Chapter 21
Emrys
We tried to watch a movie after dinner, something light with too much dialogue and not enough plot, but I couldn’t settle into it.
The couch felt too narrow, then too open, then too warm beneath my legs.
The nest in the corner kept pulling at the edge of my attention even though I had no real reason to go to it yet, and every time I looked away from the screen, Skylar’s hand moved at my waist like he knew without opening his eyes.
He fell asleep halfway through the second act, head tipped back against the couch cushions, one arm draped loosely around me because I’d put myself there and he hadn’t complained.
Kade went out to pick up a few things we needed, promising he wouldn’t be long.
The credits roll now, color shifting over the dark screen, and I stay pressed to Skylar’s side, listening to him breathe while trying to convince my body that nothing’s wrong.
It doesn’t listen.
The first sign is small enough that I almost miss it.
A slow tightening low in my stomach, familiar in shape but wrong in timing, the kind of pull that usually only comes when my cycle is close.
I shift against Skylar’s side, careful not to wake him, hoping the movement will ease whatever my body has decided to start.
It only sharpens.
Heat blooms under my skin too quickly, sudden enough that my breath catches.
My scent changes before I can stop it, vanilla turning richer and sweeter until the air around us feels warmer than it did a minute ago.
I press my face into Skylar’s shoulder and breathe through the first rush, waiting for it to settle, waiting for my body to realize it’s too early and pull itself back into sense.
It doesn’t.
The spike builds, too fast for the slow warning signs I know how to handle.
My fingers curl in Skylar’s shirt, and I bite down on the soft sound trying to get out of my throat.
The fabric of my clothes feels wrong all at once, too close, too rough, too much against skin that has started to ache for contact instead of comfort.
“Okay,” I whisper into Skylar’s shoulder, because the word gives me something to do besides panic. “Okay, this isn’t supposed to happen.”
It doesn’t help much, but the sound of my own voice keeps the room from feeling too large.
Another wave rolls through me, sharper than the first, and my body moves before I can stop it. My thighs press together, seeking pressure, and a soft, involuntary noise slips out of me. Shame follows it, my face burning as slick coats my underwear.
Skylar stirs beneath me, his arm tightening around my waist before his eyes open.
He comes awake quickly, like some part of him has been listening even in sleep, and his hand moves to the back of my neck with careful fingers.
His scent rises a second later, amber and sandalwood cutting through the thick sweetness in the room, steady enough that my body reaches for it without asking me first.
“Emrys,” he says, voice rough from sleep. “What’s happening?”
I try to answer and lose the first attempt to another hard pull of heat. My hand flattens against his chest, gripping at him through his shirt, and I shake my head once before I manage words. “I don’t know. It’s too early. My heat shouldn’t be here yet.”
Skylar sits up slowly, bringing me with him until I’m half in his lap and half braced against his chest. He doesn’t rush.
He doesn’t pull away to look at me like a problem that needs a solution.
He only steadies me, one hand at the back of my neck and the other low on my side, his thumb moving in small, grounding strokes while I try to breathe through the next wave.
The contact helps but it also makes it worse.
My body leans into him before I can make a decision about it, chasing warmth, pressure, scent, anything strong enough to take the edge off.
Skylar goes still for half a breath, and I feel the moment he understands I need more.
His hand shifts against my side, his scent deepening in answer before he can control it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I don’t know what part I’m apologizing for.
The timing, maybe. The scent. The fact that Kade isn’t here.
The fact that my body has picked now, of all nights, to tilt into something off-schedule and hungry.
“It’s not my heat. It’s just a spike, I think, but it’s never come on like this before. ”
Skylar’s gaze stays on my face, not drifting, not making me feel exposed in a way I haven’t chosen. “Do you need Kade?”
The question is careful enough that my throat tightens.
“I don’t know.” My voice shakes, and I hate that it does. “Yes. No. I need him, but I need…” I press my forehead to Skylar’s shoulder, breathing hard. “I need it to stop hurting first.”
His hand slides up and down my back, slow and steady. “Tell me what helps.”
The tenderness in his voice makes my eyes sting. He’s asking like there’s nothing shameful about it. Like this is only another part of me he can learn if I let him. I shift against him without meaning to, and the friction drags a broken sound out of me before I can swallow it.
Skylar’s breath catches, his body tightening under mine, in the way his hand grips my hip and then loosens again like he is making himself be careful. “Emrys,” he says, quieter now.
I lift my head enough to look at him. His eyes are darker than they were a minute ago, but his focus is still on me. That’s what undoes the last of my pride.
“Please,” I say, the word coming out raw and too honest. “I need you. I need something to take the edge off.”
Skylar goes very still, and for one awful second I think I have asked wrong.
Then his hand cups the side of my face, thumb brushing once beneath my cheekbone. “I’ve got you,” he says, voice low. “We go as slow as you need. You tell me if anything changes.”
I nod, pressing closer before the next wave can make words impossible again. “Okay.”
