CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Reese
The air is thick with them—pheromones layered and snarling until my suppressants don’t stand a chance.
It doesn’t just feel like I’ve skipped a dose; it feels like the drugs never mattered at all.
Every breath I take is laced with Eli’s rough hunger and Jackson’s darker, more controlled force, and my body answers before my mind can catch up.
I can feel Jackson’s tongue everywhere still, ghosting along my thighs, my clit, inside me.
And Eli—God, Eli—was in my mouth, in my throat, holding back only because he cares, because he always cares, even when he’s falling apart.
But what undid me wasn’t just the way Eli looked when I sucked him down.
It was the moment he leaned in, joined me, and wrapped his lips around Jackson’s cock beside me.
The memory makes me shake.
Watching Eli suck him with me, feeling Jackson’s hands tremble in my hair, hearing his groan crack open in his chest, was the hottest, dirtiest thing I’ve ever seen.
And then Jackson lost that iron grip of his control just long enough to fuck Eli, to fuck through Eli into me.
The sound of Eli breaking under it, his groans muffled against my neck as Jackson drove into him from behind, was almost enough to make me come again just from the thought of it.
And Jackson himself—holy shit. He’s so much bigger up close than I ever let myself admit.
His body is all hard lines and muscle, broader than Eli, darker too—dark hair, dark eyes, a presence that eclipses everything else in the room.
Eli is beautiful in a different way: chestnut hair damp with sweat, his long, lean muscles flexing as he thrust into me, his almost-black eyes drowned in pheromones until there’s no telling where the man ends and the Alpha begins.
Together they’re devastating.
Eli shudders above me, his thrusts slowing.
He groans against my mouth, hips jerking, and then I feel it—hot pulses deep inside me as he spills.
My whole body clenches around him instinctively, taking every drop.
My nails dig into his back, my head falling back on the couch cushions as my body seizes with aftershocks.
It’s too much, and not enough.
He pulls out slowly, carefully, his cock sliding wet from my body.
The sudden emptiness makes me gasp, my thighs trembling around nothing.
Eli collapses into the floor beside me, a hand thrown across his heaving chest, sweat shining on his skin.
He looks wrecked and gorgeous, and my heart aches at the sight of him.
But then the weight of another presence draws my gaze.
Jackson.
He’s behind Eli one moment, then he’s rising, looming, pulling the condom from his cock with a sharp snap of latex.
His dark eyes are locked on me, his chest rising and falling like he’s been holding back a storm.
His muscles gleam with sweat, his hair damp against his forehead.
He looks massive, dangerous, inevitable—and I want him so badly I forget to breathe.
He tosses the used condom aside, then pauses, his voice low and rough. “You good?”
It’s not just a check-in. It’s command and concern tangled together, Alpha edge and lover’s care. My body is wrecked, used and trembling, but the answer is instant. I nod. Hard. “Yes.”
Jackson’s gaze flicks over me, taking in every detail—the flush on my chest, the bruises forming where Eli’s grip held me, the wet heat still slick between my thighs.
His eyes darken further, but his control doesn’t falter.
His alpha dominance is as strong as Gray’s right now, maybe even stronger, which just makes me tremble even more with anticipation.
“New one,” he mutters, already tearing another foil packet from the nightstand stash. His voice is all grit and restraint, like he’s strangling every instinct that wants to just take. “I’m not putting you at risk.”
The sight of his broad shoulders hunched as he rolls the condom down over his thick length, forearms corded with strain, his jaw tight, makes my mouth go dry. He’s the most intimidating man I’ve ever seen, and right now, he’s mine.
Eli stirs beside me, sitting up and brushing sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead, his eyes flicking between Jackson and me.
There’s no jealousy there, only hunger, only the raw echo of what we just shared.
And the weight of that, that neither of them are pulling away, that they’re both still here, still tangled with me, sends a new rush of heat flooding my body.
Jackson’s shadow falls over me as he leans forward, his cock sheathed again, his dark gaze locked on mine as he cages me in with his arms. Every nerve in me sings with anticipation. I want him. I want all of him, everything he’s been holding back, everything he thinks he doesn’t deserve to give.
And when his hands settle on my thighs, spreading me wide around his hips, I realize I’ll take it all.
There’s the tiniest bit of resistance when he slides into me just from the sheer size of him and for a brief moment, I wonder how Eli took him.
But then his hips meet mine and he grinds his pelvis against my clit and all thought aside from the feel of him leaves my body.
Jackson fucks me like nothing else exists, like his body was built for this rhythm, this brutal precision.
Each thrust slams through me, stealing my breath, tearing sounds out of my throat I’ve never made before.
My thighs quake around his hips, my nails digging into his back as he drives me higher and higher.
I finally understand what the guys meant when they joked about how “athletic” Eli and Jackson’s private sessions were.
This isn’t just sex—it’s a contest of strength and stamina, every muscle in his body working to keep me on the edge of breaking.
He’s unrelenting, savage, and it’s so good it almost makes me sob.
