"My dad brought up the nest," she says. "When I went to see him last night." My hand finds hers as Quentin shifts so that his legs on either side of her again.Possessive bastard."I didn't mention mine or anything. He just asked. He said he boxed up my mother's nest after she died because he couldn't look at it. He put everything in storage and never dealt with it and then he realized he never talked to me about it. Dad knew it was my safe place. He was pretty broken up about the fact that he never asked if I might have the same instinct."
I bring her hand up to my lips, my breath ghosting over her knuckles.
"He said my mom would have known. That she would have seen it immediately and helped me build the damn thing. His words." A breath leaves her, unsteady at the edges. "He cried, you guys. My dad sat at the kitchen table and cried."
The image of Coach Delacroix crying in his kitchen is something I will carry with me for a very long time. This man screams at referees and runs drills in blizzards and has never shown anything softer than mild approval. And he sat across from his daughter and cried because he didn't know that she needed more.
"He loves you," I manage to say, because it's the only thing true enough to be worth saying.
"I know." She tips her head back against Quentin's shoulder. "That's what made it so hard to tell him."
A small silence fills the space as Iris finishes her wine and then sets it at the edge of the nest. I let out a small sigh, taking in the perfectness of this space until Iris’ scent spikes. I sit up straight and look at her, her lips parted slightly, confused until I catch one of Quentin’s hands down the front of her pants.
Well, then.
Crawling up to her proves the right move, Iris tugging me forward into a deep kiss, her tongue thrusting into my mouth and tangling with mine. A gasp tears from her throat, her scent spiking further.
“My brother’s got you, doesn’t he?” I mumble against her lips. She nods, kissing me again but the moment her scent spikes a second time, my body responds as well. A full whine peels from my lips as slick coats the inside of my shorts, my eyes rolling into the back of my head.
Fuck.
Iris and Quentin both sit up as I embarrassingly wave my hands. “It’s not… I’m not in heat. I just… it’s really hot okay? You two together. I mean. I just…” I groan as more slick fills my underwear, the warmth spreading down my thighs. "My body has zero chill. Absolutely none. This is a personal failing and I'm aware of it."
Quentin's expression hasn't changed but his scent has deepened, going sharp with arousal. Iris is watching me with dark eyes, her chest rising and falling faster than it was a minute ago, and the look she gives Quentin over her shoulder makes my stomach drop in the best way.
"Come here," she says, her voice sharpening with that Alpha edge to it, the one that makes my whole body go pliant. She looks at Quentin, then back at me, something passing between the three of us that makes my pulse spike. "I want both of you. At the same time."
The nest goes quiet.
"Both of us," Quentin repeats.
"Both of you." Iris's chin lifts, her composure holding even though her scent has gone molten. "I've been thinking about it since the first night. I want to feel both of you inside me."
My brain short-circuits for a solid three seconds. Quentin's jaw tightens in the way it does when he's running calculations, except the math he's doing right now has nothing to do with anatomy coursework. "Logistics," he murmurs, because of course that's where his brain goes first.
"I'll be on top of you because you shouldn’t be doing much with that arm," Iris says to Quentin. She turns to me. "And Milo takes the back."
"The back?" I repeat, my voice cracking on the word.
"We don't have lube," Quentin says.
All three of us look down at the slick currently coating my thighs. The silence stretches for exactly two seconds before Iris' mouth twitches. "I think we're covered," she chuckles.
My ears burn so hot I'm surprised they don't catch fire. "This is simultaneously the most embarrassing and the most useful my biology has ever been."
"Are you okay with this?" Iris asks, the Alpha edge dropping from her voice, replaced by something softer.
"I'm very okay with this." I swallow. "Extremely. Aggressively okay."
She looks at Quentin. He nods once, his hand finding her hip, his thumb pressing into the bone. "Yeah."
Clothes come off in a tangle. Iris pulls her shirt over her head while Quentin's hands work her pants down her hips, and I manage to strip my shorts off without making the slick situation worse, which is a minor miracle. Iris turns and straddles Quentin, her knees settling on either side of his hips, her hands bracing on his chest. He grips her waist and guides her down onto him, both of them exhaling at the same time, Iris' head tipping back as she takes him in.
I kneel behind her, my hands on her hips, my cock hard and leaking against the small of her back. The slick is everywhere, dripping down my thighs, and when Iris rocks forward on Quentin I can feel the motion through her body against mine.
God, this is so fucking embarrassing.I use my hand to spread the slick between her cheeks, pressing one finger into her slowly, then two, giving her time to adjust while she's already full of Quentin. Her breath hitches, her back arching forward as Quentin's grip on her waist tightens.
"Okay?" I ask, my voice rougher than I expect.
