Chapter Forty-Five #3
I know the difference. I know where I am.
I am in my nest. This is the first heat I haven't been bent over in endless pain, a mindless husk of need.
I am under the fairy lights that Kev strung for me.
The air smells of my tomatoes and the climbing rose I planted last week and Aubrey's cedar and the oakwood that is Kev.
My plants are alive around me. My mates surround me, blankets with warmth and love.
I wait for the fear. The flinch behind the sternum, the instinct to map exits.
I wait for all of it, but none of it comes.
Sera has been beside me for a while. Her left hand is resting on her stomach, carefully.
She’s been crying. The corners of her eyes are still bright, and she hasn't moved to wipe it away.
I palm her cheek. “You were so worried you wouldn't be enough.”
She lets out a breath. “Espie—”
“You came into Wallace's facility alone and you carried me out.” My voice is steady even though my whole body is riding my heat and Lex is deep inside me. “You brought me back when I was nothing.”
“Espie, you don't have to—”
“You sat outside our door for a week and fed us and kept us and held us and you never once asked for anything back.”
She presses her lips together.
“I love you,” I whisper. “I want to bond with you. Say yes. Please, Alpha.”
Sera lifts her bandaged hand and reaches for me. I take it gently in both of mine, press my lips to the soft bandage, and breathe against her fingers. “I’ve got you,” I murmur. “Even this part.”
She watches me with dark, wet eyes. “I know you do.”
I place her palm over my racing heart so she can feel every frantic beat, then I lean in and kiss her.
I kiss her slow at first, tasting the salt of our tears on her lips, but it doesn’t stay soft for long.
“Espie,” she breathes against my mouth. “Come here, sweetheart.”
She pulls me down on top of her, her good hand sliding into my hair as her mouth opens under mine.
Our tongues slide together, and I feel her body shift beneath me until I’m straddling her thigh.
The kiss turns deeper, hungrier. She sucks on my lower lip, then bites it gently before soothing it with her tongue, and a low sound escapes me.
She rolls us so she’s above me, careful with her injured hand, but the rest of her is anything but careful.
Her mouth leaves mine and travels down—slow, open-mouthed kisses along my throat, my collarbone, the swell of my breasts.
When her lips close around my nipple, she sucks hard, tongue flicking, and my back arches off the nest. She moves lower, kissing down my stomach, nipping at my hips, until she’s settled between my spread thighs.
The first hot, wet drag of her tongue through my folds makes me cry out.
She licks me slowly at first, broad and deliberate, tasting every inch of me before she focuses on my clit.
She circles it with the tip of her tongue, then sucks it into her mouth, and I can’t stop the desperate sounds pouring out of me.
“That’s it,” she whispers against my lips, fucking me slow and steady with her fingers while she keeps kissing me. “So wet already. Let me feel you.”
She fucks me with her fingers while her mouth stays on my clit, sucking and licking in time with every thrust.
“So beautiful like this,” she murmurs. “Taking my fingers so well.”
I whimper again and she kisses me harder, swallowing every broken sound I make until my thighs start to shake.
“Come for me,” she says between kisses. “Right on my fingers, Espie. I want to feel you.”
The command, the steady thrust of her fingers, and the press of her mouth against mine send me over the edge.
I come with a choked sob, my cunt clenching and fluttering tightly around her fingers as slick gushes out of me.
She kisses me through every pulse, murmuring soft praises against my lips while her fingers keep moving gently inside me, drawing it out until I’m trembling and boneless beneath her.
Only then does she slowly withdraw her fingers, brings them to her mouth, and sucks them clean, “I’m not finished with you yet.”
She seals her lips around my clit and sucks.
The sudden intensity makes me cry out. Her good hand grips my thigh, holding me open as her tongue works me relentlessly.
Just when I think I can’t take more, she pushes two fingers back inside me, curling and pumping while her mouth stays locked on my clit.
“Oh gods, Sera—!” I choke out.
She moans against me in response, the vibration shooting straight through me. “That’s it, sweetheart,” she says. “Come on my tongue. I want to feel you fall apart again.”
My back arches violently as another orgasm crashes over me, my cunt clenching hard around her fingers while she keeps licking and sucking me through it, not stopping until I’m gasping and oversensitive.
