30. Kai
CHAPTER 30
Kai
For a minute, I can’t figure out where I am. I wake up with the glands in my throat swollen like watermelons. I reach for the nightstand and that’s when I see her small form, silhouetted in the light slipping in my open hotel bedroom door from the larger common area outside.
“Kai,” she whispers.
I pull back the covers and half-sit up. I take a sip of the water I left on the nightstand, then I gesture, and she enters, quietly closing the door behind her.
With the dim light of the bedside lamp, I can see she’s wearing Holden’s giant t-shirt and the shorts she pulled on after the show. I know they all had sex—the scent from her glands and the whiff of slick tell the tale of what happened after I went to bed. Not that I expected any less. But I’m surprised she’s here now.
I don’t know why. If she’s been with them all twice now, she must have interest in our pack. Which includes me.
Unless she’s doing this just to kill me.
“Jez,” I say, glancing at my phone on the nightstand. “It’s 5:15. Are you okay?”
Then it occurs to me. “You’re still here. Do you want me to walk you back to your room?” I rub my head. The sore throat isn’t as bad. Mostly now I just feel tired. Juice and vitamins and a ginger shot and some coffee in a few hours and I’ll be doing a whole lot better.
She walks over to the bedside and sits down, placing a hand on the cover beside her. She blinks, and I see her eyes dry but wide in the ambient city lights slanting in through the blinds.
“I just want to get warm. Can I join you?”
Her voice is soft, but not afraid.
Please don’t break me .
“Of course, Jez.” I pull the covers back, a little irritated the others left her to presumably sleep on the sofa out there, but everyone was drinking so much it isn’t a surprise. And if she’d wanted to head out, she would’ve.
The fact is, she’s still here. You arsehole, she’s here for you.
I struggle to believe that, but as her warm body slips in beside me and she turns to face away so that I’m the big spoon behind her, I feel my Alpha roaring up, reading to accept that this is her way of telling me the truth I’ve longed to hear.
She really is beautiful. Determined, focused, fiercely independent, ambitious, hard-working.
Holds a grudge like a pro, I think with a smile.
The truth of the matter is, I’m in rut. Part of the reason I caught this fucking cold, since being in rut lowers an Alpha’s immunity while everything in the body hyper-focuses on following the sex drive wherever it leads. And painfully so.
The early warnings of this rut came yesterday morning, but I know pretty well by now how to keep it under wraps. I usually end up catching some cold or generally feeling shit, but that’s the worst that tends to happen.
Right now though, lying alongside the Omega who should be ours, my desire for her is so strong I feel like a walking volcano.
Suddenly I know I need space between us or I’m going to break and ask her if she’s here for something more than cuddling. I don’t want to be the one to start that. She had no trouble with the others. There’s a reason she’s struggling to reveal her needs to me, and it’s because I damn near ruined her career before it really got up to speed. And I don’t know how to forgive myself. If I ever can.
I roll over to face the opposite wall, allowing a couple feet of space between us, then grunt a good night, even though every cell in my fucking body is screaming for the opposite. “We need to get to sleep,” I murmur hoarsely. She rolls back to face me, probably giving me a look, but I won’t verify this. I need her to know she’s so welcome in my space, but I don’t need to let her see me fall apart.
My cock is hard as granite, but I try to picture any mundane image that can help me sooth the Alpha in me that’s roaring his battle-cry.
After a few minutes of sharing the darkness, a sudden light flares. I turn slightly and she’s—she’s scrolling on her phone . In bed with me. Like this is normal, for us to be sharing a bed, our arses nearly touching, and she’s just doom-scrolling away or texting friends!
Un-fucking-believable.
“Any chance you can turn that light down a little?” I grumble. God, don’t you know I want to take you in my arms and kiss every inch of your body and bring you all the pleasure you could possibly imagine? Don’t you know? Please, please just go to sleep so we can get through this.
“Huh,” she says. “Just roll over and put your eye mask on, princess,” she says, tiredness probably dulling the sarcasm that would otherwise be in her voice.
Even still, the light from her phone dims. But I do roll back over and close my eyes, drawn in by the intense pain in my groin, shooting up through my insides. I have needs, my Alpha’s needs. But primary among them is the need to protect her, to have her know she’s our Omega, and she will be the center of our world, our love, and our service—if she can deign to allow me that closeness.
I won’t sleep but I drift into a limbo, eyes squeezed shut, allowing myself to picture her body as it swayed on the stage, one hip jutting out and a long, shapely arm thrown up in the air, her other hand clutching the sequined mic as she reached for her highest note of the night. I wanted to be that mic in her hand, at the height of her power and performance and giving her all in that moment.
