33. Kai
CHAPTER 33
Kai
On our second and final night in Rome, before we have an entire week off gigs, Jez walks out of her dressing room and my heart leaps into my throat. I may or may not have been hanging around outside, waiting for her to head to the stage to start her set, but she smiles wide and blushes when she sees me. She takes my outstretched hand and we walk together.
How this force of nature Omega came to be in our sphere at all still feels like a miracle. And all she has done all this time was be herself. We just let our own selves get in the way.
“How’re you feeling?” I turn to her as we approach the stage. I place a kiss on her head and inhale her hair, the scent of sweet spring and life that we’ve missed out on for so long. I want to run my fingers through her silky hair and slide them under the straps of her sun dress, but now is most definitely not the time or place.
She shyly shrugs one shoulder up then squeezes my hand.
“So much better.” Her voice returned after a few days of rest, and we’ve all stayed off social media, by order of Ash, Ferny, and Steve. Just spend the time off together, and resting, and drinking nothing but water. Get in the headspace you need for the weeks to come, now that you’re sorting yourselves out.
“Not nervous?” I ask, as she turns to look me in the eye. Her bold red lipstick perfectly outlines her full lips as she takes a smiling inhale.
“Not really nervous. More like tentative about how this’ll be received.”
“I really think not reading any reviews or stories online was a good idea. Yes, we’re here to entertain and give them their money’s worth, but you have to assume they spent the money because they want to see us as we are—that we’re not influenced by the online stories or posts by the minority.” I place both hands on her shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze. “And if they came out to see us mud-wrestling or lobbing guitars at each other, they’re not the fans we want anyhow, right?”
“I know you’re right.” Jez scratches lightly at the inside of her forearms, the telltale sign of anxiety creeping in. I give her a quick hug and a kiss on the forehead.
“You’re going to nail it. It’s our performance we ought to be worried out.” I wink.
The venue house lights dim and Jez and her band make their way to their places on stage. I join Holden, Thomas, and Nico standing with Ash to watch from stage left.
The crowd seems enormous, the way they’re spread out at this venue, and their rolling screams and applause seems to almost physically hit Jez, as she rocks back slightly on her heels.
“Well hello, Rome,” she chirps as she strums the intro to her first number. The cheers skyrocket, and the evening sun glowing orange on the horizon seems to paint the stage with a majestic, watercolor glow.
Jez flawlessly bounds through her tunes, and the set flies by. I don’t want it to end, and as I glance out at the approving crowd, I know she’s where she belongs. As she draws her final song to a close from the end of the catwalk, I see her kneel down.
My heart palpitates as I check the backstage screens for signs of her falling, panicking, or otherwise struggling. But the camera shows her kneeling speaking to the crowd at the front, her eyes shining.
The camera zooms in, revealing a long fabric banner held by five fans in the crowd. It reads, Grazie Jez for speaking out on anxiety disorders 3 You have our back I know how Holden connected with her style, her voice, and her music from the day we met her but never felt he could say so—that she was what he’d listened to in his headphones all this time; and I know how Nico felt unspoken inferiority with his favorite relative Enzo, and Jez alone told him what he’d needed to hear for so long.
All of the time spent struggling could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t let fear steer me. Right now I don’t know how to ever let go of that guilt. As happy as I am we found her and she found us, really found us , the guilt whispers it will never leave my side.
* * *
The bus is parked behind the hotel and we haven’t been on it since checking in. At least, I haven’t been on it. But as it’s Jez’s first time on tour, I’ve gotten the sense she needs that familiarity of something consistent, even if we’re not traveling or sleeping on it every day. Or, in fact, most days.
Holden flicks all the lights on in the main common area as Jez leads us back to her room. “So, dumb question, but how is this thing powered if it’s not running?” She sticks the key back in her pocket.
“Plugged into shore power,” I say. “Like caravan parks have, but a bit more reliable I’d say.”
“Except for that one time in Italy,” Holden notes. Enzo grumbles.
“You bring that up every time. That is not the whole of the country’s fault.”
“I didn’t say it?—”
I hold up a hand and they stow it as Jez slides the pocket door to the side and my jaw flies open. Even Nico, who’s been in here before, looks a bit stunned.
“Had some downtime to decorate, I take it?” I ask.
Jez grins and nods. She waves her hands like a game show host at the walls of the small space which has been transformed into a pastel dream. Along with twinkling fairy lights entwined with light pastel Christmas tinsel, giving a disco ball ambience to the place, she has papered the walls and ceiling with not one but three murals.
