31. Six #2
Taryn’s movements on top of me sped. Her moans against my own wet clit where guttural, primal.
She was chasing her climax, I knew it. Reaching up between our flush bodies, I found one of her nipples, rolling it between two fingers.
My other hand reached back, grabbing as much beta ass cheek as I could, pulling him hard against her, driving him deep.
I gave her nipple a sharp pinch at the same moment I rolled her swollen clit gently between my teeth.
Her slick, her scent, damn near flooded me as she came with a cry.
She leaned her forehead against my pelvis as she bore down against Brooks impaling her and my mouth still teasing her.
I released it from between teeth, only to tenderly, gently suckle it.
All the while, Taryn never quieted. Her legs trembled on either side of my ears.
Eventually, she collapsed on me, breathing heavy.
The rest of us paused, breathing heavy and giving my sweet omega the chance to catch her breath.
None of us expected her giggle. Or the next one. And certainly not the raucous laughter that stole her breath anew.
Brooks gave her a teasing slap on the ass as he said, “Keep laughing like that and I’ll make you come till you cry.”
Taryn rested her cheek on my abdomen, and I could feel her smile as she fought through more laughs to speak. “I just…I was thinking this position”—She was full-on cackling now—“they should call it the sixteen-ninety-one.”
Peeking out from around Taryn’s thigh, I met Brooks’s equally confused face. He looked between me and Lin, still hidden from my view. “Did we fuck the sense right out of her?”
“Orgasm-induced insanity?” Lin put in.
“Cum-sanity?” Brooks responded.
“No, no, no!” Taryn whined, still giggling uncontrollably. “No, because—because Brea and me, we’re sixty-nine , right? And then—then—”
Maybe because I’d known her longer, or maybe some micro-psychic connection through our bond connected the dots for me, and then I was howling too as I explained the rest to the two still very confused men in the room. “And you’re the ones on either side.”
For a moment, it was just me and Taryn giggling into each other’s fleshy bellies and thighs.
Brooks broke first, resting his forehead on Taryn’s spine as he shook with laughter.
When he rolled to the side, pulling Taryn off of me with him, I could see Lin again.
A quizzical look lingered on his face, one brow slightly raised. “What?” I asked.
“Sixteen-ninety-one.” He gave a tiny shake of the head. “Was just thinking, that’s quite the mouthful.” The corner of his mouth twitched, as though he was trying and failing to stymie a laugh of his own. “For two of you, at least.”
That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We roared with laughter again, Lin pulling out and collapsing down next to me. We were a tangle of arms and legs, trembling with rib-cracking laughter.
In that moment, I knew. I knew where our futures lay—at least, where I desperately wanted them to lay. And I knew I’d do whatever I had to, to make sure they did.
I woke on strange sheets, but somehow immediately felt at ease.
In the languid breaths between consciousness returning and when I could pry my lids open, my mind spun over the memories of the night before like a movie reel.
Remembered sensations of heat and touch and breath and ecstasy filtered back to me as I finally blinked open my eyes.
The room was still dark. Still night. All around me, bodies slept.
Lin behind me, Taryn in front, and Brooks behind her, his arms curled around her like a boy with a teddy bear.
Lin seemed to like a little more space when he slept; he lay on his back with his hand pressed against the curve of my ass, the pressure intentional enough that the connection—meager though it was—was undoubtedly desired. Maybe even necessary.
I wondered how Brooks and Lin shared a bed when it was just the two of them. Did Lin have to constantly scrape Brooks off him like a barnacle off a ship? No, that picture didn’t make sense even for a moment. Not when I’d seen myself the quiet smirks they exchanged, the star-filled gazes.
Maybe Lin was cuddlier when he really knew someone, really loved them. Or maybe they’d found a happy medium between them. Hands held between two close-pressed bodies, or maybe Brooks got to be little spoon.
Sweet images of the alpha and beta in various snuggle configurations made me smile. I hoped I’d get to see it for myself someday.
But for tonight, someone was missing.
Quietly as I could, I disentangled myself from the various limbs and crept my way from the bed. I found the first shirt I could in the dark, pulling it over my head as I stepped carefully for the door. It must’ve been Lin’s from the smell alone, though the over-large fit confirmed as much.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to do. To knock on his door or simply slip my way into his room. Both plans flew away as my eye snagged on the silhouette in the living room. Caine’s, standing, gazing out the window that overlooked downtown.
