Chapter 5
Jessabella
As I was in my pajamas putting on lotion, I heard a rustle in the hallway and I peeped out to see Alexei and Theo setting out massive blank canvases and little tins of paint. Two sleeping bags lay neatly beside my door.
Were they planning to sleep outside my door? My face flamed.
Why in the world would these two men in the absolute prime of their lives as Alphas want me? I was forty years old, rejected, washed-up. Uncool, unhip. I wasn’t an innocent virgin like I had been when my first Pack knotted me. And who was to say I could ever have a baby?
What did they want with me? It must just be pity. After all, these men could have any Omega they wanted.
I must be addled with Alpha scents to even wonder if there had been chemistry between us.
And I’d felt it, felt a pull to both of them.
I opened the door wider, shivering even in my fleecy pajamas. But was it anxiousness or arousal?
“What are you doing?”
They came up to me with stars in their eyes, spirits high.
“Come, come, come out with us, pretty Omega. Look what we have.”
Laughing, they drew me down the hall where there was a comfortable chair, and a big, tantalizingly blank art easel and canvas for each of us.
I tasted Alpha want and need, swirling all around me, but this couldn’t be true. . .how could they be courting me. . .
Alexei and Theo weren’t touching me, but it was still the most erotic thing I’d ever done, to take a seat between them, to feel the paintbrush vibrating with excitement.
“If you won’t come upstairs,” Alexei whispered in my ear. “We’ll come down to you.”
We began to paint together, and my fingers couldn’t help it, starting to outline Koval Manor again, this time in winter.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be into this,” I said shyly.
“We are,” Theo said softly. “I think you might be–surprised how much we have in common.”
We painted in between conversations, and I realized they were gently trying to see how I felt, if I was all right after the rejection.
Was my heart too much on my sleeve? Were the softly drawn lines of Koval Manor in winter, the ice-skating figures illuminated with the soft fairy lights, betraying how much I loved the Duke’s home?
“It looks beautiful,” Alexei said. “You’ve taken such good care of it.”
“I didn’t do much, really.”
“I see what you did. And I want it to be appreciated.”
“Thank you, then,” I said, my cheeks pink with pleasure.
“There was one visit a couple of years ago,” the Duke added after a moment, “when it was the Egg Hunt and you’d put two little eggs on our pillows.
Carved wooden ones, and when they broke open, there were treats in them.
Coffee-flavored chocolates and tiny sponge cakes and licorice that tasted like lemon drops.
So yes, Jessabella. What you do has never gone unnoticed. ”
Someone had appreciated those little treats after all! I had always wondered if visitors maybe found them childish, but now I had my answer.
“Cookie?” Theo asked, handing me a soft chocolate chip one. Our fingers brushed by as I took it from him, sweet and hot on my tongue. “Time for us to return the favor.”
He winked, and his eyes were such a warm and melty brown that I let them draw me into conversation, forgetting for a moment everything that had happened.
Too easy. It was too easy to laugh, to banter back and forth with them, sink into their energy and attentions.
But I had been burned before. It was only my Omega’s biological urges that sought Alpha scents, right? I had to be cautious.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Their scents all crowded in next to each other, cinnamon-sweet and deep and homey.
“We would love to be considered as your future Pack,” Theo said in a low voice.
I looked wonderingly at him. “But–you know I’m 40, right?” and I couldn’t keep a tart tone from my voice. “I should probably be looking for Alphas my own age.”
Theo seemed to pale under his tan, but Alexei gave me that engaging, golden grin.
“But you haven’t considered the benefits of a younger Pack. More energy. More stamina. Ability to keep up with all the babies we could have.”
“Better knees than Edgar,” he added roguishly.
“You’re in the prime of your life,” Theo put in. “You deserve Alphas with our level of devotion.”
Devotion? Wasn’t that an Omega’s job? But I had been devoted to my old Pack and what had it gotten me?
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
Theo opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but Alexei tapped his knee and gave him a significant look. They weren’t going to pressure me, which was good.
I had all the time in the world to figure this out.
When I went to bed, Alexei brushed by as he opened the door, our skin connecting with an almost audible heat.
“Give us a chance,” he breathed. “I know we can make you happy.”
It was tempting, so tempting! But what would people think? Could I trust them?
“I don’t think it would suit,” I said firmly. “I can’t imagine what two young Alphas would want with a 40-year-old Omega.”
Then I shut the door behind me.
