Chapter 39 Beth
Beth
"I want you." I hold each of their gazes long enough that there's no ambiguity. "All three of you. Right now. In my nest. And if someone doesn't touch me in the next ten seconds, I'm going to lose my entire mind."
Arthur crosses the room first and steps into the nest like he's entering a cathedral, careful not to disturb the walls I built. He kneels in front of me with the kind of deliberateness that makes my pulse stutter. His hands find my face. His thumbs trace my cheekbones.
"You built this for us," he says quietly.
"I built it for us," I whisper, my throat tightening.
He kisses me. Slow, deep, tasting like bourbon.
His hands slide down my neck, my shoulders, and every place his fingers touch turns to honey.
Rosemary, bourbon, and cigar leaf fill the air between us, and I make a sound into his mouth that would normally mortify me, but my capacity for shame officially left the building about twenty minutes ago.
The mattress shifts. Mason settles behind me, his chest warm against my back, and his mouth finds the curve of my neck. My body arches into both of them at once.
Knox. I reach for him without looking and find his hand. Pull. He folds into the nest on my right side and his fingers thread into my hair and tilt my head so he can kiss me when Arthur breaks away.
Eucalyptus and amberwood flood my senses. I whimper against his mouth and feel Mason's grip tighten on my hips.
My hindbrain goes white-hot and quiet. No more drumbeat. No more words except yes, more and mine.
"Shirt off," Knox murmurs against my lips.
"Bossy," I manage.
"You're the one who gave us a ten-second ultimatum," he says, his eyes doing something I'm sure would get him arrested in some jurisdictions.
Fair point.
Mason's hands find the hem of my t-shirt from behind. His knuckles graze my thighs as he drags it up, slow enough that I want to whimper. Arthur's fingers trace the strip of bare skin as it's revealed. Knox watches.
Mason pulls it over my head and the cool air hits my skin for exactly one second before three pairs of hands replace it.
"God," Arthur breathes.
"Beth," Mason says against my shoulder.
Knox doesn't say anything. He just looks at me with those dark eyes and runs his thumb along the curve of my waist and the restraint in his expression is the hottest thing I have ever seen in my life.
I reach for him. "Knox. Stop thinking."
His mouth twitches. Then he leans in and kisses the hollow of my throat, his teeth graze my collarbone and I stop being able to form sentences.
Mason's hands map my ribs from behind. His lips find the sensitive spot below my ear, and he exploits it shamelessly while Arthur's mouth tracks down the center of my chest. He pauses. Looks up at me.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
"Everything."
"Specific everything or general everything?" He teases.
"Arthur, I swear to—"
He puts his mouth on my breast and the rest of the sentence evaporates. His tongue circles my nipple and his hand cups the other and I arch into him so hard Mason has to brace to keep me upright.
"There it is," Mason murmurs into my hair. "Let go, sweetheart."
Knox's hand slides down my stomach. Slowly. Deliberately. Fingertips tracing a path that has me holding my breath, and when he reaches the waistband of my underwear he pauses.
"Yes," I say before he can ask. "God, yes."
His fingers slip beneath the fabric and find me and I jolt like I've been electrocuted. He makes a rough sound.
"You're drenched," he says, low and thick.
"That's the heat," I gasp.
"The heat." He strokes me slowly, fingers sliding through wet heat, and my hips buck against his hand. "You."
I grab his wrist to anchor myself, because the combination of Knox's fingers, Arthur's mouth, Mason's hands and all three scents saturating the nest is threatening to disintegrate me and we've barely started.
"More," I say. It comes out ragged and desperate. "More, please, Knox, more—"
He presses two fingers inside me and curls them. My vision whites out.
The orgasm hits me like a wave I didn't see coming.
I cry out and Mason catches me, pulling me back against his chest, his arms wrapped around me while I shake apart.
Arthur's mouth finds mine and swallows the sounds I'm making.
Knox doesn't stop moving his fingers until I'm gasping and clutching at all of them.
"That was fast," Knox says, his voice low.
My face is on fire. "Everything's—more. During heat, everything's just—"
"More," Arthur finishes, pressing his lips to my temple. I whimper.
Mason shifts behind me. I feel him, hard and insistent against my lower back, and my body responds with a fresh wave of need.
"Mason," I breathe.
"I'm here."
