Chapter 19
Everything smells so good.
Like a springtime garden after a storm has passed through.
But I'm dry and warm. My omega is blissed out.
She's sated, and finally at ease. There's something so snuggly and warm and safe wrapping around me.
Everything feels so comfortable and… right.
I don't want to move. I don't want to open my eyes.
But my bladder seems to have other ideas.
Ugh. With a pang of regret, I force my eyelids open.
The first faint hints of dawn sneak through the open windows. But between me and the streaks of light are… huh.
I glance around, my sluggish brain finally catching up with my body.
There was sex. Spectacular sex. The kind of sex I dreamed about when hoping that the worst thing I'd be left with after an alpha I'd found on Packr showed up to "help" with my heat would be a UTI and an obscene pile of laundry.
The kind of sex I'd always fantasized about when I was white knuckling my way through heats with a handful of knotted vibrators and a prayer in my linen-cupboard-cum-nest in my crappy K-town apartment.
A possessive, fair and freckled arm is curled around me, pulling me gently towards a warm chest. And there's a mop of chestnut brown, curly hair wedged in front of my face.
I had sex, really good sex, incredibly good sex, with Allen and Ralph and James and Seb and Zeke.
Holy heck.
I banged a pack.
A kind, caring, sexy pack. A pack that smells better than anything I can remember. A pack who actually want to hear what I have to say, even when I don't have all the words to say it perfectly.
And I didn't even have to go on Heatseekers to find them.
I gently pull my arm away, trying not to make any sudden movements, despite the urgency from my bladder. I ease myself down the mattress, and nearly collect whoever is sprawled at the end of the bed with my foot, only just making out their form before I kick straight into them.
It's hard to accidentally avoid colliding with one of them as I shuffle my way around them.
I can just make out three doors in the faint light. The first leads to a cupboard stuffed with suitcases and… pool floats that smell faintly of chlorine. Huh. Weird. The second, to an open-plan kitchen and family room, where another two dark forms are snoring faintly on the sofa.
And the third, to the bathroom my bladder is screaming to find.
Inside, I notice that I'm wearing a clean, white t-shirt that smells like herby lemony freshness wrapped with lavender and petrichor, and I'm surprisingly… not disgusting. Not even any panda eyes.
I should be smeared with old makeup and sticky and gross. I glance around the bathroom as I allow my bladder its relief.
Someone has hung my dress on the back of the door. Someone has plugged my phone into charge and put my purse next to it and shoes in front of it. There's a twisting burn in my chest as I mull over what might be expected in return. What cues I might have missed.
But… there haven't been any expectant nudges between my thighs while I was asleep.
No shaking me awake for lectures on why this makes them "good guys", no irritated looks, no passive-aggressive notes.
And I know they haven't recorded it, so I don't have to worry about a hidden cost I wasn't prepared to pay later on.
Maybe… maybe they really do just want to care. My heart melts just a little more.
As I finish, I hear my phone buzz. Making sure the door is shut, I flush the toilet and walk over to the sink—but it isn't my phone buzzing.
It must be one of theirs. My eyes graze over it while I wash my hands. The logo of the alert is… familiar.
Oh.
Oh God.
I know that logo.
It's the Heatseekers app.
And there—across the screen—"A new heat support booking awaits! Will you accept…" Their business that they were all so proud of. Their support business.
Oh no.
No no no no no.
I stare into the mirror above the sink while the water trickles over my hands. Think logically, Adeline Timmerson. Pull yourself together.
I force myself to breathe deeply. I rack my brain for the research I did for Lauren's heat support packs, back when she first registered for Heatseekers—I could never have afforded the app for myself.
Heatseekers isn't some random social media heat support app.
It's not Packr or any gross random hookup.
To be good enough to be allowed to be booked via Heatseekers—all pack members need police clearance and working-with-omega checks, you need to have at least one medically qualified pack member, at least one pack member with a master's in heat support or omega studies, at least one pack member qualified in psychology, psychiatry, counselling or psychotherapy, and there are minimum physical fitness requirements that are on par with the marines.
All packs are bound by strict confidentiality clauses and registered and licensed with the state government.
Heck, the pack I booked for Loz's heat have a PhD and three professional master's degrees between their pack members. Not to mention a former Olympic athlete. Their three-week booking clocked in at over two hundred and fifty grand. And they aren't even, technically, in the highest tier.
These men… they must have shaped their lives around getting their pack on the app. But my omega seems to think that they're hers. But they can't be. If they were, my omega would never let them do the things they have worked so hard for.
I can't be the one who takes this away from them.
And the worst thing is that they seem like the kind of guys who would throw away everything to 'do the right thing.
' I know I haven't known them long enough to know this about them, but…
something in my gut tells me that Allen's ethics wouldn't let him walk away from an omega his pack had slept with who said she was his.
James seems like the kind of alpha who would move his life around for anyone who said he was theirs.
Zeke's kind protectiveness wouldn't let him hurt someone who claimed him as her own.
I can't put them in that position. I just... can't. I'd never be able to forgive myself for stealing that away from them. Hurting them like that.
My omega is confused. She wants her alphas. I try to soothe her, telling her we have to protect them, to keep them safe. But she isn't having a bar of it. My hands are trembling as I dress myself.
I close my eyes, trying to breathe through the building pressure in my chest.
Maybe I could tell them that last night was only a casual thing.
Just for last night and for my next heat.
I picture myself telling them the lie I know they would need to hear, that I just want to keep things casual between us.
I imagine Ralph's face when I tell him that their jobs and our relationship are completely independent—
There's a twanging in my chest and a churning in my gut. I want to throw up. I can feel my lips quivering. I know I have to tell them that, but I know I'll never be that good an actor. Not to get through the conversation without completely falling apart.
… I don't need perfect words to be worth hearing.
I want that to be true. So, so badly. Maybe it is when they're the ones doing the listening. But if they listen to me, when I try to explain why we need to keep things casual, then they'll hear the lie. And then I'll be the one who costs them everything.
… I won't even be able to stay to explain, will I? They will see right through me. And then I'll lose it.
I crack open the door to the bedroom. The shaft of light falls on Seb's peacefully sleeping face, soft with contentment. He turns his head away from me.
I shut the bathroom door.
I don't think I can even face tiptoeing through the room they're in. My omega wants to throw herself on them.
What the hell have I got myself into?
… there's no good way out of here.
Whatever I do next… if I wake them…
My heart is thundering in my chest, a spiral of panic starting to build. My omega is whimpering, demanding her alphas.
I swallow, and glance around again.
The window is big, old fashioned, and has a dangling fly screen. Wincing, I give it a gentle nudge. Mercifully, it opens without a sound.
As my omega fights my every movement, I say a silent goodbye to these incredible men, and slip out the window, taking the shirt that doesn't quite smell enough like all of them with me.