Chapter 31 #2
Knox breaks the kiss, gasping, resting his forehead against mine. “You taste so damn good,” he whispers.
I whimper, arching my back, trying to get closer to Rhys’s mouth. The itch under my skin spikes, right where his lips are. I don’t have words for what I’m chasing, just a wild, urgent need for more.
Rhys’s teeth graze my skin and I freeze, breath stuttering. My body braces for something, nerves lit, waiting for a pain that feels like it might fix everything rattling loose inside me.
But he doesn’t bite.
He groans, a frustrated vibration against my throat, and pulls back. He kisses the spot instead. Hard, bruising, but toothless.
“We can’t,” Rhys rasps against my skin.
A spike of frustration burns through the fog in my head.
“Can’t what?” My voice comes out rough, half-whine, half-snarl. “Why are you stopping?”
Knox makes a broken sound and buries his face in my neck, inhaling my scent like he’s trying to drown himself in it.
“You know what,” Rhys says quietly, his breath hot over the place that’s still throbbing for his teeth. “If I start, I won’t stop.”
I shake my head, fingers fisting in Knox’s hair, the restlessness under my skin turning sharp.
Knox lifts his head, eyes wild and dark.
“It’s not just touching,” he says. His gaze flicks to my neck, then back to my face. “If we’re not careful, this doesn’t stop at kissing, sunshine. You feel that too.”
Heat rushes through me, shame and want tangled together.
“I just…” I trail off. “I need…”
“Yeah,” Knox cuts in, voice ragged. “We know exactly what you need.” His thumb drags a slow line over the spot his mouth just abandoned and I shiver, the itch roaring back. “That’s the problem.”
“You’ve been here nine days, Mia,” Rhys says quietly. “We just... we want you to be sure.”
“My omega knows,” I whisper.
Knox’s mouth curls and it’s not kind. It’s not polite. It’s hungry.
“Your omega,” he repeats slowly, like he’s tasting it, and something in his tone hits me low and hot.
Rhys exhales slowly. “Then we’ll talk about it. All of us. Tomorrow. When we can think straight.”
I take a slow breath.
“This was not what you signed up for,” I say after a moment with a half-laugh. “You wanted quiet. Orderly. Not a feral omega clawing at the walls after nine days.”
“That was your fantasy,” Knox says. “White picket fence. Calm, boring pack. Homemade granola.”
“And book clubs,” Rhys murmurs against my skin. “Don’t forget the book clubs.”
Heat crawls up my neck.
“I like granola,” I mutter.
“Do you?” Knox murmurs, leaning in. His breath ghosts over my lips. “Because this—” his hands tighten, pulling me flush against him “—doesn’t feel like granola.”
It doesn’t.
It feels like chaos.
It feels like the exact opposite of the safe, bland picture I used to cling to. Back then, I dreamed about Sunday mornings and quiet afternoons and an alpha or two who would mow the lawn and never raise their voice.
Now I’m pinned between two alphas who look like they want to dismantle me and I can’t breathe unless one of them is touching me.
Rhys’s voice slides into the charged air.
“Careful,” he warns Knox softly. “We told Eli we’d go slow.”
“We have been going slow,” Knox shoots back, eyes never leaving my face. “Look at her.”
He tips his chin at me like I’m exhibit A.
“Does it look like slow is working?”
Rhys does look. Really looks.
My damp hair. The pink scrubbed into my skin. The oversized sweatshirt gaping open over my chest. My bare legs. My shaking knees. My hand that keeps wanting to rise to my neck and rub at the phantom itch there.
His jaw flexes.
For a disorienting moment I’m sure that if he kissed me, if Knox pulled my hair just a little tighter, the restless, crawling feeling under my skin would finally settle. Like all my bones have been rattling in the wrong place and they’d just…click.
Rhys’s eyes flick up to mine, and I see the exact second he decides something.
“Okay,” Rhys says quietly. “New plan.”
Knox huffs a breath that sounds like relief. “Finally.”
Rhys ignores him, his gaze locked on mine.
His thumb strokes the side of my throat, a slow, soothing pass that somehow makes the itch worse and better at the same time.
“We’re not going to pretend this isn’t happening.
You’re wound tight. We can feel it. We’re not going to just pat you on the head and send you to bed with a cup of tea. ”
His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile.