She climbs back over me at last and kisses me again, letting me taste myself between us.
Emotion catches hard in my chest. I bury my face against her throat, then bite.
Her essence pours into me in a rush. I sob against her throat from the overwhelming rightness of it.
She wraps her good arm tightly around my back, holding me close.
Then she bites my throat and the bond snaps closed completely, our essences braiding together so perfectly that the old, hollow ache in my chest finally goes quiet. My shoulders drop. My next breath fills all the way to the bottom of my lungs.
“I love you,” Sera whispers into my hair, voice cracked and shaking. “I’ve been so afraid to say it.”
“I know, Sera,” I whisper, voice trembling. “You don’t have to be anymore.”
For a moment I can only breathe, caught between them, the new bond with Sera still fluttering tender and bright inside my chest.
Lex’s voice is rough against my shoulder.
“You two…” He pauses, like the words are too big for him. “Watching her make you come like that… I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. ‘We are the sum of every kiss we’ve been too afraid to give’.”
“That’s beautiful. Who is the poet,” I ask.
I feel the curve of his lips against my shoulder. “That one’s mine.”
“Oh, Lex.” I need him inside me. Curled around me. I want him to be everywhere and everything. I reach back, my hand finding his hip, then sliding down his thigh, pulling him closer. My voice comes out hoarse.
“Lex… please. I want you too. All of you. Please give me your bond.”
He makes a low, broken sound and shifts closer.
One strong arm slides under my thigh, lifting my leg and hooking it back over his hip so I’m opened wider for him.
The new angle leaves me completely exposed.
I feel the thick head of his cock drag slowly through my slick folds, teasing my entrance before he presses forward.
“Please, please, please,” I chant.
“You have me, Espie.” He sinks into me in one long, deliberate thrust, stretching my pussy wide around every inch until his hips are flush against my ass.
I feel the heavy, rapid beat of his heart pounding straight through my back, and his hot breath ghosts over the side of my neck with every rough exhale.
Sera cups the back of my neck, fingers threading gently into my hair as she pulls me into a slow, deep kiss.
Her tongue brushes mine, tasting me, soothing me, while Lex begins to move behind me.
His thrusts start unhurried. Long, rolling strokes that drag every thick inch of his cock almost all the way out before sinking back in, filling me so completely he presses against the very end of me.
Each time he bottoms out, a helpless moan spills from my mouth into Sera’s, and she swallows it down, kissing me deeper, slower, like she wants to savor every sound I make.
Oh gods… he feels so good. So deep. My thoughts are hazy, caught between the fresh bond pulsing warm and bright with Sera and the heavy, perfect stretch of Lex inside my pussy.
His heartbeat pounds against my back, strong and steady, and his hot breath fans over the side of my throat with every ragged exhale.
Lex’s hand glides up my body in one possessive stroke until his palm covers my breast, thumb brushing slowly over my nipple.
The touch sends sparks straight down to where he’s moving inside me.
He presses a warm kiss to the curve of my shoulder, then higher, right where Sera’s bite is still tender and throbbing.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs against the mark, voice low and rough. “Both of you. I could watch this forever.”
Sera pulls back just enough to rest her forehead against mine, her breath mingling with mine. “She feels it, Lex,” she says softly, eyes flicking up to meet his over my shoulder. “She wants all of you.”
I can’t stop myself from moaning again as Lex pushes in deep and stays there for a second, grinding slowly, letting me feel every pulse of him. My thoughts dissolve into nothing but heat and love and the desperate, aching need for his bond to settle in me the same way Sera’s did.
“God, Espie,” he breathes against my skin. “You feel so fucking good. So warm and tight around me.”
Sera pulls back just enough to look at me, her eyes dark and soft. Then she kisses me again, slower this time, her tongue stroking mine in time with Lex’s deep thrusts. I feel both of them at once. Sera’s mouth claiming mine, Lex’s cock moving inside me with steady, sensual strokes.
My pussy flutters around him, getting wetter, needier. Every time he pushes in, I rock back to meet him, chasing more, deeper, fuller. His rhythm stays controlled, but I feel the way he’s swelling, the base of his cock thickening with every thrust.
I pull away from Sera’s mouth just long enough to whisper, voice shaky, “Lex… knot me. Please. Claim me, Alpha. Please.”