God. I can’t do this.
“I can’t sleep,” Jez announces, at what feels like pub-level decibels. “Can I cuddle with you?”
“Ah, of course, Jez. No funny business.” I’m not sure if I’m warning her or myself, but I give a dry chuckle. Her nervous, performative laugh in reply makes this entire pantomime more devastating.
“We need to sleep,” she says in agreement.
“And we will,” I say. Gently I slide an arm beneath hers and around her waist, holding her to me but not gripping tight, or taking advantage of this closeness.
After a few moments, her body turns, and the heat it emanates rolls into me like thunder across a humid field at night. My skin soaks it in, but the pain in my abdomen and balls is fucking killing me.
I close my eyes tight, but try with all my might to relax my face. I’d die if she knew how much effort this is demanding, but showing her she’s welcome without a single string attached feels like the most important step forward, if I could make it.
Then, she touches me.
I felt the strand of hair fall into my face. Her small, calloused fingertip reaches up to gently pluck it away. I pop one eye open and she’s staring wide at me.
“You have amazing eyelashes,” she says.
I stare back. “Yours aren’t so bad yourself.”
It’s almost like staring at a gorgeous and rare tropical fish in an aquarium. Glass between us. Knowing I’m not here to touch, certainly not to take home. Just to watch. Memorize. And wonder.
Then, that hand of hers finds mine under the blanket. She pulls it up toward her and places my hand against her breast.
And like an electric charge from a lightning storm raising every hair on my body, I am sparked to life, her soft skin against my palm and her hard nipple drilling into my own callouses. But instead of a lightning crash of heat or her reaching down for my cock, her mouth leaps to mine, and we press together like two seeking oxygen after too long under water.
And she tastes—oh, she tastes of everything I’d ever dreamed of, held at arm’s length. Now it’s right in front of me and she’s offering herself.
“Kai,” is all she says between our tongues and lips exploring each other. Her springtime scent flares and blooms, intensifying to a honeysuckle and rose combination. Even her hair smells like heaven. I lower my lips to the base of her neck and nip at her skin there gently with my teeth, teasing her, knowing how badly I want to mark her. No idea if that’s her desire as well. For now, I’ll take whatever she gives me and not ask for more.
“I wanted you before. Back then. And I want you now. If you can forgive me for holding so much against you, when really, you were just doing your job,” she says, and I nearly cry. I hold her tight to me, this small frame, this beautiful seraphim with a halo of blue and a heart of gold.
“I don’t know how you could possibly take any blame for yourself. But we can call it even, really. If you can forgive me. The truth,” I pause, leaning my head down toward her still-clothed chest, inhaling the sweet scent of her breasts and placing my face between them under Holden’s t-shirt. “The truth is I received a message from someone once close to you. And when I learned of your anxiety, I used that as a barrier. Because I knew you were our Omega. I’d scented you then, and I could barely contain myself. It was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“So why did you?” Jez cocks her head, but to my great relief, she doesn’t look angry or pull away or fucking knee me in the nuts.
I bite my lip then inhale. Here we go.
“We had an Omega. You may remember Kitestring. Her name was Nyah, their bassist. When we toured together, she joined our pack, and we were all in love with her. Not a scent match, but real love, we thought, anyhow. She left the second tour ended, off to the next band, not a care in the world or a backward glance, just a, ‘That was fun, boys, thanks for the good times.’ Literally left us like that. Come to find out it had more or less been a dare. To see if she could bag all of us, get us to mark her. She’s an anti-packer. And she wanted to break us.”
“And she did,” Jez says quietly, her eyes keeping mine locked in. They fill with a sorrow and am empathy, her long lashes damp and blinking, but her gaze never leaving mine.
I do not deserve this.
“Communication is always the reason for any breakdown, any stumble that I’ve ever known in my life,” Jez says softly. “And now you’ve shared this. And I can share my experience—my ex, I don’t think, was an actual Alpha. I’ve been giving it thought. I felt like I couldn’t handle a pack if all Alphas were like him. But you’re not. And I don’t think he was one to begin with.”
I want to tell her it was Tristan who told us about her, but now doesn’t feel like the time. Besides, given what she’s just said, she probably knows anyhow.
Soon, her lips are on mine, opening wide to me. She rolls me onto my back, stronger than she looks. The light of London’s early morning outside slips in through the blinds even more, now, and as she pulls my boxers off and my cock springs up before her unwavering gaze, the hunger in my belly to spread my seed inside her lurches forward.
“You don’t need to do that right now,” I say, “as much as I want that, I want to make you feel good first. Always.”
Will there be an always?