“But,” he adds, and his fingers give my hair a gentle tug, “we’re also not going to do anything you can’t take back. Not tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t help,” Knox cuts in, impatience crackling off him. His hands slide higher on my thighs, thumbs brushing the edge of the sweatshirt, so close to the heat between my thighs that I shiver.
“Sunshine,” he says, and there’s a wickedness in his tone that makes me slick. “You want to burn some of this off?”
“Yes,” I say, way too fast. My voice comes out rough.
His grin is quick and bright. “Then let us.”
With another glance at Rhys, there’s a twinkle in his eyes.
“Ready, brother?” Before I can even think, Knox slides me into Rhys’ arms and I’m pressed against the wall again.
Rhys steps into my space, crowding me back until my shoulder blades hit the wall, the air suddenly thick with the scent of aroused alpha.
But he doesn’t settle me on his hips. Instead, his heavy forearms hook under my knees, hitching my legs up and spreading them wide until I’m pinned against the wall, completely open and displayed.
“Knox,” he rasps, voice strained as he looks down at me. “Get her ready.”
Knox drops to his knees, positioning himself between my spread legs.
The sight of him kneeling there while Rhys holds me makes my head spin. He pushes the sweatshirt up, bunching the fabric at my waist as his hands slide over my hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft skin of my inner thighs, nudging them wider apart.
“Look at me, Mia,” Knox murmurs.
I look down. His eyes are black in the dim light.
“Perfect,” he whispers.
Then he leans in and presses his open mouth against me.
I cry out, my head falling back against the wall. The sensation is blinding. Wet heat, the rough slide of his tongue, the suction as he latches on. He hums against me, the vibration traveling straight through my clit and sparking down every nerve ending.
Rhys growls, a low rumble in his chest. He shifts his grip, one arm banding around my waist to hold me securely against the wall, his other hand fumbling between our bodies to shove his trousers down.
He frees himself, the tip already leaking.
“I’m coming in,” Rhys warns, his forehead pressing against mine. “Stay with me.”
Knox shifts a moment before Rhys enters me in one long, slow thrust.
He stretches me open, inch by inch, until he’s seated deep, hitting that hollow ache in my belly that’s been bothering me for days.
“Oh god,” I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders.
“There,” Rhys breathes, his eyes squeezed shut, sweat beading on his temples. “Better?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes.”
He starts to move.
It’s a punishing rhythm. Rhys withdraws almost completely, then slams back home, pinning me to the wall with the force of it. Every thrust jars the breath out of me, my spine scraping the drywall.
But Knox isn’t done.
He’s already moving, sliding behind me while Rhys holds me aloft.
Heat radiates from him at my back first, then the solid press of his chest against my shoulder blades as he steps in close.
His hands find my hips, bracketing Rhys’s grip under my thighs, helping to support my weight.
His cock nudges against the stretched entrance where Rhys is still buried deep.
“Both,” Knox growls low in my ear, voice thick with hunger. “You can take both, sunshine.”
My breath hitches. The blunt pressure is immediate. Another thick head pushing in right alongside Rhys, forcing my already full channel to open wider.
“Rhys—Knox—” The words come out strangled as the stretch begins. Burning. So perfect.
Rhys holds perfectly still, muscles locked, sweat beading on his brow as he gives Knox room to work in.
Knox goes slow, pressing forward inch by inch, until both cocks are seated deep inside the same tight heat.
I feel every ridge sliding against the other, every throb, the impossible fullness pressing against my walls from every direction.
I’m hoisted between them now, legs spread wide over Rhys’s forearms in front, Knox’s big hands clamped on my hips from behind, their bodies caging me completely against the wall. No escape. No space. Just them, locked together inside me.
Rhys pulls back as Knox drives forward; Knox retreats as Rhys slams in. The drag and friction is devastating. Wet, filthy sounds fill the room: skin slapping, slick sliding, my broken moans blending with their rough grunts.
“Fuck—so tight,” Knox hisses against the back of my neck, teeth grazing my shoulder. “Taking us both like you were made for it.”
Rhys’s forehead presses to mine, eyes dark and wild. “Look at me, sunshine. Feel us.”
I can’t look anywhere else. Can’t think. All I feel is the relentless stretch, the deep ache turning to golden sweetness, my belly winding tighter with every mismatched thrust.
The itch on my neck throbs in rhythm with my pulse. It screams louder now, the pleasure is so intense it borders on pain, but it’s still…floating. Like I’ll shatter into nothing if no one finally anchors me.