The ceiling resembles a wide open blue sky with a few stray puffy white clouds. Wrapped around the back and a bit of the sides of the room are two other blue-sky photo murals which stops just short of the windows. Light gauzy curtains hang over them, presumably all to give the effect of as open a space as possible to stop any potential inklings of panic.
She switches on a cylindrical light which sends a shaped pattern of butterflies in flight around the room. The blankets and pillows are piled high on the bed which takes up one entire side of the room, and on the back of the pocket door, which Nico closes, is a Fable on Fire poster.
I gape, and sputter out a shocked laugh.
“This is—astonishing,” I say. Thomas has a seat on the edge of the bed then flops down, hands laced over his chest. “Those clouds look real. How the hell did you get all this in here?”
Jez grins. “Viv hooked me up with a lot of it. Some of it I brought with me. Ferny and Caylee very kindly helped me get everything up. I think he was of the mind that whatever helped me stay calm was worth the effort.” She laughs. “Within reason, of course. He wasn’t too keen on my request for one of those fancy air filter-fan things that would really help support that being-in-the-clouds sensation. Just open the bleddy window, was his reply, but he laughed and got me that one anyhow.” She gestures to a smaller table-top fan.
I’m beyond impressed, but also, saddened. I knew her condition could be intense. I didn’t realize this level of necessity came with the logistics of traveling on this bus. In a way, it makes me feel the level of disheartened rejection she endured at our hands. This is not an easy life. And yet she’s lived it, she’s found ways to manage.
“How are things going, rock star?” Thomas says softly, still laying down but turning his head to look at Jez, who’s perched on the side of the bed.
She nods and leans back on propped hands behind her. “Up and down, really. It’s always there. That’s why I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your—support. Helping me through, well, all of this.”
She lowers her chin and looks up at me, Holden, and Nico through those long dark lashes. We take this as invitation. I kneel upright by the bed beside her. Nico jumps on the mattress into the corner, and Holden sits beside her. It’s a big bed, but I can’t help but be worried that all five of us in this cramped space is going to trigger her panic.
“Are you going to be okay with this?” I ask. “Honestly.”
“It’s why I wanted to come out here. We’re going to be on this bus a lot. And, well, thanks to Thomas, I’ve been doing more research. This could be a kind of exposure therapy, or like a housewarming.” She shrugs. “I don’t have many options, but I think it could be a helpful experiment.”
“When does the CBT start?” asks Holden.
“I called and got a virtual assessment and first appointment for day after tomorrow. Viv will be here, so she can sit with me.”
Holden nods, a small smile on his lips. “Good.”
“I’m grateful. To you all.” She looks around the room, and I find myself actually nervous. For her, but also for me. I don’t want to make a move that could possibly trigger her panic. “This is my nest. It has to come with us, so it has to be here on the bus for now. If things go, well, wrong, you guys will be here to help. I want to ask you a favor though, before we get started.” She chuckles to herself then looks around at all of us, lifting her chin to the ceiling to take in Nico’s eyes behind her, then she sits back up. “I want to see this through. I need your support and encouragement should I start to panic. I can be talked down. If it goes really badly, I’ll literally say stop . But anything else, please just help me breathe through it all. Distract me.” She smiles wickedly, narrowing her brows.
The way she’s been shifting her hips and in her seat since we came in here, it’s obvious her slick’s made an appearance, but there’s no hiding the scent of her heat. She’s found a way to keep it off her face, but her eyes have the tell-tale sparkle, and her lips seem fuller as though all the blood is rushing to the right places.
“Well, then,” I say, facing her on the edge of the bed. I place my hands on her thighs. “I can smell your heat, Jez.”
“We all can,” says Nico behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders before gently taking her hair off to one side and kissing the back of her neck. “Can you help you out of these clothes? Since I imagine some of them are a little bit wet.”
A little bit is an understatement. Jesus, she’s so wet, and the heat of my own need to give into my rut sends pulsing want shivering through my limbs.
Jez nods and I slide down the pleated skirt with bicycle shorts attached underneath. It’s fairly thick for a skirt, but once her panties are in view, the scent of her honeysuckle and jasmine slick slams my senses, nearly knocking me back to the ground. I lob the clothes behind me and she lays back, eyes on me as I kiss my way up her inner thigh, across her swollen pink lips, and down her other thigh.
