to bring it up again.
Get over it. You’re supposed to be here for Summer.
We got off at the fourteenth floor and followed the brass signage to the suite at the end of the hall. The card reader flashed green and I pushed open the heavy door.
Summer’s omega scent immediately crashed into us without warning.
Syrupy, sugared seduction. Like loosening bikini strings and seeing tanned lines of sun-kissed skin.
I wanted to take Summer to the beach. Let her torture me with all that jiggling, water trickling over curves, and requests to apply sunscreen.
I shook myself out of the perfume-induced daydream. Shit, they weren’t kidding that omegas in heat were potent. Jae was hit even harder by it, tearing his way through the main room.
“Angel, I’m here,” he called urgently. A whimper drifted through the door at the end that had been left ajar.
I yanked Jae back by the shoulder before he charged inside. “Are we still supposed to ask for permission to enter her nest here?” I asked urgently.
“Fuck. Yes, we should. I wasn’t thinking.” He blinked hard and shook his head.
I knocked carefully so the door wouldn’t open farther. “Summer, it’s Mercer. And Jae.”
“Do you hear that, darling?” Lucien said from the other side. “They’re here for you. Invite them in and let them fill you up the way you’ve been begging.”
Fucking hell. Zero to a hundred in an instant.
“Come in,” Summer gasped.
The room was a wreck of bedding, and I could see how she had tried to replicate her nest at home with the hotel sheets. Lucien was on his back, and Summer was climbing on top of him, trying to coax him back to hardness.
“Give me a minute.” Exhaustion thinned his voice. “They can take better care of you than I can right now.”
Summer shook her head stubbornly. “No.” She planted her hand firmly in the center of his chest. “You have to stay, too.”
It had been three hours since we spoke, but Lucien already looked like he was running on fumes. Still, he murmured reassurances until she relaxed.
No wonder omegas needed packs during their heats.
Jae stepped forward, pulling off his shirt from the back of his neck. “Hey, angel.”
Summer’s head snapped up. Impatient. A little miffed. She had no time for sweet romantic greetings, more interested in his zipper instead.
“I want this,” she demanded crossly.
“My pants or my cock?” Jae asked, bewildered. She let out a frustrated little huff. “Both?”
“Cock now, pants for her nest later, I think,” I said as I unbuttoned my jeans.
Jae barely finished undressing before she was tugging him down to the bed.
Summer fisted my shirt and dragged me in, too.
Jesus, she was strong. Her bossy insistence was kind of adorable.
I kissed her and her tongue immediately darted out to tangle with mine.
Giving her bare ass a sharp spank only riled her up more, as she practically tore me out of my clothes.
“Such a bratty little omega, aren’t you?” I said affectionately.
She sucked a stinging hickey onto my neck. “What took you so long?”
Summer yelped as Jae flipped her onto her back, positioning her roughly where he wanted her. Lucien and I dove forward, each of us sucking a hardened nipple between our teeth. Her whole body gravitated toward us. Desperate fingers raked through our hair, urging us on.
Jae knelt between her legs and kicked them open wider with his knee. I risked her ire to glance down. Her pussy was pink and swollen from being fucked and knotted, glistening with slick in the dim lamplight.
“God, look how wet you are for us,” he said, lining himself up.
“Hurry. Please .”
Jae drove into her to the hilt. The force of his thrust left her head hanging halfway off the bed. I knew exactly what she needed. Summer’s doe eyes widened as I stood over her.
“Be a good girl and let me use your mouth.”
Her lips parted eagerly.
I collared her throat and fed her the throbbing tip of my cock. Summer’s pleased hum vibrated all the way up my shaft as I sank in the rest of the way with a strained curse.
This position stretched her body out before me like a feast. I palmed her full tits and lightly tugged her hard nipples between my fingers.
She immediately rose off the bed toward my touch.
Another twist, a little more pressure this time.
Summer squirmed and gasped, making a drooling mess of my cock.
I didn’t even care about my own pleasure at that point.
My hands roved and caressed her fevered skin, searching for all the ways to make her twitch beneath me.
“Push her legs back,” Lucien ordered Jae.
He pressed her thighs up to open her, leaning back to give Lucien access. Summer choked back a scream as he swiped two firm fingers across her swollen bud. The three of us drove her higher and higher until she came undone, hips bucking uncontrollably as a flood of slick soaked the sheets.
