Chapter 13 #2
Jude’s rhythm starts to falter. His thighs are shaking. I can feel him getting close, the way he clenches around me, the way his breathing turns sharp and desperate. Hollis' arms tighten around his waist, holding him steady while he falls apart.
“Come for us,” I say, and thrust up harder. “Let go, Jude.”
He breaks with a soft, broken cry, coming untouched between us. His whole body locks up around me, and I follow him over the edge with a low groan, spilling deep inside him.
Jude slumps forward against my chest, shaking and panting. I wrap one arm around his back and hold him there while he comes down, pressing kisses to his temple and the corner of his eye.
Hollis is still hard behind him. I can feel the tension in his body, the way he’s holding himself back even as his purr stays steady against Jude’s spine. After a moment, Jude shifts, still full of me, and reaches back to touch Hollis' thigh.
“Hollis,” he says, voice hoarse. “You too.”
Hollis makes a low, wanting sound but doesn’t move until I nod.
I slide out of Jude carefully. He makes a soft, oversensitive sound at the loss, but doesn’t pull away.
Hollis' hands are gentle as he guides Jude backward, helping him stay balanced while I move out from under him. Then Hollis is there, pressing against Jude’s back, cock sliding through the mess I left behind.
Jude gasps, forehead dropping to my shoulder as Hollis fills him. Hollis rocks into him in long, deep strokes that make Jude’s breath catch every time. One of Hollis’ arms stays wrapped around Jude’s waist while the other braces on the bed beside his head.
I kiss Jude through it, swallowing the small sounds he makes every time Hollis bottoms out. Hollis’ mouth stays at Jude’s shoulder, his lips dragging over skin, teeth carefully absent.
Jude tenses anyway. Hollis stills immediately. His voice is rough but steady when he speaks against Jude’s skin. “I’m not biting. I promise. Just… kissing. That’s all.”
Jude relaxes by degrees and Hollis starts moving again, slower now.
Every thrust pushes some of my come out around his cock, making everything messier, slicker as my own length pushes between Jude’s thighs.
Jude is shaking between us, overwhelmed and overstimulated, but he doesn’t ask Hollis to stop.
If anything, he pushes back into him, meeting every slow roll of Hollis' hips.
I feel Hollis’ knot swell against my tip as it slides through the mess, one more thrust pushing his knot up into Jude’s ass. Jude makes a broken sound when the knot finally catches, stretching him wide. Hollis buries his face in Jude’s shoulder and groans, as the knot locks inside him.
Jude comes again with a soft, shocked cry, clenching tight around Hollis' knot. The feeling drags Hollis over the edge with him. Hollis comes with a deep, rumbling sound that vibrates through his chest and into Jude’s back, the bond between Hollis and I vibrating with satisfaction.
For a long moment, none of us move, Jude coming down slowly between us.
Hollis' purr softens first, the deep, unsteady rumble easing into something lower against Jude’s back.
I keep one hand where Jude can see it and use the other to press kisses along his face.
He’s shaking in small waves, breath catching every few seconds, but he isn’t pulling away.
He’s tucked against me, his forehead near my collarbone, one hand curled weakly in my shirt like he doesn’t remember grabbing it.
“Stay with us,” I murmur, kissing his cheek again.
Jude makes a sound that might be agreement if he had the energy to shape it. The question comes before I can talk myself out of it. “Is a bite a hard no?”
Jude tenses and Hollis stills behind him so completely the purr almost cuts off. I don’t move my hand. I don’t take the question back either, because Jude deserves the truth of what I’m asking, not a panic correction dressed up as care.
Jude’s fingers tighten in my shirt. Then he shakes his head. “It wouldn’t work.”
I brush my thumb over his knuckles. “Okay.”
“No, I mean it wouldn’t work.” His voice is hoarse, dragged thin from everything that came before this, but his eyes are open now, fixed somewhere below my chin.
“I told you I’m scent-blind, right? That’s only the surface problem.
Pheromones, scents, all of that doesn’t register right, but everything else that bonds mates and pulls them together.
..” He swallows, and Hollis' purr starts again, softer this time.
Jude breathes into it before he keeps going. “None of that works on me, Bishop.”
Hollis' arm shifts around him, then stops before it becomes a hold Jude didn’t ask for.
“He could bite me a thousand times,” Jude says, quieter.
“It would never make a mate bond. I can’t have a heat properly either.
Sometimes it’s nothing. Sometimes it’s too much and I’m not really there for it.
There’s no middle I can trust.” His mouth twists, but the expression doesn’t become a joke.
“I can’t have a pack. Not the way an Omega is supposed to. ”
I kiss him slowly, enough that he has to feel my answer before I put language around it. When I pull back, his eyes are wet, angry about it, and looking straight at me.
“You don’t need a bite to claim us,” I tell him. “You don’t need a bond that works the way everyone else says it should. If you want us, you have us.”
Jude’s breath catches. Behind him, Hollis presses his forehead to Jude’s shoulder and makes a rough sound into his skin.
I look over Jude’s head at him. “Show him.”
Hollis' lashes lift. He hesitates, then reaches for the collar of his shirt and pulls it aside enough for Jude to see the tattooed mark at the curve of his shoulder. Jude’s gaze follows the movement, confused at first.
“It’s Bishop’s,” Hollis says. His voice is soft, stripped of every joke he usually hides behind. “Betas can’t bite Alphas and make it permanent. Not the way an Alpha bite works. So we made it permanent another way.”
Jude stares at the mark.
“I wanted people to know,” Hollis continues, purr uneven now. “I wanted me to know. It still counts because we chose it. That’s why it counts.”
Jude goes very quiet. I cup his face, keeping my touch light until his gaze comes back to mine. “A bite isn’t the only way to belong to someone.”
His eyes close for a second. When they open again, some of the panic has drained out of them, leaving exhaustion and want and the first fragile edge of belief. “Can we just start with this?” he asks. “With you guys and me. With... an us. Before we make it into something I can’t do right.”
Hollis' purr deepens immediately, but he stays still this time. He keeps himself steady for Jude, even though I can see every part of him wanting to answer too fast.
“I’m on board with that,” I say.
Jude lets out a breath that almost breaks at the end. His forehead drops to my chest, and I kiss the top of his head while his hand finds mine on the sheet.
Hollis waits another few seconds, then says, very carefully, “Does this version of us include more cuddles?” He thrusts forward in his excitement, completely forgetting that he was inside Jude.
Jude’s lips part in ecstasy before he regains his composure, his head falling against my chest. “Hollis is impossible. Fuck, your Alpha—”
“Our Alpha,” I murmur as Jude shifts between us, overwhelmed and boneless, and Hollis' purr rolls warmer when Jude doesn’t move away from him. Jude lifts his head enough to glare over his shoulder, but the effect is ruined by how soft his mouth looks.
“Yes,” Jude says. “It includes more cuddles.”
Hollis closes his eyes like he’s been handed something holy. “Good.”