Behind her, Nico is carefully removing her bra and spaghetti-strap top, while Holden has quickly removed his shirt and is flexing his gym-ready muscles. Thomas kicks off his shoes and begins to undress as well, but all of this is happening in the background as I reach my hands around to the soft flesh of her arse and the curve of her hips. I’m about to pull her intoxicating folds straight to my face. But my eye catches sight of something—something irritating.
You’d think nothing could possibly distract me from this goddess spreading her bare legs before me. But there is, perhaps, one thing.
I place a kiss on her inner thigh again then look up into her face. “Jez—God. I can’t give into my rut with my own 30-year-old face staring down at me.”
“Yet you expect her to get pleasure from looking at the real thing, ya nutter,” Nico helpfully adds. Thomas snickers.
Holden takes Jez’s left hand and plants a kiss on her knuckles. “Guys,” he murmurs softly. “If we’re doing it right we’re not looking at a fucking poster anyhow.”
“To be fair, when I decorated I didn’t expect any of you to be in here,” says Jez quietly. She bites her lips while looking down at me, then glancing down at herself spread wide for me.
The point is made. This is about how Jez feels. She decorated this place to make herself feel safe, comfortable … and protected.
I jerk my head up and stare into her eyes. She gives me a crooked smile of those luscious lips and grabs me by the loosened tie, pulling me in to her as her legs wrap around me. Then she slowly leans back on her elbows, arching her back before sinking to the mattress, arms spread wide. She gazes up at Nico behind her and Thomas and Holden on either side, her fingers closing over her palm in a come here gesture.
I undo and remove my belt, and this act alone pulls a moan from deep within Jez’s throat, where I fully suspect one of my bandmates will soon be. Trousers undone and slid to my knees, I pull my wide-awake cock from my boxers.
My lips find hers, gently sucking on the top lip as her tongue slips into my mouth. The heat of her rolls off like lava, soaking into my skin. God, my rut is in full-on ready mode, reacting to her body’s signal.
Thomas and Holden place their cocks in her hands and she wraps her fingers around each, squeezing and sliding up the shafts to their knots as each kneels beside her on the bed, cocooning her in a den of our four bodies. I catch her gaze.
“This okay?”
She nods, a needy, anticipatory moan whispering out. “Yes. Yes, this is good. This is so fucking good,” she murmurs as I circle her clit with the engorged head of my cock. My Alpha wants to just dive straight in but I try to hold back enough so that everyone’s on the same page. As I press against her sensitive skin with the tip, combining her slick and my pre-cum into a mixture of our scents and pheromones and what smells like proof that we are meant to be here, together, supporting this Omega and being on the receiving end of her trust.
A greater gift I cannot imagine.
“Jez, you sure?” asks Holden between gasps as her fingers roll up and down on his shaft, while Nico sits behind as a support more than anything, stroking her hair gently out of her face and whispering soft encouragement in her ear. Jez nods, eyes fluttered shut, smile on her face.
As much as it’s our Alphas’ calling to be with this Omega, this beautiful woman and soul before us, the Alpha in me—and I’m sure in my pack mates—has one even higher priority, and that is her safety. So while I think we’d all like to knot her this second, I can tell Nico is perfectly comfortable, and intensely pleased, to stay out of the way for the moment in case she needs a breather. We can pick up her scent like it’s the oxygen we need, but we can also sense other things going on with her—including any traces of oncoming panic.
I know this now, although I couldn’t have put a word to it before.
She continues to be stroked on all sides as she continues working on the cocks in her hands.
Finally, I plunge inside a little at a time, my hands gently cupping her breasts. I could go absolutely wild and reckless with this woman—in another situation, on another day, when we’re all rested and in a properly-sized space with windows. Open to the sea, or a mountain view. But right here, right now, I will serve my Omega exactly as she needs and wants, and I will go slowly.
If it kills me.
But she raises up from the mattress, her hands reluctantly releasing Thomas and Holden, and reaching out for me.
“Hartley, don’t you dare baby me. I told you I’d say stop if I needed it. Get that beautiful cock inside me. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I spit out, shocked and laughing inside.
Without further ado, I crash my lips into hers, pressing her down into the bed, one hand reaching up to her breast, pinching and exploring the nipple with my fingers as I slide inside her folds, in and out, deeper, deeper each time until she shifts. She raises her torso up against me until my knees are screaming into the floor and my heart is about to burst with pleasure.