"I need you. I need—" I turn in his arms and the kiss I give him is graceless, frantic and he takes it all. His hands grip my hips. I reach between us and find him through his pants. He groans into my mouth.
"Off," I say, tugging at fabric. "Everything off. All of you. Why is anyone still wearing clothes?"
There's a brief, slightly chaotic intermission while three grown alphas attempt to undress in a nest without destroying it.
Knox catches his foot on a blanket wall and steadies himself against the headboard.
Arthur unbuttons his pants with that infuriating slowness that makes me want to jump him.
Mason strips efficiently, like he's been training for this specific moment.
And then.
Three alphas. Bare. In my nest. Surrounded by blankets that smell like all of us.
My omega brain does something it's never done before. It purrs, and not metaphorically. An actual sound vibrates up from my chest, low and content and involuntary, and all three of them go still.
"Someone's happy," Mason says softly, and the tenderness in his voice almost undoes me once more.
"I purred because my omega likes showing her alphas what she likes," I correct, pulling him toward me as I say it, lying back against the pillow wall and bringing him over me.
He settles between my thighs and the weight of him presses me into the layers of blankets and scent and softness and my body opens for him.
"Beth." His forehead touches mine. "Look at me."
I do. His eyes are amber and earnest and completely wrecked.
"I've got you," he says.
He pushes into me and the sound that comes out of both of us fills the room.
He's big. I knew he would be but the stretch is overwhelming in the best possible way, and the heat amplifies every nerve ending until I can feel him everywhere.
"Oh my god," I whisper.
"Okay?" He holds perfectly still, the effort visible in the tension of his jaw, the cords of his neck.
"If you stop I will never forgive you."
He laughs, buried inside me, and the vibration of it sends sparks through my entire body. Then he moves.
Long, deep strokes that hit something essential. My legs wrap around his waist. My nails drag down his back. He groans and buries his face in my neck and breathes me in while he rocks into me, steady and devastating.
Knox moves to my side. His hand finds mine and our fingers lace together while Mason takes me apart with his hips. Arthur presses against my other side, his lips against my ear.
"You look incredible," Arthur murmurs. "The way you move with him. The sounds you make."
"Arthur—" I whimper.
"I could watch you forever."
The combination of Mason inside me, Arthur's voice in my ear and Knox's hand in mine builds something enormous in my center.
"Mason, I'm—"
"I know." He drives deeper. "Come for me, sweetheart."
I shatter. The orgasm tears through me and I arch off the mattress. Mason groans my name, and I feel his knot start to swell at my entrance, the pressure making me clench around him.
"Fuck—Beth—"
"Don't pull out." I grip his hips. "I want it. I want your knot."
He pushes fully in, spilling everything he has, and his knot locks us together. The stretch triggers another orgasm that I didn't know was possible. I scream, face buried in his shoulder, body convulsing around him while he holds me through it.
"Jesus Christ," Knox says from somewhere to my right.
Mason collapses over me, catching his weight on his forearms. His breath is ragged against my neck. We're locked together, his knot keeping him buried deep, and every micro-movement sends aftershocks through both of us.
"You're perfect," he whispers. "You're so perfect, Beth."
I'm trembling. Tears are leaking from the corners of my eyes and I'm so full of something I can't name that my body doesn't know how to process it except through tears and shaking and the purr that starts up again in my chest.
***
His knot takes several minutes to release. When he finally eases out of me, the loss is immediate and aching. My body protests. My omega instincts surge.
More. Need. Alpha.
The heat doesn't care that I just had two orgasms. The heat is a forest fire and I just threw a cup of water on it.
"Knox," I say.
He's already moving.
He lies beside me and pulls me on top of him, hands on my hips, letting me set the pace. I straddle him and his length slides against me, slick with my arousal, and we both hiss.
"Ride me," he says. Simple. Direct.
I reach between us and guide him in. The angle is different, deeper. I lean forward with my palms on his chest and roll my hips experimentally. His jaw clenches.
"Like that," he grits out.
I find a rhythm. Slow at first, circling my hips, feeling every inch of him. His hands grip my waist, not guiding, just holding. Letting me take what I need.
Mason lies beside us, recovering, one hand tracing lazy patterns on my thigh. Arthur moves behind me, his chest against my back, and his hands come around to cup my breasts while I ride Knox.
"Harder," Arthur says against my neck.