She stares at me as I now roll her onto her back gently, and she nods, with a smile and a bite of those luscious cherry lips. Her blue hair fans out around her like a siren of the deep who’s won her prey at last. But it’s the other way around, I’m sure. I’m the one who dared to dream this beauty would call to me, and invite me anywhere near her.
I lift her hips up and pull her shorts and panties off, sending the soaked wad of clothes to the floor. She pulls the t-shirt from her bare skin, and her full breasts swell under my gaze, her rose-colored nipples tight and hard in the air. My hands reach down for them, pinching and teasing them gently, drawing her quickened breath and gasps out like notes in a song.
And then I bury my mouth in that warm, inviting pussy, and slip my tongue inside to taste her for the very first time. The explosion of her first orgasm a second later is all the invitation I need. I hear the shower run in the bathroom and know the guys are awake. We are a pack, and we should serve her body together, but this moment—this is mine. She’s given it to me, and that’s the only reason I feel free to accept it.
I lift her hips higher as I lean back and pull them to my cock, sliding in between those pink, swollen folds as her body still bucks with the coursing orgasm. And before that first orgasm ends I slip one thumb to her clit, working it in gentle circles as I continue to press deeper into her.
I slip inside her up to my knot and feel my balls slap gently against her ass as she props her upper body up by the elbows, head thrown back against the pillow.
“Fuck me, Kai Hartley. Fill me with your knot. I want to feel it … all of it, inside me.”
Her musical murmur nearly pulls me over the edge, this rut so bright and sharp in my mind like a star about to explode.
“Are you ready? I’ve been in a rut for twenty-four hours and this might go quick, and it might seem like—a lot.”
She looks up at me for a moment, then grins, maybe nervously, and nods. “I’ve dreamed of this for a long time. Even when I hated you, I wanted you, dammit. Fuck me, Kai.”
With that, I grip her ass in my hands, like two gorgeous peaches, and jerk her body toward mine. My cock slams into her over, and over, and over, as she cries out, not holding back, saying my name until all I hear is her angel voice singing like a heavenly chorus.
My knot’s swollen as large as I’ve ever seen it, and finally, I whisper roughly, “Here it comes, baby, are you ready?”
“I’m ready. Give me your knot,” she pants, sweat rolling down her temples, her hair now matted against the bed. Our bodies are so wet it feels like we’re in the sea as we slam together, and on the next thrust, I shove my entire cock inside her.
I feel my knot wrench her opening apart as it buries itself in as deep as it can go, my cock ready to burst. And then I let go at last.
My seed jets out inside and I continue to circle her clit with one thumb until she shudders in my aftermath, her own orgasm just seconds later.
I move to pull out but she throws up an arm, guiding me down to the bed beside her. We twist together so we’re both on our sides now, facing each other again. My knot’s still lodged in her thighs, and it’s very slow to deflate.
Fucking hell, that was everything.
“Kai Hartley, I do believe you are every bit as miraculous in a rut as you are on the stage.”
“You’re the only stage I want to be on,” I say. “And if that’s cheesy as hell, I don’t care.”
I kiss her mouth and she presses into me. We both feel my knot begin to relax, and all the muscles inside her that have squeezed the life out of my dick are also taking a moment to climb down from that high.
I run a hand through her silky waves and say, “Jesamine Jacobs, will you be our Omega?”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll open for you any night you wish to perform, Kai Hartley.”
We dissolve into exhausted giggles, and after I pull myself out of her glorious folds and draw her back and ass up against me, I whisper, “I will never deserve this. But I will always serve you alone, Jez.”
* * *
It’s 9:17 a.m. when I check the time on my phone again. Jez stretches beside me like a little cat before realizing she has no clothes on. But it seems like a passing shock because she turns around, sits up on her knees, and smiles down at me.
“It’s still way too fucking early, but I should get back to my room and get cleaned up.” She digs around inside the sheets for Holden’s t-shirt and her shorts, pulls it all back on, then stands as I prop myself up, elbow on the pillow. Only then does a blush of pink cheeks hint at the awkwardness of a morning after. Or in our case, a few hours after.
“What’re you guys doing before soundcheck today?”
Before I open my dried-out mouth, I swallow and feel down the sides of my neck. Swelling has gone down. Maybe in our activities in the wee hours my body decided that it was done tormenting me. I test my voice out with a slight cough, but it feels surprisingly okay.
“I need to hit the gym at some point. Been too many days. Probably lunch somewhere nearby. Do you and your band fancy joining us?”
She runs a hand through her wild hair and blinks a few times. “Ugh, my contacts are stuck to my eyeballs. God, I need to get some coconut water in me. Ugh. Anyhow, I can’t today. A meeting with Ferny and Ash, and then some promo work. Tonight Viv’s coming to the show at last, she and her pack. But thank you. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Ah, that’s great. Excited?”