Eli is the counterpoint to Jackson’s ferocity. He’s at my side, stroking my hair back from my damp forehead, brushing kisses along my temple. His hand smooths down my ribs, his voice a constant murmur of praise. “That’s it, sweetheart. Taking him so well. You look gorgeous stretched around him.”
I glance sideways through watery eyes, and Eli’s stroking himself again, his cock slick and swollen, his pupils almost black from the pheromones drowning the room. The sight makes me clench around Jackson, and he growls against my throat, fucking me harder.
His hand closes around my neck, not choking, but holding me in place for him in a display of dominance as his other arm wraps around my head.
His breath is hot at my ear, ragged, full of things he’s still trying not to say.
I can feel how close he is, feel the way his cock thickens with every thrust. The pressure changes, swelling inside me until I cry out, back arching.
Oh God. His knot.
It builds between us, stretching me wide, holding him deep. The sensation is almost unbearable, almost too much, yet it makes every nerve light up with pleasure. I can’t stop shaking.
Jackson groans, burying his face against my neck.
His control is unraveling by the second, and I can feel the war in him—whether to hold back, or to give in completely.
His lips drag over the place where my neck meets my shoulder.
He licks, he nips, his teeth hovering. His whole body trembles like he’s holding back from the edge of a cliff.
“Jackson,” Eli says low, steady, his hand rubbing circles over my hip even as his other fists around his cock. “She’s perfect. Look at her. She wants it.”
And he’s right. I want it so badly it feels like my skin will split apart if I don’t get it. I tilt my head, exposing more of my throat. “Please,” I whisper, desperate. “Do it. Claim me.”
That’s all it takes.
With a guttural growl, Jackson rips the condom off, knot still swelling, and slams back into me bare before he’s too big to move. The heat of him pours straight into my body, raw and unshielded, and then his teeth sink into my throat.
White light floods my vision. I taste iron and salt and something sharp like electricity itself, and my synapses fire in a way I can’t explain.
It’s like a thousand small doors opening at once.
I gasp, arching high, every nerve blooming with that claim.
It’s not just pleasure, it’s something deeper, like my body and soul have been waiting for this mark, this knot, this claim. Everything clicks into place.
I scream his name as my orgasm detonates, clenching helplessly around him, the knot locking him deep inside me. His roar shakes the walls as he comes, hot pulses flooding me, the bite and the knot combining until it’s beyond anything I’ve ever known.
I’m floating, shaking, lost, and still dimly aware of Eli watching us, stroking himself harder, his eyes blown wide at the sight.
Jackson doesn’t collapse. He braces over me, still locked by the knot, his teeth pulling free of my throat as he pants against my skin. His eyes burn down into mine—dark, wild, triumphant—as if he knows what he’s just done.
And I know it too.
I’ve been claimed.
And then I see the moment clarity strikes Jackson. He sits up, still locked inside me, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his temples as his gaze shifts from me to Eli. Something raw and unguarded flashes in his dark eyes, something I know isn’t just instinct.
Eli meets that look head-on. No words. Just a steady, open gaze that says yes. That says I understand. That says I’m here, and I want this too.
Jackson’s hand shoots out, tangling in the back of Eli’s sweat-damp hair. He yanks him forward, not with cruelty, but with the kind of inevitability I felt when his teeth sank into me.
And then he bites.
It’s not the same as what he gave me. Not a claim that roots itself in bone and blood, but a mark of something else—ownership, intimacy, love he’s too afraid to name. His teeth sink into Eli’s throat just hard enough to bruise, to leave a mark that will say what his voice won’t.
Eli’s entire body shudders. His hand, already stroking his cock, jerks faster, more desperate. His lips part on a broken sound that’s half-moan, half-cry, and then he’s spilling across my stomach in hot, thick pulses.
I gasp at the sensation, at the sight of him coming undone from something as simple and as devastating as Jackson’s bite. His eyes squeeze shut, face twisting with pleasure, before they open again and stare down at me with stunned, reverent intensity.
Jackson doesn’t let go immediately. He holds him there for one breath, two, before his teeth release.
He finally lifts his head, his mouth wet from Eli’s skin, his breathing rough and uneven.
His gaze cuts between us, me trembling beneath him, Eli panting beside us, and for the first time, there’s no hesitation. No fear. Just raw certainty.
He pulls Eli in first, mouths crashing together, a kiss that’s desperate and claiming, made of sweat and heat and everything they’ve both been too afraid to say. Eli groans into it, his hand fisting in Jackson’s hair like he never wants to let go.
Then Jackson turns to me.
The kiss he gives me isn’t softer. It’s just as consuming, his tongue stroking deep, his teeth scraping my lip until I whimper against him. He kisses me in a way that proves I’m already marked, already his, and the truth of it hums in every nerve in my body.
When he finally pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, his other hand still tangled in Eli’s hair, holding us both in his orbit. His dark eyes burn, wild and reverent all at once.
And in that moment, I know exactly what we are.
Not a mistake. Not a lapse in judgment. Not just sex.
His claimed mates.