Chapter 7
ASH
Ash came to awareness quickly but begrudgingly.
He was still in the nest, sprawled on his belly with only cool air covering his skin. And he was sticky. So damn sticky. Like, every-fucking-where on his body. In his body, even. Sweat and cum and slick all over. He’d never felt so disgusting in his life.
For the first time in hours, though, he didn’t feel like he was burning up from the inside out. Jesus, that had been intense. Like, Ash had known—at least in theory—why heats were called that. But the reality had been something else.
He’d been so hot. So feverish. Empty. Uncomfortable in his own fucking skin.
The only relief had been when he’d been stuffed full, squeezing on a knot so hard it was a mystery he hadn’t broken anyone’s dick off.
Not just anyone’s dick. Ryder’s dick. Spencer’s dick.
Spencer fucking Phillips—best friend to one Noah Teller—had fucked Ash. After Ash had climbed on top of him and plopped down on his knot like he’d had a right to it.
Fuck, had he really done that?
“How long is the freak-out going to last?”
Ryder’s gravelly voice had Ash opening his eyes. He blinked blearily. Even his damn eyelids felt crusty.
Ryder looked good, even though he must have been just as sticky and grimy as Ash when it came down to it. He was on his back, muscled arms folded behind his head, his soft cock resting on his upper thigh. That alpha monstrosity was still thick and juicy, even flaccid like that.
Fuck. Remnants of the heat pheromones must be zapping Ash’s brain.
Ryder raised his brows. Right. He’d asked Ash a question.
Ash cleared his throat, which was dry as a damn desert. “Either a minute or a lifetime,” he rasped. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Ryder nodded easily, like either option was fine. “Objectively, there’s nothing to stress about. Everyone enjoyed themselves. No one was hurt or uncomfortable.”
Everyone. No one.
Ash glanced around the room, noting a particular absence. His belly clenched in something close to panic. “Where is he?”
“In the kitchen, from what I can tell. He’s showered and everything. Energetic, that one.”
So Spencer hadn’t left. The hard clench in Ash’s belly loosened just a bit. “And what time is it? Or … what day is it?”
“It’s tomorrow. Morning. Your heat lasted a little over twelve hours. Maybe fifteen, sixteen?”
Okay, yeah, that was doable. At least Ash hadn’t lost whole days to it without warning. Just an afternoon and a bleary, cum-filled night.
Totally fine. Golden, even.
“A shower sounds good,” Ash said hopefully.
That was all it took to push Ryder into action. He stood in one graceful movement, holding out a hand to pull Ash to his feet.
Ash accepted the assist. Fuck, his legs were shaky, all weak-kneed and everything. Ash glared down at them.
“Food will help,” Ryder told him, reading Ash’s mind as per usual.
Food was definitely going to be necessary, but in the meantime, the hot spray of the shower was heaven.
Ash soaped himself up once, twice, three times.
And because it was Ryder in there with him, he felt no shame leaning into that broad body, borrowing its strength while his own muscles recalibrated after what had to be at least the equivalent of a marathon.
It wasn’t like Ash was some delicate flower, but the intensity of a heat would take its toll on anyone, no matter how fierce. He wasn’t even that sore … there. His body must have stretched and slicked its way into healing quickly.
He still hated the fucking shaking.
“What did you think I’d be?” he found himself asking sometime later, his forehead pressed to Ryder’s back while Ryder washed himself.
Ryder took a moment to answer. “I could have seen you as any of it, I guess. Alpha, beta, omega, whatever. You’re not just one thing. You’re you. You’re Ash.”
It was a nice fucking thing to say. Maybe even the perfect thing.
Ash breathed in deep. “Your pheromones aren’t as intense today.” He could still smell the woodsy scent, but it was almost lost under the clean fragrance of the soap and shampoo they’d been using.
“Yours are gone,” Ryder told him.
Ash straightened with a start, propping a hand against the shower wall when the movement almost made him topple. “What?”
He didn’t understand his own panic. He hadn’t even decided how he felt about his omega pheromones in the first place. But still—he’d just gotten them. How could they be gone already?
Ryder immediately turned and tugged Ash into his chest, running a soothing hand down his spine. “Hey, it’s no big deal. The doctor said it might happen between heats until things stabilize. Basically, your body’s running between two extremes while it figures everything out.”
Oh. Right. Ash hadn’t really heard that part. He’d been in the middle of a different panic episode at the time.
He should really stop having those. They were annoying as fuck.
