The competitive Alpha in me, the part that’s always needed to win, to possess, to dominate, has found an unexpected peace in this strange new dynamic.
I’ve never been good at sharing. My siblings would tell stories about how I’d hoard toys as a kid, how I’d fight anyone who tried to take what I considered mine. That instinct followed me into adulthood, into business, into relationships. Mine, mine, mine. It’s been the soundtrack of my life for as long as I can remember.
But here, now, watching Elle move between the three of us with easy affection, I find myself thinking: Maybe I’m not built for sharing. But for her, maybe I am.
The thought should scare me. Instead, it feels like clarity. Like finding a piece of myself I didn’t know was missing. Like finally understanding that some treasures are too precious to be claimed by any one person alone.
Elle catches my eye across the room, her smile deepening with a warmth that makes my chest tight. And I know, with sudden certainty, that whatever happens when we leave this villa—whatever professional masks we don, whatever distance we maintain in public—something fundamental has shifted between us all.
The storm has passed. But what it’s left in its wake is something I’m not ready to let go of just yet.
seventeen
. . .
Elle
The final nightbefore we return to reality falls around us like a silk curtain, soft and inevitable. I watch them move around the villa—Adrian methodically loading the dishwasher, Miles wiping down counters with efficient precision, Caleb drying glasses with uncharacteristic care—and heat pools low in my belly. My heat has passed, but desire remains, a steady thrumming beneath my skin that has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with choice. Tonight, there are no excuses of pheromones or primal needs. Tonight, if I take them to my bed—if I let them claim me again—it will be purely because I want them. All of them.
I rise from the couch where I’ve been pretending to review tomorrow’s schedule, my body moving with purpose before my mind fully commits. Three pairs of eyes track me as I walk toward the hallway, toward the primary bedroom that still smells of us, of sex and sweat and satisfaction.
“Early night?” Adrian asks, his voice carefully neutral even as his pupils dilate.
I pause at the threshold, looking back at them over my shoulder. “Yes,” I say simply. “Are you coming?”
The double entendre hangs in the air, deliberate and bold in a way I never would have been before the storm, before my heat, before everything changed. Caleb’s slow grin spreads across his face, Miles sets down his cloth with decisive purpose, and Adrian abandons his meticulous dishwasher arrangement mid-sequence—perhaps the most telling response of all.
They follow me like planets caught in my gravity, and the power of it, the heady rush of having these three Alphas trail after me not from biological imperative but from pure want, makes my skin flush hot.
The bedroom welcomes us with sheets still rumpled from last night’s activities. I turn to face them, suddenly nervous despite my bold invitation. What if this was just about my heat for them? What if, without the biological excuse, they don’t actually?—
Adrian reaches me first, his hands cupping my face with unexpected gentleness. “Are you sure?” he asks, always the one to check, to verify, to make certain.
“Yes,” I breathe, leaning into his touch. “I want this. One more night before—” I can’t finish the thought, can’t acknowledge that tomorrow might end whatever this is between us.
“Don’t think about tomorrow,” Caleb murmurs, appearing at my side, his fingers sliding into my hair. “Just be here, now, with us.”
Miles completes our circle, his solid presence at my back, hands settling on my hips with confident possession. “We have tonight,” he says simply, as if it’s enough. As if it could ever be enough.
I turn my head, seeking Caleb’s mouth first, drawn to his playful grin that softens into something hungrier as our lips meet. He tastes of the wine we had with dinner, rich and complex. When I pull back, Adrian is waiting, his kiss more controlled but no less passionate, like he’s memorizing the feel of my mouth against his. Then I twist to find Miles, who kisses with the same focused intensity he brings to everything, thorough and deliberate in a way that makes my knees weak.
“I want all of you,” I tell them when I can breathe again. “Together. Like last night.”
“Tell us exactly what you want,” Adrian urges, his hands already working at the buttons of my blouse. “Be specific, Elle.”
The directive sends heat rushing through me. During my heat, they took control, anticipating my needs, guiding me through the overwhelming sensations. Now, clear-headed and deliberate, I can ask for precisely what I crave.
“I want to feel you all inside me,” I say, voice steady despite the blush I feel creeping up my neck. “Caleb in my mouth, Adrian in my pussy, Miles taking my ass. I want to be filled completely.”
Miles makes a sound low in his throat, his hands tightening on my hips. “You’re sure? That’s intense, even without heat hormones helping.”
“I’m sure,” I insist, turning to meet his eyes. “I want to remember exactly how it feels to have all of you. Together.”
They undress me with reverent hands, each piece of clothing removed like unwrapping a precious gift. I help them shed their own clothes, savoring the distinct differences in their bodies—Adrian lean and precisely maintained, Miles broad andpowerfully built, Caleb lithe and graceful. Three different types of physical perfection, all focused entirely on me.
We move to the bed in a tangle of limbs and kisses, hands exploring familiar territory that somehow feels new in the absence of heat-driven urgency. Caleb settles against the headboard, guiding me between his spread thighs, his cock already hard and glistening at the tip. Adrian positions himself behind me, his chest against my back, his erection pressing insistently against the cleft of my ass. Miles kneels beside us, patient, watching, his hand lazily stroking his impressive length.
“Slowly,” Adrian murmurs against my ear as his fingers find me already wet and wanting. “We have all night.”