That was the end of the matter. Right? It just wouldn’t be a sensible choice. But I couldn't quite convince myself. . .
And the next morning I woke up in a sticky, soaking, dripping fever.
My heat had begun–early! Their Alpha scents had catapulted it into overdrive.
And I better be careful, and not come out of my room at all.
Because who knew what could happen if they scented me during a heat. . .
Warm licks of flame were caressing between my legs and making my brain feel fuzzy. I shook my head to try to clear it, ignore the wetness that was soaking through my panties.
I stumbled to my feet, desperate for a glass of water, knocking over my alarm clock in my haste to get up.
Instantly, there was a pounding on the door.
“Jessabella? Are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” I tried to choke out, downing the water in huge gulps.
“I can’t hear you!” Theo shouted out. “I’m sorry, but I have to break this door down!”
There was a cracking sound and I whirled around to see the door burst open and Theo entered.
His face instantly transformed from serious and concerned to happy, a big grin showing the dimples in his cheeks.
With his shirt off and his broad shoulders and defined abs, he looked good enough to eat, and I felt my insides twisting, tighter and tighter, and tighter and tighter.
A pull. Then another. Stronger.
A pull again, insistent, urgent. Biological and carnal.
Oh no. Oh no.
I tried to stop myself from moaning.
But I couldn’t.
And then there was a pop and it began, heat and sweat streaming down my sides and collecting in a sticky puddle in my bra. My breasts felt tight, tingling all over until my nipples were tipped with flame.
It was urgent and throbbing between my legs, heat rushing over me with such power that my thighs were trembling as gushing wet slick began to soak through my panties, roll down to my toes.
I gulped in a big breath of air, but it didn’t help.
The ground began to swim as a wave of dizziness enveloped me.
My god. I had never had a heat like this in my life.
Never.
“Help,” I whispered, but my voice was small, raw, sweat dripping into my eyes so I couldn't see anything.
My knees suddenly gave way and I sank to the ground, but before I hit the hard floor, Theo was there.
“I’ve got you!”
“Jessabella, it’s going to be all right!” Alexei said urgently. “You’re going to get through this.”
“Do you want to be bred?” Theo asked as my ears rang. “You’re so wet and ready, so dripping with fertility.”
“I d-don’t know if it would work,” I said, one part of my brain screaming it’s too soon and the other part of my brain going but they smell so good.
Then Alexei bent to my ear and said the seven sexiest words I’d ever heard. “We could try, but no big deal.”
“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes please.”
Edgar, Penn, and Brand had always made such a huge deal about it, announcing my temperature and ordering me to be in this or that position for maximum fertility, never letting me forget that the goal was procreation. But it had never been joyful like this.
“The bed,” Theo said, and I felt his hands raising my hips and I felt weak, boneless, the heat soaking through my white pajamas all the way down to my feet.
“It’s not very big!”
“There’s no other place! I want to relieve her heat now.”
I barely felt it as they carried me over and lay me down gently on the bed.
“Can we–do we have your permission?” Alexei asked urgently. “That’s all we ask.”
His fingers were firm but gentle on my hand, as he traced circles on my overheated skin.
“Yes, please,” I said, my back arching in pain, blinking away the sweat that trickled down my forehead.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything beyond biology,” I gasped, but Theo had already captured my mouth with his.
But we want it to,” he murmured against my lips, his so unexpectedly sweet and firm. “We want it to mean something.”
There were strong, gentle hands on me, peeling off my pajama top, the soaking fabric so sopping wet it made a dirty squishing sound.
“Open up, angel, so we can put a baby in you.”
I moaned, a low greedy sound as their mouths descended lower, tongues licking, sucking, eager to taste me.
Whose hands were on me? Which Alpha was touching me?
I didn’t know, but they both felt divine.
I wriggled wantonly as more fingers descended to my pajama pants, loosening the tie, and as soon as those fingers brushed my clit, I felt myself come, so embarrassingly wet and needy, but I was too deep in my heat to be ashamed at all.
“Oh, God, that’s so hot,” Alexei said. “Keep going. You’ll need to be wet and open for us to plant seed in you. I want you so stuffed I have to plug up your pussy with my cock to keep all the cum in.”
There was a buzzing, delirious sound in my ear as my sopping wet panties landed with a splat on the floor of the carriage, and then they descended on me, the wooden slats of the bed straining as both tall men bent down to give me pleasure.