Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
TRISTON
“ P enny bug, it’s time to wash your hair,” Beau says.
Penny scrunches her nose and shakes her head. Beau only reaches for the shampoo in the small caddy between us. She grabs one of the small boats floating near her and lifts it up, dumping out the water it had accumulated in its hull.
Beau smiles. “I can use the boat if you want. Or the pink flower cup?”
She hands him the boat and tilts her chin back. Without a word, he turns on the bath’s faucet, double checking the temperature of the water, and then fills the small boat. It takes him several rounds for her hair to be wet enough to wash.
“How was the interview?” he asks as he washes and rinses her hair then applies a leave-in conditioner labeled specifically for curly hair.
“Average as far as they go.” The interviewer had been polite and professional, not veering into overly personal questions even once. Despite my nerves, it had gone just fine.
He nods. “When is it being released?”
“Friday, though they might post small clips leading up to that. I’m not really sure how they run any of their promo stuff on social media.”
Penny stands the moment Beau drops the small boat back into the tub. She reaches for me, not caring at all that she’s soaking. I let her climb into my arms anyway, and Beau’s quick to wrap a towel around her. He smiles as he looks at us both.
My skin tightens between one breath and the next, stealing my breath. Clove surrounds me, nearly as sour as Saturday. I shift on my knees, biting back a whimper. Beau frowns.
“Touch?” he asks.
I swallow heavily before nodding. He gently takes Penny from my lap and eases to his feet.
“Time for bed, Penny bug,” he tells her, kissing her cheek. “Papa has some things to get done.”
My throat closes at the name.
“Papa?” My voice is as breathless as it is quiet.
Beau pauses. For the first time I’ve ever seen, he blushes. “Unless you want something else?”
“No, no.” I quickly shake my head, then lean forward and drain the tub. Then I put the small caddy under the sink where Beau’d grabbed it from. “That’s… I like it.”
He smiles. Penny holds her hands out, grabbing for me. I cup her cheek and then kiss her temple. She giggles and then drops her head onto Beau’s shoulder. I clean up the rest of the bathroom once he’s gone, setting the towels back in their place and picking the toys up from the bottom of the tub.
Then I open the door to the spare bedroom they said I could use as a nest. The bags of blankets and pillows Lance had grabbed while I was doing the interview are still at the foot of the bed, the tags still on everything and no random scents clinging to them.
With shaking hands, I pull all of the various pieces out and arrange them on the bed, removing tags and stickers as needed.
Then I strip out of the wet jeans and shirt.
In just my boxer briefs, I crawl onto the bed, burying my nose in the new pillows.
I’m not sure how long I lay there. Eventually, soft footsteps echo on the hardwood floor and then disappear.
A warm weight joins me on the bed, slight enough I know it’s Emily without turning to face her.
My scent explodes around me, just as sour as in the bathroom, and I groan.
Her vanilla weaves with it a heartbeat before her soft touch traces down my back.
“Is this okay?” she asks after a minute. “The bed and the room?”
“Yes.” The blankets muffle my voice. Then, when she doesn’t say anything else, I admit, “I’ve never had a nest.”
“Not even in your place now?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t there often enough to even want to try and nest. There’s so much traveling during the season. And with the suppressors I was on…”
I let the sentence trail off. I haven’t told them about the Drop or the suppressants or the synthetic pheromone I’d purchased shortly after my first sponsor paycheck hit my bank account.
“Do you not like it? Your place?”
Her touch skates down the back of my thigh and then over my hip. I groan as another pulse of my scent drowns out the room. The need for her touch, her lock, her scent, burrows into me, nearly as painful as the weeks of touch-starvation symptoms since waking up at that Haven.
“I don’t hate it,” I mumble. “But Big Sky isn’t… it isn’t home. Not the way Creek Falls has always felt.”
She pauses, her hand flat on the small of my back. “You live in Big Sky?”
“A condo there, yeah. I’m just renting it. The lease ends in June.”
“Big Sky is beautiful,” she whispers.
I shrug. “And filled with very rich people who don’t understand or appreciate all the blue collar workers that make the place so desirable to live in.”