He let out a long, slow breath. “Okay. I get it. Temporary blank slate.” He stepped out of Ryder’s hold, motioning for him to continue his shower. He was suddenly anxious to be done with it, no matter how heavenly the hot water felt. “Are we taking too long in here, you think? Is he gonna leave?”
Ryder rinsed off with a low chuckle. “He’s not leaving.”
“Why not?”
“Because I told him he wasn’t allowed to leave before you woke up.”
Of course. Ryder had been a bossy asshole during Ash’s heat, hadn’t he? Pulling top-dog alpha moves all over the place.
It had been hot as hell, of course. Especially the way Spencer had let him do it, so eager to please he’d have been wagging his tail if he’d had one.
“You kissed him,” Ash said now. He could remember it clearly, as well as the hot flash of possessive rage that had made him push Ryder away. Damn, heats were weird.
“Well,” Ryder countered, “you did a lot more than kiss him.”
Ash choked on air. He couldn’t think about that right now.
Uh-uh. No way. He couldn’t think about Spencer’s thick cock in his mouth, his hard knot filling him up, his soft lips sucking Ash down.
Just like he couldn’t think about Ryder pounding into him so hard and so perfectly Ash had almost broken into tears from the pleasure.
No. Ash needed to focus on the present. He’d had a sense yesterday, right when his heat had started. A sense of things clicking into place. Big things. Maybe permanent things. He needed a clear head if he wasn’t going to fuck it all up.
“I’m hungry,” he announced.
Ryder turned off the water, gesturing for Ash to head out the shower door. “Then let’s go see what your little crush has made us for breakfast.”
The crush in question was making pancakes, apparently.
He was also prancing around shirtless in their tiny kitchen, wearing joggers that were very clearly the only thing covering his lower half. Of course Spencer would go commando.
Ash’s mouth watered, even though he was so spent his dick couldn’t have filled even if Spencer had dropped to his knees and stuck his pierced tongue out in offering.
Or maybe it was the scent of frying pancake batter that was getting Ash’s saliva going. Who could say? It smelled fucking good; he knew that much.
Spencer whirled in place as soon as he heard them, beaming at their arrival.
“My dudes!” he cried. “I’m making pancakes.
You don’t have any bacon, which is, like …
why? But you’ve got the good kind of syrup, so that’s dope.
I make damn good pancakes. I mean, they fuck with my macros, but this is a special occasion, you know? ”
That was a lot to respond to. As was the fact that Spencer had an unconcerned air about him that suggested they’d just spent the night playing video games, not banging each other’s brains out.
How was he so damn unaffected?
Ash said the only thing he could think of in response. “Coffee?”
Spencer made a face, and Ryder shuffled to the coffee maker. “I’ve got it.” He gave Ash a look. “Like he said, special occasion.”
At least he wasn’t going to withhold the caffeine.
Spencer stayed where he was, back to grinning at Ash as he stood there, spatula in hand. How someone could look so hot and so dorky at the same time was a mystery.
Ash waited him out, and Spencer eventually waved the spatula in what seemed to be a celebratory gesture. “Spitfire, you did it! First heat totally conquered. You were the perfect—”
“Uh-uh,” Ash interrupted, pointing an accusatory finger at Spencer’s defined chest. “If you spout any of that ‘perfect little omega’ shit outside of a heat, I swear to god I’ll twist your nut sack so hard it rips right the fuck off.”
Spencer blanched, his grin immediately dropping. He turned wide, horrified eyes to Ryder. “Dude. What the fuck?”
Ryder only slapped a hand to Spencer’s shoulder, giving him a little shake. “Ash always wakes up cranky.”
“Duly fucking noted.” Spencer laughed, turning back to the stove. “Damn, spitfire. My testicles retreated all the way back inside my body. They’re scared of you now.”
Ash scoffed. He could have said a little something about that damn nickname, too, but he decided to leave it. He was just laying down the law, not trying to scare Spencer off completely.
Also, it maybe wasn’t the worst he’d ever heard.
Things started looking up when Ash finally had a tower of pancakes stacked all the way to his chin in front of him, each one of them perfectly light and fluffy.
He smothered that shit in maple syrup, using practically the whole bottle.
Ryder was usually the one with the sweet tooth, but maybe postheat sugar cravings were a thing.
Ash lost himself in the pleasure of refueling his calorie-deprived body, noting that the alphas packed away their share as well.
And then it was just the three of them at their dinky kitchen table, staring at one another over empty plates. Even Spencer seemed to have finally succumbed to the awkwardness.