“You ready for it?” I say. She’s smiling so wide, those ruby-red lips and blue bedroom eyes gazing into mine. That’s when she turns her head slightly.
“Nico, what about you?” she purrs. She leans forward into me, still looking over her shoulder in invitation. Without hesitation, Nico shimmies out of his trousers faster than I’ve ever seen a man get undressed, then scoots right up to her ass. Tentatively, he leans in and feels around before slowly sliding his fingers in and out.
Jez turns back to me but with eyes closed, rocking up and down on my cock, slower at first again then ramping up momentum. Each bounce on my dick brings my knot right up to her feverish seam but despite her admonishment, I’m taking this easier than I’d like to. Thomas and Holden are holding their cocks out, keeping them slick with pre-cum and ready for their roles but not pushing anything with her, every step of the way as cautious as we can be.
I continue slipping in and out of her inviting warmth as her hips slam into mine, with Nico’s inserted fingers in her arse going in and out, prepping her. He murmurs in her ear and I only see her nod, her lips pursed but a look of determination and anticipation lifting her brows and hollowing her cheeks as she inhales steadily.
“Okay, Kai, Nico.” She nods at me and I smile, one hand gripping her waist while the other holds onto her left breast for dear life as I count one, two, three silently in my head. At the precise moment I slide all of my cock inside her and bury my knot in her core, Nico thrusts a slow but firm rhythm against her backside.
“You’re doing so well, angel. God, you’re so tight, so beautiful, so brave,” he breathes into her ear. “You’ve got all of Kai inside you now, and I’m nearly there, too.”
I worry for a second she might split in two or scream out, but she opens her mouth and eyes wide and lets out the most angelic moan of ecstasy that sounds like a heavenly chorus as her orgasm animates her flushed form with the cadence of her bliss.
Her fingers and nails dig into my shoulders. “I’m getting ready to release, Jez,” I whisper, as Nico keeps gently sliding in and out of her arse, holding her tight at the waist with one hand and the other reaching up for a handful of breast. “Is that okay?” I ask.
“Mark me, Kai,” Jez urges, fingers pressing in deeper. I grit my teeth and give one more push up inside her, then the electric tension holding back yields my seed into that sacred place, spilling inside her. Nico pulls away from her and sits back on his heels, continuing to whisper to her. He must’ve plunged his knot in briefly then pulled away to give her a breather.
I inhale Jez’s scent—the scent of us together—the sweat and her perfume, her slick and the night’s activities, but above all, her sweet floral aroma—and then exhale as though my lungs despair at letting go of this glorious cocktail. I pull out and trace gentle kisses down her thighs, her knees, and her calves.
While Nico busies himself pulling her sweaty hair back away from her head and lying her back on the bed, and Thomas and Holden on either side gently touch her shoulders and scalp, showing their presence and support, murmuring encouragement and praise, taking turns lowering their mouths to her breasts.
At last, I rise and place a knee gently between her legs, nestling up against her mound, and hold myself over her body on the bed, taking in all of her hungrily with my eyes. I could go again and again, bring this beautiful woman to countless pleasures, but right now, she’s asked one thing of me and no force on earth could stop me from delivering.
“Mark me, and make me yours,” she repeats. Exhaustion fights to take her over, but an unquenchable need and an undimmable spark flashes in her eyes. “And I will make sure you never regret it.”
I press my lips to hers, then inhale and kiss my way down her chin, neck, and to her earlobe. I raise up for a moment to look her in the eye.
“Darling,” I say, gazing down at the angelic Omega lying between my hands planted on the bed. “The only thing there could ever be to regret is how I fought the truth for so long. I can scent your unique heart, and I can scent your trust in us, as well.”
Finally, I find a spot in the crook of her neck, that delicate hollow above her collarbone. Tenderly, languidly at first, I take the skin between my lips, then my teeth. My breathes come quicker than I expected. I’ve done this once before, and it came to ruin. It almost ruined, me, and the pack, and this chance with this woman.
When that last thought hits me, I know it’s the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
I bite down and mark her, infusing her with my own scent, marking my bond with this woman, and setting the course for my pack mates to follow. We take turns as our angel lies there, her eyes open, her hands cupping a bristly cheek here, squeezing a warm hand there, tracing circles on a knuckle or dipping a finger between lips, all the while … she sings.
She sings the song we wrote together, the words that Nico and then later I came up with to the tune that reminds us that we are now one, now all having marked her, and there will be time for so much more, so many more moments where we can reaffirm our commitment—our love—to each other.