His mouth touches my temple first, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth with a restraint that makes my body shiver harder than if he had rushed me.
I turn into him, hands twisting in his shirt, and kiss him because I need the point of contact, need the weight of him real beneath me, need the ache in my body to have somewhere to go that isn’t panic.
He shifts us so I'm straddling his lap properly, facing him.
His hands move quickly, pushing my shirt up and then working my pants and underwear down just far enough.
I help him, lifting my hips, too desperate to be embarrassed.
Slick coats my thighs and his fingers when he reaches between us.
He strokes through the slick, pushing inside of me, and I moan, dropping my forehead to his shoulder.
"You're so wet already," he murmurs against my neck. His voice is low, almost reverent. "I've got you, Rys. I've got you."
He frees himself from his own pants and lines himself up beneath me.
I sink down onto him in one slow, slick slide, taking him all the way in one go.
The stretch burns but it’s perfect, a cry tearing from me, the sound muffled against his throat.
Skylar groans, his hands gripping my hips hard as he bottoms out inside me.
"Fuck, Emrys," he breathes. "You feel so good."
Some part of me knows I’m only going to aggravate the situation without having an Alpha to knot me. The other part already feels the panic of the spike dissipating as I wrap myself around Skyler.
I start moving, riding him with desperate, uneven rolls of my hips.
Every thrust sends another wave of heat through me, but it's the good kind now, the kind that has somewhere to go.
Skylar meets me halfway, thrusting up to meet me, his hands guiding my hips as I fuck myself on his cock.
The couch creaks beneath us, slick making everything wet and easy and filthy, and I can't stop the sounds pouring out of me.
Skylar's mouth finds my throat, kissing and biting gently as he fucks up into me harder. "That's it," he says between thrusts. "Take what you need. I've got you."
I ride him faster, chasing the relief that's building with every stroke.
My hands clutch at his shoulders as my head tips back.
The spike's still there, but Skylar's fucking it out of me with steady, deep thrusts that hit exactly where I need them.
Every time he bottoms out I feel the pressure ease a little more.
Every time I clench around him I feel the heat crest and then recede just enough to breathe.
He doesn't let up. He fucks me through it, murmuring soft encouragement against my skin, one hand sliding between us to stroke my cock in time with his thrusts.
The dual sensation is almost too much. I come with a broken cry, clenching hard around him as the first real wave of relief crashes over me.
Skylar follows right after, groaning my name as he spills inside me.
I sag against him, pressing a soft kiss into the curve of his neck.
“How are you feeling, Rys? Is your heat here?”
I shake my head. “No. I... maybe just all of our scents finally settling. It’s been a lot. I don’t still feel hot or anything.” I rock my hips forward, humming when Skylar’s cock thickens a little inside of me. He lets out a groan, stilling my movement.
“Give me a minute, Rys. Damn.” He presses a kiss to my forehead and then to my cheek before capturing my lips.
“Your heat is going to be wild, isn’t it?
I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.” He mumbles something else but I’m already dozing off, pleasantly sated and slightly terrified that I’m going to go into heat at the exact moment the investigation is tying up.
We're still tangled together on the couch, Skylar still inside me, when Kade comes home. Skylar’s arm tightens around my waist before his head lifts from the back of the couch, and I blink toward the door as Kade steps inside with a bag in one hand and rain dark on the shoulders of his coat.
He takes in the room in one long look. The movie credits looping silently on the screen, Skylar beneath me, my clothes still a mess, the scent of the spike thick enough that there’s no mistaking what happened while he was gone.
Kade sets the bag down and closes the door carefully.
His cedar deepens immediately, wrapping around the sharp edges still left in my body, a smile spreading across his face.
He dips his head to Skylar first, stealing a long, slow kiss before doing the same with me.
Then he shrugs off his coat and sits beside us, my body naturally leaning to my Alpha as well.
The contact of his hand on my back helps more than I thought it would.
Kade’s thumb moves in slow circles between my shoulders as Skylar presses his mouth to my shoulder once, then stays there.
My body is still oversensitive and loose, but the pain is gone.
The panic that should have followed it never quite finds room to land.
“It wasn’t a full heat,” I say after a while, my voice a little rough around the edges. They both hum, pressing kisses and soft touches everywhere they can reach, nearly lulling me back to sleep.
Skylar is the first one to speak after the quiet stretches too long. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
I know he means the case. Declan. Morrison. Hex. The federal team coming. The danger waiting outside the apartment with a name and a face now. But I don’t want to think about any of that. I turn my face into his shoulder. “No work talk. Please just hold me.”
Skylar goes quiet again. His arms tighten around me in answer, and Kade’s hand presses a little more firmly against my waist. Then I’m slowly lifted off of Skylar, a small gasp falling from my lips as slick and cum slip down my thighs. “What—”
“Just taking our Omega to his nest. You asked to be held and what better way than to do that, sweetheart?”
I can’t argue with him as I curl into his chest, Skylar two steps behind us.