As soon as we’re making our way up the stairs from the library’s basement, Marcus looks over my head to Simon. “I’ll… I’ll stay with her until Luca’s off his shift tonight.”
He says it reluctantly. As if it’s a punishment. As if he’s on his way to the gallows. Saints, I don’t want him in my nest if he’s only going to slide in beside me and take me in his arms until my alpha can.
But I’m raw and numb all at once again, and I don’t refuse.
His thoughts are conflicted, a brewing storm of love and agony, and I burrow beneath my blankets as though that’ll silence the link between us, the rumbles of shame that roll through his thoughts like thunder.
He slips away sometime in the night, and I wake in Luca’s arms. I tell myself that it’s enough, that the alpha sleeping beside me is enough.
But I can’t help but ask myself whyI’mnot enough for the beta I fell so irrevocably in love with, why his thoughts about me are a battle between hope and despair.
CHAPTER31
My spring heat hits hard, fast, and a full week early. Marcus makes my excuses to my professors and prepares for half a week of playing nurse to me, but I have something I didn’t have for my last two heats: I have my alpha at my side.
The moment the fever, cramps, and agitation set in, Luca is with me, helping me rearrange my nest, passing me blankets, pillows, and spare flannel shirts as I lay down each piece.
He comes up behind me and I lean back into his embrace, tilt my head up into his touch as he nuzzles me. I drag his scent into my nose, letting the red wine and cherries intoxicate me, drive me deeper beneath the haze of my heat. Because this time I will not suffer: I’ll have the love of my alpha to see me through these difficult days.
“It’s a beautiful nest, Juniper. May I come in?”
Despite the pain, despite the fog settling in, dulling my thoughts, I beam. “Yes, please.”
I draw him into my nest, and he holds me through wave after wave of cramps as I sink into the oblivion of my heat.
My need spikes and, with it, my scent.
Luca groans. “Fuck, princess. Your scent is stronger during your heat, impossible to resist.”
“Then don’t resist, my alpha. Make love to me?”
We shed our clothes and my fever sends chills shaking through me, making me shiver. He covers my body with his, lending me his perfect heat. Saints, the weight of him, the hard planes of his body pressing into every soft place of mine is an ecstasy unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
He pours every ounce of his love and desire into his kiss. His lips move against mine, a tease that makes me whine until he opens his mouth to me, until I feel his tongue slide against mine, the cool metal of his tongue stud a stab of bright, intoxicating pleasure against the fire that burns inside of me.
I groan and I grind against him, soft against hard, heat against heat.
“Need to feel you,” I beg. “All of you.”
“I can’t knot you, Juniper. If I lose control and go into rut… you have no idea how close I come to losing it every single time we make love. I can’t hurt you. It would kill me.”
“Luca, I’mmadeto withstand a rut. You won’t hurt me.”
“Please, Juniper. I can’t.”
I swallow my tears and nod, needing more of him than he can give me.
Saints, Iachefor a knot, something I’ve never had before but need on an instinctual level. I may find pleasure without it, but I’ll never find satisfaction. I will suffer, just as I have in all my previous heats.
We make love for what feels like hours, and when my fever spikes, when my heat pulls me under, we fuck, hard and fast. We lose a day to each other, to the pain and passion of my desires.
“I need more,” I croak, hot tears streaking down my cheeks. “I don’t want more but I need it.”
He shushes me and comforts me, all the while dialing Simon, who comes immediately.
I reach for him when he appears at the top of the stairs and he falls into bed with me, tangling with me immediately. The weight of him between my thighs has me keening and I tilt my head back, begging for his kiss.
He kisses me with all the passion he’s been holding back and when we pause to strip him bare, he gazes down at me with such fondness that I nearly snap out of the haze of my heat.