She hums. “That’s fair. Jackson’s similar, especially up near the ski resorts.”
Her touch resumes, a light caress up my spine and then along the back of my neck.
“Brielle’s friend from Denver is coming soon. We’re all going camping with them a week from Saturday.”
“The one from two years ago?”
She hums, and her fingers trace down my shoulder and then back. “Do you want to come with us?”
A warm and weightless sensation builds under my sternum and has tears burning my eyes. I close them to keep from getting my new blankets wet.
“I’d love to,” I admit into the pillows.
She hums again, the sound happier than before.
I shiver as she traces my ear and then runs her thumb along my jaw, marking me with her scent again.
I breathe in the vanilla, letting it cocoon me just like the blankets.
I can’t help but groan as a cramp tightens my stomach.
My scent thickens again, and I bury my head deeper into the pillows around me.
Emily quietly urges me onto my back, her hands demanding and yet soft, her nails leaving trails of sensation in their wake.
Her eyes are bright, her cheeks sharp with her desire.
Vanilla weaves around us, blending with the soured clove of my own scent until it’s all I can think about.
My dick jumps as she traces the line of my Adonis belt and then the waistband of my underwear.
Her touch is feather light as she runs a nail along the underside of my dick, and I bite back a moan.
“Your scent,” she whispers, tracing my other hipbone.
Her nails dig into my skin as it pushes out from me in another wave, still sour.
I lift my hips, praying for even a soft brush of her arm or hand or, fuck , anything.
That haze that’s become my normal state of being settles over me, not quite as bad as Saturday and yet enough that I’ll beg on my knees again if that’s what she wants.
“Y-yeah,” I mutter. “Sorry.”
She pulls my underwear down low enough my dick springs free. It’s already leaking, small drops falling onto my belly. I push up toward her, and she smirks. Then her hand is around the base, tight enough I gasp. She slowly slides her hand up and then back down. I can’t hold back the whine.
Her scent pulses.
“You like it when I whine?” I ask.
She nods, then straddles me in one fluid motion without letting go of my aching cock.
The loose dress she wears hikes up her thighs, giving the smallest glimpse of lacy red panties.
I palm her thigh, running my finger along the edge of the panties.
She leans forward, letting me pull them to the side as she kisses along my shoulders.
Her teeth are sharp points of pain that have me gasping for breath and squirming underneath her.
At this rate, my entire torso is going to be covered in dark bruises from her mouth.
I can’t make myself care as I press my thumb against her clit and her legs tremble the barest amount.
I arch into her as her teeth bite where my shoulder meets my throat. It’s hard enough I know she’s so damn close to breaking the skin.
“Whimper again,” she breathes, her lips skimming the sensitive spot just behind my ear.
The noise claws its way out of my throat entirely on its own, a pathetic, desperate sound.
Her hand tightens around my dick. She slides just a bit lower, forcing my hand back to her thigh and letting her clit rub against the underside of my cock.
I buck at the slight touch, and cloves surround us again.
Already, the sourness of the touch-starvation has lessened.
My entire body aches for her, need cutting through me like a river across a mountain valley, rocks crumbling under its force.
She runs her pussy across my dick, and my entire being shakes.
Slick coats my thighs, and she slowly traces a finger through it.
Her eyes flutter closed as she slowly licks it clean.
“Fuck,” I groan. “Please, Emily. I need to be inside you. Let me feel you.”
She looks over her shoulder.
It’s only then I realize Beau’s leaning against the threshold, his own erection tenting his sweats.
He’s shirtless, and I soak in the dusting of hair across his chest and his smooth muscles as they ripple with his easy movement across the room.
He hands Emily a condom without comment, and she wastes no time ripping it open and rolling it on my dick.
My eyes are still caught on Beau, though.
His fingers are strong and calloused, and I need them around my throat, need them twisted in my hair.
He raises an eyebrow when he realizes I’m focused on him rather than Emily.
“Please,” I whisper.
He huffs a half-laugh, but he doesn’t make me beg more than that one word.