“So fucking beautiful,” I praised her. I withdrew from her mouth and crouched down beside her head. She reached for me immediately. Held on tight, as if any moment without her skin on my skin was wrong.
“Again.”
Her earlier agitation was gone. Restlessness made her uncomfortable. Distress and anxiety rose to the surface. Her need was so acute, the heat demanding so much from her body.
Gentle touches weren’t going to satisfy her. I threaded my fingers through her hair close to the scalp and tightened my grip with just enough force so she knew she couldn’t go anywhere.
Dark velvet eyes locked on mine.
“The alphas are going to knot you over and over. As many times as you need,” I murmured in her ear. “But as for me? I get to come anywhere you want. Down your throat. On your face. All over your tits.”
A deep moan left her throat.
“You love the sound of that, don’t you? Being fucked and knotted while you’re covered in my cum.”
Her breathing faltered. “Now. Please.”
Lucien’s brows knitted in concern. He kissed her neck. Lingered. Summer began stroking him, making his eye twitch. Whatever he detected from her scent set his mouth in a determined line. “Come on,” he said firmly. “Let’s see if we can break this heat momentarily and give her some relief.”
I rose back up and she took me eagerly in her other hand. Her pink tongue darted forward to lap up the precum lacing the tip.
“You’re such a good, cock-hungry girl,” I said as I sank back into her mouth.
This was not the time to drag it out. Jae and I found a rhythm.
Filling her. Withdrawing. Slamming back in.
Owning her from both ends and dragging her right to the brink.
Her whole body keened as Jae knotted her, hips lifting off the bed as she tried to take as much of him as possible.
My orgasm rushed up and I pulled out. Lucien took my place and she swallowed him down immediately, needing the sensation of being filled.
The first splatter of cum hit her stomach and the second landed on her chest, dripping over the curves of her breasts.
Summer shuddered with relief, and the frenetic energy humming through her steadied.
She blinked, giving Lucien a tentative push.
“Thank god.” Lucien sagged on the bed beside her.
Summer was back with us, the soft brown of her irises expanding.
With it came a timidness and an uncertainty, unused to not being in control of her body.
Jae was still locked with her, caressing her thigh lazily.
Lucien brought her hand up to his lips, promising her he would be right back before he rolled away.
I swept her hair off her forehead. “Hi, love,” I said softly.
“You’re finally here.” Her lower lip trembled. “Are you going to stay?”
Jae and I shared a confused look.
“Of course,” he insisted.
“You won’t leave me?”
Where was this coming from? “Fuck no.” I kissed her cheek, her lips, and up behind her ear. Trying to ease the anxiety that had her digging her nails into my arm.
“She’s been afraid whenever she comes back to herself.”
I turned to see Lucien, washcloth and water bottles in hand.
“What do you mean afraid?” I asked. I took the washcloth and carefully cleaned myself off her skin.
“Like she’s touch-starved. All skittish, even when we’re knotted.” Lucien offered Summer a straw, stroking her arm tenderly as she drank. “Now that you two are here, we can make sure she always has one of us with her.”
Jae curled Summer protectively against him, getting them both comfortable. She tucked her face into his neck, drawn to the quiet purr humming from within. “Is there something else we should be doing for her?” he asked worriedly, kissing the top of her head.
“Maybe. I haven’t figured it out yet,” Lucien admitted.
“Let’s start with her nest,” I suggested.
I opened the suitcase we had packed in a rush earlier and smiled when I saw the blanket with colorful hearts all over it.
Definitely one of her favorites. She had pretended she was totally fine with me using it the other night but stole it back a minute later.
“Oh!” Summer sighed happily as I draped it over her. That was a good start.
“We have more.” I swapped the crisp hotel pillow for her giant croissant one. “When you’re not knotted, you can look through what we brought and remake your nest. Want me to help you get these string lights set up so we can turn off the lamp?”
Her smile was tremulous, but there was gratitude luminous in her large eyes. “Yes, please. Thank you,” she whispered.
I hadn’t known what to expect when I entered this room. Had never dreamed I would be in this position. She wanted me. Just as much as the alphas. I’d been mentally prepared for days of fucking and was woefully caught off guard by the sense of duty.
I was tethered to her. Instantly and without end.
Whatever she needed while she was vulnerable was my responsibility, and nothing had felt more right.