Chapter 10
REED
The sun shines through the blankets covering the window. Held up with a tiny pin and a prayer. Esper’s dorm is a cute little space and honestly what I’d imagine her having, but this doesn’t work as a nest. Not really.
She needs a proper nest, as this wouldn’t suffice for what's to come, based on her reaction last night. One with proper window covers, proper air conditioning, and a bed that fit more than one person
Her heat symptoms broke after the fourth orgasm we gave her. I’d say it lasted about six hours, meaning this wasn't her actual heat. Just a taste of what was to come.
I wasn’t kidding when I said she'd become my new addiction. Her cranberry scent isn’t nearly as potent as I’d like it to be. When we awoke the first time, I couldn’t help but slide down and snag me another taste despite her heat having broken.
I turned under the thin sheet Neven covered the three of us with, stacked like sardines in her dorm bed. Waking from the feeling of the lack of her arms around me, I open my eyes to find the space empty.
“Didn’t know you liked to be spooned.” Neven smirks as he cuddles into her pillow.
“Can’t say I like waking up to your ugly mug.”
“Where is Esper?” he asks, staring longingly at her spot.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I say, snappy by nature. Missing her scent al-fucking-ready.
Fuck, it’s never been like this. Normally waking alone was a relief. I didn’t have to have the awkward conversation of this being a one-night-stand. I could just leave without the interaction and it’d almost be like it didn’t even happen.
Esper being gone sets my nerves off. Like a live wire that wouldn’t be taken out until I had her in my sight again.
Esper is somehow so angelic. It should make me want to stay away, so as not to break her, but I can’t. Every fiber of my being is rooting me here with her, and I wish I knew why. What made her so… perfect?
“You’re the omega. I thought you would know,” Neven snaps back and I roll my eyes.
“She’s in the shower most likely. You come more … aggressively the first time around.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” I roll off her incredibly small dorm bed, pacing around the small space. Antsy.
“Was that a heat?” Neven’s voice was low, but I’m sure her getting up and showering not even nine hours later threw him off. I bet all his research didn’t include what that means.
“No. It wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t?” That makes Neven shoot up, her sheet covering his waist.
We didn’t fuck her. The biggest sign that this wasn't her actual heat. A real heat would have her so insane with want, she wouldn’t worry in the slightest bit about having full-on sex. Whether it’s her first time or not.
“No. Just a flare-up. Heats last days. Are more intense.”
“More intense…”
“Yeah.”
I need—I need to clean up. I have my own slick and come covering my jeans. Dried between my thighs and fucking… Just fucking everywhere. I need to help her clean up.
“Damn. Are you gonna tell her?” Neven climbs out of her bed and yanks his jeans back on. The dirty bastard.
“Tell her?” I ask.
“She thinks that was her heat.”
Oh, I guess she wouldn’t know. I’d… tell her. I hope she isn't disappointed. Maybe she was happy to get it over with like I was.
Though, with us, I hope… I hope she’s actually excited to experience her real heat. Like an omega should be.
Thank god we’d met. It's so cold figuring those things out on your own. Or worse. At Omega Center and Co. God, I hope she’d never been there. That business needs to be shut down.
It may be a good place, for who the fuck knows who, but I just can't get past the fact I needed it. I was such an ass there and they still helped me through my flare-ups and eventually my first heat. But everything was so clinical.
Esper deserved better than that. She deserved warmth, people who cared, who would take care of her not because of a paycheck, but because they wanted to.
I’d do that. If she wanted me to. For all her flare-ups and her heat. For… not ever. I guess.
She deserved a Pack.
I’d help her until she had a Pack. The thought makes me growl out loud, earning a look from Neven as we pull the sheets off her bed and into a basket I found underneath.
A Pack would take care of her forever. I’d make sure they would.
Neven’s pulled his shirt on, and he steps past me with a clap of my shoulder. “Go clean up. I’ll take these to the laundromat I saw on my way here yesterday.” Barely a minute passes before the door opens again and my gaze clashes with brown eyes I’ve been dying to see since I woke up.
“Hey,” I say. Awkwardly. Like what the fuck am I on? Like I’ve never talked to a girl before. I shake a hand through my hair trying to figure out what to say.
“Hi,” she says. Her eyes are downcast from mine and I see her nerves written all over her face. Why is she so damned cute? “I brought a wet rag, in case….” She trails off, holding the rag out to me. I gratefully take it.
“Thanks, princess.” The nickname from last night slips out and I turn on my heel, blushing, fucking blushing. I quickly clean myself, feeling much more normal turning back to her. She has her hand out for the rag, and I shake my head.
“I’ll clean you.”
“I’d rather you not, if that’s okay,” she says in a small voice, and the t-shirt I made her cum on last night burns possessively in my hands.
Now we're two blushing omegas holding each other’s cum soaked-fabrics hoping the other won’t ask for it back.
“I’m fine with that.” I freeze as she grabs the dirty rag from my hand and she rushes to place it on the back of her desk chair, laying it out next to one of Neven's many t-shirts he’d brought her.
I have to tell her. Now.
“I… I have to tell you—”
“I know… I heard you and Neven. This room isn’t as soundproof as I thought.” Her face is beet red now probably thinking about all the noises Neven and I got from her last night. “How do I know… when it’s my actual heat?”
“The… the pain will be worse. But the pleasure will be so much better. Also normally lasts at least three days.”
“Not six hours.”
“No,” I chuckle as she sits down on her bed and pats the spot next to her. “Not six hours.”
“Well, um, I asked Neven on his way out. But uh, would you join me again? For my actual heat?”
“Absolutely, princess. I would love to.” My chest swells at her asking me, my answer flying out of my mouth before I can really process it. Not that my answer would be any different.
She takes a deep breath, fingers fiddling with a fold in the bedsheet, and I can tell she has something else to ask. I take her hand, running my thumb over the back of it. She lets me, her long nails scraping the back of my hand and I’m suddenly imagining them down my back.
Fuck.
“Would you be mad if…. if I kept dating?”
“Dating?” I can’t say I feel anger at the question. My initial thought is to think that I wasn’t enough, that Neven and I weren't enough. The immediate response to prove myself but… another part of me knows what she means.
Thoughts of Asher fill my mind. Fuck. I should have told her before we… before her actual heat for sure.
“Like if I had more partners… I don’t know. I feel, in my gut—”
“That we weren’t enough?” I say jokingly and she slaps my shoulder.
“That's not true!” Her eyes widen with worry, but I shake my head, bringing the back of her hand to my lips and kissing her.
“I know. Could you have handled more, though? You were pretty nervous at the thought of us being together.”
“I was… I was so nervous. But my omega…”
“Wants to complete the puzzle,” I supply and she nods her head. “I don’t mind. just… take me or Neven on the date with you.”
“That I can do.” She wraps her arms around me, scent marking me with her chin on my naked chest.
“Also let me take you on a proper date first,” I add, and she bursts out laughing.
“I would love that. When?”
“Now?” I’ll take any and every excuse I can get to spend more time with her. I lean back onto her sheetless dorm bed. She just cuddles into my side, and a peace washes over me as we lay in the slightly dark room together.