I grind down harder and Knox's hips buck up to meet me and the sound of the impact fills the nest. Arthur rolls my nipples between his fingers and I cry out, clenching around Knox.
"That's it." Arthur's voice is low, commanding and it does something to me that should require a signed waiver. "Take him. Show him how much you need him."
"Fuck," Knox breathes. His hands tighten on my hips. "Beth, I'm not going to last if you—"
I kiss him. Pour everything into it. All the nights I've lain awake thinking about his scent on my pillow. All the ways he can infuriate me and anchor me in equal measure.
His hips stutter. His knot starts swelling. I take him deeper, chasing it, and when his knot catches and locks inside me we both go rigid.
"Beth," he groans, and the sound of my name in his mouth, wrecked and raw, triggers my own release.
This orgasm is different. Slower. A deep, rolling wave that starts in my core and expands outward until my fingers tingle, my toes curl and I'm gasping his name into the crook of his neck while his knot pulses inside me.
We lie there. Breathing. Connected. His hand comes up and cups the back of my head, his thumb stroking behind my ear. The tenderness of it after the intensity makes my chest crack open.
"That purr is back," he says, smiling against my hair.
***
When his knot releases, the heat surges again, sharper this time, more demanding.
My skin feels like it's humming at a frequency only I can hear.
The nest is saturated with all of our scents, layered so thick the air is almost tangible, and my omega brain is singularly focused on the one alpha who hasn't been inside me yet.
Arthur is leaning against the headboard. Watching.
He's been watching. The whole time. Those dark eyes tracking every movement, every sound. He looks like a man exercising enormous restraint and losing the battle.
"Your turn," I say.
"Come here," he says.
I crawl across the nest toward him and he catches me by the waist and pulls me into his lap. The position puts us face to face, chest to chest, his arousal pressing against my stomach, his hands framing my jaw.
"I need you to know something," he says.
"Arthur, I love your speeches but if this is a long one I am going to combust."
"I'm just so happy you let us in," he says. "And no, that's not a bad pun."
My eyes sting. "Arthur—"
"That's it. That's the speech." He kisses me. Soft at first. Then deeper. Then deeper still, until I'm grinding against him, whimpering and his hands are everywhere.
He lifts me by the hips and positions me over him and I sink down slowly. The stretch. The fullness. The way his hands tremble against my waist.
"Oh," I breathe.
"Yeah," he manages. "Oh."
I start to move and his head falls back against the headboard. I lean forward, press my mouth to his pulse point and feel it hammering under my lips.
"You feel—" he starts, and has to stop. "Beth. You feel—"
"I know." I roll my hips and he makes a sound that I want recorded and played on repeat for the rest of my natural life. "I know."
Mason and Knox flank us. Mason's mouth finds my shoulder. Knox's hand slides between Arthur and me, thumb finding my clit with devastating precision.
"That's cheating," I gasp.
"Is it working?" Knox asks.
"Obviously it's working—"
Arthur grips my hips and takes over, driving up into me with a force that makes the headboard hit the wall. The change in pace turns me incoherent. Every thrust has his name falling out of my mouth like a prayer.
"Arthur—Arthur—Arthur—"
"I know, beautiful." He sounds as wrecked as I feel. "I've got you. Let go."
Knox's thumb presses harder, Mason's teeth graze my shoulder and Arthur buries himself to the hilt. He groans, his knot locking inside me and everything goes supernova.
This orgasm isn't a wave. It's a detonation. My entire body seizes. I can't see. I can't breathe. I'm making sounds that aren't words. Arthur is holding me so tight I can feel his heartbeat and his release is hot and endless inside me.
When the world comes back, I'm collapsed against Arthur's chest, still locked together, and I'm crying. Shoulders shaking, face buried in his neck, tears soaking his skin.
"Beth?" Three voices. Three levels of alarm.
"I'm fine." I hiccup. "I'm—this is normal. Everything's just so much—"
Arthur's arms tighten around me. Mason's hand finds my back. Knox presses his forehead to my shoulder.
"Happy tears?" Arthur asks.
I nod into his neck. "Happy tears."
"Good." His lips find my temple. "Because you just scared the shit out of me."
I laugh through the tears. "Say hi to my omega. She's a nightmare."
"I'd call her a miracle," Mason says quietly.
I lift my head and look at all three of them. This feels an awful lot like belonging.