Instinct overrides everything. My head falls to the side, throat bared right in front of Rhys, pulse hammering under the skin where the buzzing lives loudest.
Take it. Claim it. Fix me.
Rhys buries his face in the curve of my neck, teeth scraping over the spot. I stop breathing, arching hard into him, waiting, begging, for the bite that will seal everything.
He drags his canines along the sensitive skin, then he stops.
A guttural sound rips from his chest. His hips stutter, body locking as he fights the instinct. “Fuck,” he breathes, the word vibrating against my throat.
He licks instead. Long, wet, soothing passes that do nothing to quiet the screaming need.
I whimper, shoving my neck harder against his mouth. No. Not licks. Teeth. Now.
“I can’t,” Rhys grits out, pressing a bruising open-mouthed kiss there instead. “Not tonight, sweetheart. We promised.”
I make a broken, angry noise. Promises are bullshit. Just do it.
But he holds the line. Barely.
The denial sharpens everything. I whine, trembling, and Knox ends the standoff the only way he knows how.
He shifts his angle, driving deeper from behind, forcing both cocks even further inside until I feel them pressed right against my limits.
His hand snakes around front, fingers finding my clit and grinding down with brutal, unrelenting pressure.
“Let go, Mia,” Rhys commands, voice raw and wrecked against my skin.
The orgasm doesn’t build. It explodes.
Violent. Cataclysmic. My body clamps down like a vice on both of them, spasming so hard my vision whites out. I scream into Rhys’s shoulder, waves ripping through me, walls fluttering and milking them in frantic, endless pulses.
Rhys comes with a choked roar, hips jerking as he spills deep inside. Knox follows right after, a guttural curse tearing from his throat as he thrusts once more and floods me, his release mixing hot and thick with Rhys’s in my overstuffed core.
For long seconds there’s nothing but ragged breathing and the wet drip of our combined mess sliding down my thighs.
I hang limp between them, Rhys’s arms still locked under my knees in front, Knox’s chest plastered to my back, both of them still buried inside, softening slowly.
Physically, I’m destroyed. Sated. My muscles are liquid, skin buzzing with aftershocks.
But the itch?
My trembling fingers drift up. Brush the spot on my neck.
Wet. Slick with saliva and sweat.
Smooth.
Unbroken.
It feels unfinished. Like the world’s most devastating orgasm still left the most vital piece missing.
Knox eases out first, groaning low as he slips free. Rhys follows, both of us hissing at the sudden emptiness. They lower me gently until my feet touch the floor, but my knees give immediately. They catch me between them.
“Come on, sunshine,” Knox murmurs, voice rough but tender as he scoops me up against his chest. “Bed. Now.”
They clean me up. They carry me to the nest. They tuck me in between them, wrapping around me in espresso and molasses.
It is objectively the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me.
It is also incredibly frustrating.
As I lie in the dark, listening to the rhythm of their breathing, my fingers drift up to touch the smooth, unmarked skin of my neck. It buzzes. It throbs. It feels wrong.
My omega is still not quiet. Not aching for more sex, not exactly. Just…unsettled. Tugging at the same place over and over in my thoughts, circling back to this one strip of skin like it’s the missing piece.
Oh.
The itch. It’s not physical. It’s my omega demanding a claim.
The realization drops into place with a click.
This isn’t post-heat weirdness or leftover adrenaline.
It’s absence. All week, that low-grade need, that sense of being half a step off has been because there’s nothing here anchoring me.
No bite. No bond. No mark that says stay and belong and ours on my skin and in my head.
They think they’re being noble. They think they’re giving me time, proving they can be the calm, controlled, “good” alphas I used to swear I wanted.
But I don’t want good. I want them. I want their claim. I want a mark that doesn’t fade by morning. I want something that makes this feel…permanent.
I turn my face into the pillow, breathing in the layered scent of all of us tangled together. The tight, restless knot of my omega eases just a little at that, like even the idea of a mark is enough to soothe her.
“Okay,” I whisper into the dark. “I get it.”
If they’re determined to be gentlemen about this, then fine. They can hang onto their self-control as long as they like.
I’ll just make it harder and harder to hold.
I close my eyes, a slow, wicked smile curling at my lips as I start to picture every way I can nudge, tease, and push them toward the edge they’re so carefully avoiding.
My omega settles around the thought, finally focused.
Challenge accepted.