Had he been to sleep yet? Or had we woken him?
When I stepped beside him, he raised the glass I hadn’t noticed in his hand and took a sip, glazed eyes not moving.
He tilted the glass toward me, offering me a sip of my own.
The motion was so small, so easy, I wondered if he realized he’d done it.
I took the glass, raised it, relished the minor sting of the whisky against my lips before handing the glass back.
Caine took it, holding it down by his side. All without a word.
The pained tightness in Brooks’s eyes as he’d spoken of Caine the very first night returned to me then. And Lin’s tense swallow, how he’d clenched his fist. The pain they both felt for their packmate. Their brother who kept himself on the outside.
I didn’t want Caine on the outside of this. And not only because I had zero intention of letting Brooks and Lin slip away from us. But I knew he wouldn’t step inside himself. He needed to be pulled in.
“I used to hate my inner alpha,” I murmured. The air was thick enough, still enough, the sound shocked my ears. “Mostly because my family hated it.” I blew out a stream of breath through pursed lips.
Caine didn’t respond, so I continued.
“If I hadn’t found Taryn, if I’d gone through and married Heath, I’d have been dead inside of a year.” I swallowed, the heat rimming my eyes a grounding force. “By his hand, or my own.”
A muscle twitched in Caine’s cheek, barely a shimmer in my peripheral vision. His voice was a rasp when he spoke. “But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Taryn had saved me. She’d stumbled across a broken husk of a person, of an alpha, and seen a spark. She’d fed it, steadily, diligently, building it brighter and stronger. Rebuilt me brighter and stronger.
“My life didn’t start until her,” I said through a thick throat.
“I’d trade every good thing we’ve fought for just…
just for her. For us.” I took a shaky breath and finally turned my attention to him, still staring out the window.
“And I couldn’t…” Another breath. “I couldn’t ever let anyone in who wouldn’t do the same. ”
A brief flutter of his eyelids betrayed his otherwise stony face. Somehow, though, I felt everything he hid. The confirmation, he believed, that I’d rejected him. Chosen the others but left him on his own.
I raised my hand to his cheek, turning so his eyes met mine. Fire burned behind my eyes and the room blurred. My lips trembled as I stroked my thumb slowly over the stubble on his cheek. His facade cracked then, water rising in his eyes as his breathing sped.
I gave him a little nod. An invitation to finally speak.
To say what he’d never said. Not to me, not to his packmates, maybe not to himself.
Beneath my hand, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding.
I raised my other hand to his other cheek, stroking them more intentionally until he sighed and released the tension he held there.
Caine swallowed. “Everything,” he echoed with a minute nod of his own. “Everything I have, everything I could borrow or steal.” A tear fell onto my thumb, and that alone—that vulnerability he offered me, to see him cry—was promise enough of what he’d do to protect Taryn. To protect Lin, Brooks.
To protect me.
I swallowed, inching closer. “My last breath,” I whispered against his lips.
“My last drop of blood,” he answered.
I closed the gap then, pressing my lips to his for the first time.
Two sharp hisses cut the air, two simultaneous gasps at the heat of the contact.
One arm pulled me in by the small of my back while I tangled my fingers in his dark hair.
I advanced on him, stepping us back until I had him pressed against that window.
In a way, Caine and I understood each other more than anyone else in the world. More even than the three loves of our lives sleeping down the hall. Our alphas, that deepest piece of our souls meant to guide us, to ground us, to give us strength and purpose, had instead been weaponized against us.
Mine, forced into humiliating submission.
His, trapped into isolating dominance.
As his hands reached for the hem of my (well, Lin’s) shirt, searching for my skin, I realized that we could love each other in a way the others would never be able to. Our hurts could become our healing.
His kisses were fevered, but with a gentleness that made me want to sob. We worked our way toward the couch, Caine sitting down, hands never leaving my waist as I straddled him.
It wouldn’t go further than this, not just yet. That wasn’t what this moment was for. This was a question and an answer, a submission and a claiming.
This was Caine choosing to let himself in from the dark outside. Choosing to step into the warmth, the light that was our unlikely little group.