“I am. It feels like months since I’ve seen her. And she just got discharged from the hospital.”
I raise a brow.
“Tough pregnancy. All fine but she’s got pregnancy sickness really bad.”
I nod. I don’t have that many good friends who’ve had pups, but the few I do have spent anxious months anxiously watching their Omegas through the ordeal. I’ve only just shared one flash of time with this amazing woman, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t wondered how she would do carrying our pups.
God. How has it all changed so quickly? The fear of losing it even quicker gnaws at me. I force a wide smile.
“I’ll put on my best performance for the great and mysterious Viv, tonight.”
Jez giggles. “Be sure to. And if you can, come around to our dressing room after your soundcheck so she can say hi.”
“Anything, Jesamine.”
I know she goes by Jez professionally, but Jesamine is too beautiful a name to pass up whenever I can sneak it in.
She smiles and her tired eyes blink a few more times at me, but that big gorgeous grin is enough to keep me floating through a shower, catch-up with the other guys, coffee down in the hotel breakfast room because my stomach can’t handle much more, and all the way to the email I open while scrolling idly through my inbox.
From: Tristan West
Subject: Jez
I see you all have kissed and made up. Does she know you used that private message I sent you and against her on that show? Bet she hated that. Control freak. Can’t believe she’s even agreed to open for the band she loved more than anything before that debacle. “They broke my heart. Hope I get the chance to break theirs someday.” She was hard fucking work, mate. Good luck with that. Anyhow, I’ll be playing your tunes all night tonight to get the crowd ready for your gig here tomorrow in Bristol. Always been a fan.
-T.
I swipe closed my mail app the second the words flash up in my brain, and return to the conversation Thomas, Nico, and Holden are excitedly having with Ash and Steve. I rush back to the present, to our show tonight, to our responsibilities, and our job.
And if my heart beats a bit wonkier, a bit fearful, a bit on the edge of feeling utterly, utterly crushed, I do my best to stuff it far down. I lift my orange juice glass as Holden says, “You need to hear it, Kai. Let’s get to a hire studio for a few hours before tonight. We can run it by you and see if it’s something we can work into tonight’s set. It would set her heart on fucking fire , mate.”
I nod numbly, and wonder if that would help or hurt whatever is really going on.
An hour later we’re set up in the small practice space that Ash and Steve hired for two hours before soundcheck. We can always use the time to polish things up, but they’ve been banging on about a tune they started working on with Jez last night. And I do remember hearing them play and sing, but I’d forgotten til they mentioned it. I’d taken some medicine for the swollen throat before falling asleep, and once Jez woke me—well, everything else fell away from my mind by that point.
“So if it’s not got a name, what’re we calling it?” I ask, as I stomp my pedal tuner off and do some quick scales. Nico sets a hand-scrawled lyric sheet on the music stand before me.
“I just finished fleshing these out in the hotel bar. We’ll come up with a name later. Right now let’s just get you familiar with the main gist.”
The boys start playing and Holden’s back on drums, singing the main melody, which is a hooky octave slide, and then the verses are different enough that they lead you to think you’re about to hear a different kind of song—and honestly, I love it. It’s quirky, it’s mid-tempo, and could do with a really good jangly guitar.
“Hey guys, what do you reckon, better if I play acoustic on this than electric?” I ask.
Thomas just bobs his head as he meanders around on a quietly insistent bass line. Holden keeps singing to give me a reference, so Nico’s the one that says, “Yeah, mate, that would suit. Jez was playing your part on acoustic in the first place and since that’s how it was born, I think maybe we ought to stay true to that vibe.”
We work on it another forty minutes or so. It’s pretty rough and raw, but maybe that’s the sort of change we need from our practiced-to-death, carved in concrete setlist with only one surprise song a night. We used to change up the setlist every night but found that more often than not, fans would get fucked off when they didn’t get to hear a favorite that we’d played the night before. Especially when it’s two nights in the same city. Then they can get really pissy. Which, to be fair, I do understand.
As we sit down for a hydration break before running through it one more time, Holden parks beside me on a monitor. “How’re you feeling then? Sounding pretty healthy. You look better too.” He cracks a grin.
“I think she’s fucking magic,” I say, beaming back. “And you lot writing this, well, it’s a pretty genius little tune actually.”
“Could really appeal to the younger crowd, the newer fans. And might give the older ones a bit of a shock,” Holden notes.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a bit of a deviation, but she’s injected fresh life into us. What can I say.”
Holden grins back at me and punches me in the shoulder. “About fucking time,” he says.