Weirdly, it was Ryder who broke the silence. “You did really well,” he told Spencer gruffly. “Helping out.”
Spencer flushed, spots of pink blooming high on his cheeks. It was kind of fascinating—Ash had never seen him blush before. But then, he’d never seen someone praise Spencer so sincerely before either.
“Oh. Well. Nothing to it.”
Ash decided there was no better or worse time to dive right the fuck in. “My heats are going to be erratic for a while,” he announced. “Unpredictable. Intense. We may need more help.”
Spencer nodded, fiddling with his fork without making eye contact. “So you’re gonna call heat services?”
“What? Fuck no. I’m not fucking random alphas.” Ash was starting to get really fucking annoyed with how many times he’d been forced to make that statement. He leaned forward, spearing Spencer with his gaze. “I’m asking you. You and Ryder.” Ryder shifted next to him, and Ash added, “Please.”
“Oh.” Spencer blinked at him. “I mean, if you— You’re sure you don’t …?”
Ash didn’t know what self-deprecating nonsense Spencer was trying to mumble, but he cut it off. “We want you.” And since it couldn’t fucking hurt, he added another, “Please. This is— It’s a lot.”
Spencer’s gaze softened—apparently a little vulnerability really got to him. He nodded slowly. “Okay. Yeah, sure. Of course. Okay.”
Got him.
“And we’re not telling Noah.”
Spencer blanched. “Wait. But, like—”
Ash cut him off again. He knew he was being an asshole, but his fatigue was making him sharper than he wanted to be.
“Until my pheromones show up for good and necessitate some big omega reveal, I’m not ready to tell.
” He narrowed his eyes at Spencer’s panicky face.
“And it’s my thing to share, not yours.”
“No, of course. Sure. Of course.”
He looked so uncomfortable. Poor fucking baby.
Ash was definitely an asshole for demanding secrecy.
But he really did need a little time to process, and he needed it without his perfect brother getting in the way.
Ash was too raw and rattled to hear anything golden boy Noah might have to say about any of it.
Unfortunately, Ash didn’t have much time to soothe Spencer’s ruffled feathers.
The alpha had to get to his classes for the day—his schedule started earlier than either of theirs.
Ryder saw him out with an ominous, “We’ll be in touch,” and Ash waited until the door was firmly shut before turning to Ryder.
“We’re keeping him.”
If Ryder was at all surprised by the declaration, he didn’t show it. He only cocked his head with a mild, “Are we?”
“We are. I’m right about this, I know I am. You, me, Spencer. It’s a total thing.”
Ryder crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall thoughtfully. “Noah complicates things.”
“I don’t give a shit. I love my brother, but he has Eli now.
He doesn’t get Spencer too.” Ash rubbed his chest when the words came out harsher than he’d wanted.
Fucking possessive bullshit omega hormones.
For the first time in his life, he really understood claiming bites.
If Ash could just, like, gnaw the shit out of Ryder and Spencer’s necks, they wouldn’t have to worry about the rest, would they?
They’d be his. Permanently. Fuck everyone else.
Oblivious to Ash’s slightly sociopathic thoughts, Ryder cocked his head. “He’s notoriously hard to catch.”
“Well, the people who tried before weren’t us, were they? We’ll woo the fuck out of him if we have to.”
Ryder’s lips twitched, like he was fighting a smile. But Ash knew him too well to be fooled—Ryder was so fucking on board it was ridiculous. “A subtler approach might be more effective.”
“Fine. But we’re doing it,” Ash pressed. He wanted verbal fucking confirmation. “The three of us.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Ash wasn’t. Everything about this felt right. Good. Maybe even perfect.
Ryder arched a brow, and Ash grinned, leaning in close, his nose millimeters away from Ryder’s strong jaw.
“Aw,” he crooned, his breath ghosting over Ryder’s stubbled skin.
“Do I need to woo you, too, Ryder? Should I be out buying you flowers instead of pulling you into an impulsive, heat-induced throuple?”
Ash pulled back, and Ryder gave him a hard, unimpressed stare. Ash waited him out—contrary to popular belief, he could be patient when he needed to be—and Ryder’s stare slowly morphed into a small, perfect smirk. “No, bright eyes. You don’t need to woo me.”
Fuck yes. Ash grinned fiercely. They were doing this.
They just had to get through an unknown number of unpredictable heats first. And also keep a secret from Ash’s beloved brother, who Spencer worshipped like he was the fucking sun.
But they’d cross that rotting bridge when they came to it. And they’d already survived the first heat just fine, hadn’t they?
Really, how bad could it be?