Chapter 44
Luna
Dry. Thirsty.
I drag my tongue over my teeth and get absolutely nothing back for the trouble. There is a heavy weight slung over my hip, and just above my head, the deep, steady breathing of someone a hell of a lot bigger than me.
I open my eyes, and the arm over my hip flexes. The breathing changes, a voice coming down rough and unhurried against the top of my head.
“There she is.” It’s Ash. “Hi, you.”
I turn over inside the curl of him. He’s propped on one elbow, dark hair wrecked, that half-smile sitting easy on his mouth, his eyes doing a slow pass over my face.
“Hi,” I croak. My voice is shot, which is its own piece of information.
“Water’s right here.” He reaches without looking, comes back with a glass, and tips it to my lips. I get a hand up and push it down an inch to breathe. “Easy. Nothing here’s in a hurry.”
It is the single best beverage I’ve ever had, and it seems I’m making it obvious because he huffs.
Then, memories start coming back in flashes.
Me, climbing Reed, taking Ash’s cock, begging for their knots... and their teeth. And there must be hours of missing footage between those moments, because my entire body feels utterly wrecked. Deeply, thoroughly sore from head to toe, like every muscle has been put to hard use.
Ugh, embarrassing.
A muffled sound escapes me, half groan and half whimper, as I slap both hands flat over my face. My omega, however, has absolutely no notes; she seems deeply, smugly pleased with herself.
You, I tell her. You did this to me.
Unrepentant.
“Are you okay?” Ash asks.
I clear my throat, then peel one hand off my face to glare at him through the narrow gap between my fingers. “Yes, of course,” I lie, even though there’s still a heavy, intoxicating veil draped over my brain. “Just... huh. What day is it? And where are Reed and Bram?”
“It’s Friday,” he replies casually. “And since you’ve been sleeping peacefully for a while, they headed down to the orchard to make some cider. But they’ll be back in a flash if you need them. All you have to do is say the word.”
Friday? My brain finally does the math, and the thought screeches to a violent halt.
“What?” My hands drop from my face entirely. “It’s Friday? It’s been six days?!”
“Yes, but don’t worry, you’ve been incredibly well taken care of,” he replies with a soft, knowing smile. He reaches out, brushing a stray thumb over my cheekbone.
More flashes strike my brain at his words, warm water, the slick tile of the bathroom wall, the taste of rich broth fed to me between breathless rounds of coming apart.
Despite the sheer shock of losing a week to the haze, I am warm.
I am safely held. There is a fresh glass of water with my name on it, and the man holding it looks like he spent the morning watching the ceiling fan spin just so I’d have a familiar face to wake up to. I feel cherished, sated... good.
Except for one very pressing reality.
“When is the last time I actually showered?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” Ash replies easily. He sets the empty water glass on the nightstand, shifts his weight, and lets his fingers trail a slow, inviting path down the bare skin of my arm. “Want me to take you in there and wash you?”
Yes, my omega suddenly awakens from her nap and screams at the top of her lungs.
***
The spray comes down, every sore inch of me going to warm wax under the heat.
Then his hands. Soap, and his hands, big and unhurried, working up my arms, across my shoulders, down the long sore muscles on either side of my spine, pressing the ache out of them an inch at a time.
A purr starts up in my chest and I feel myself just let go, sag back into him.
His fingers work into my scalp and I lose the plot entirely. Tip my head back into his hands and let him. He turns me by the hips to rinse the soap off my front, and we end up face to face under the spray, his hands loose on me, and that’s how it gets out before I can stop it.
“Do you mean it?”
His brows pull. “Mean what?”
I do it anyway. “When you implicitly act like I’m yours. Out in the field, in the nest...” My voice goes thin and young and I hate it. “Do you mean it, or is it just the biology talking?”
And there it is, right on schedule, the voice I packed and carried out of my old life, sliding in.
Men like that keep what’s useful. You’re useful right now. Stick around for the part where you’re not.
Everybody leaves you eventually.
His mouth opens, then closes as his half-smile goes. He reaches back and shuts the water off, so there’s just the drip of it and the steam.
“Luna, it is not the biology, and it’s not your heat scent, as delicious as it is,” he says, his jaw working as his eyes lock onto mine.
“I have wanted you from the exact second I saw you across that bar, before I ever had your name or your scent. I’m not yours because you smell good.
I’m yours because you’re funny, you’re smart, and you’re infinitely resourceful.
I’m yours because you are the only person on this earth I don’t feel like I have to perform for. ”
Just there, the cruel voice has gone quiet, because it doesn’t have a thing to say to that.
And the thing I’ve been holding behind my teeth, the thing I won’t let myself feel because feeling it is the most dangerous move I know, comes straight up and out of me.
“I love you.”
I watch it land on him. I genuinely did not know it was coming until it was already out.
His whole face opens.
“And I love you, Luna.” His forehead comes down and rests on mine.
The bathroom door suddenly clicks open.
Bram stands in the doorway, looks at the steam and the two of us soaked and wrapped around each other, and lets out a low, rumbled purr.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Bram says. “But Reed and I just got back from the press. We smelled love, and quite frankly, we’d like to know if we can join the shower party.”
At the sound of Bram’s voice, the heavy, sweet fog of my heat haze snaps back with a absolute flourish.
“Get in here,” I gasp, my omega practically clawing at the glass to get to him. “Both of you. Right now.”