"Drive."
I turn my back and stride toward the cruiser, hands flexing. Twenty years of friendship, gone. Don't feel a damn thing about it.
Jessica's waiting by the passenger door, curves pressed against the car like she's trying to disappear into the metal. Her face is pale, hazel eyes too wide.
The protective surge hits me so hard I almost stagger.
"Is he—" She starts.
I reach her in three steps and cup her face, thumbs brushing her cheekbones. Soft. She's so damn soft everywhere, and I want to wrap myself around her until nothing else can touch her.
"He's gone." My voice comes out rougher than I mean.
Her breath hitches. Then she melts forward, forehead against my chest, one hand fisting my uniform shirt. The weight of her settles something violent in my gut.
Carlos pulls the back door open. "We moving or what?"
I guide Jessica into the backseat, hand splayed across the small of her back. Can't stop touching her. She slides across the seat and I follow, crowding her against the far door.
Nacho fires the engine.
"I love you." She says it so quietly I almost miss it. "All of you."
My chest cracks open. I pull her sideways across my lap, needing her closer. Her curves fit against me like they were built for it. "Say it again."
"I love you."
I bury my face in her hair, breathing her in. Alive. Safe. Mine.
The cruiser rolls forward, leaving everything behind.
33
JESSICA
Iwake on fire.
Not metaphorical fire. Not cute, poetic fire. Actual, literal, my-skin-is-melting-off-my-bones fire that makes me kick off every blanket in my nest and gasp for air that feels like breathing through a furnace.
The guest room is dark. Predawn grey seeps through the curtains, painting shadows across the sage green walls. The house is silent except for the creak of old bones settling and the thunderous roar of my own pulse in my ears.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. The plaster has a crack shaped like Florida that I've been meaning to mention to Carlos. It's right above my head. I've memorized every inch of it over the past three weeks of lying in this bed, trying to fall asleep, trying not to think about four men sleeping in rooms down the hall.
Right now, I can't think about anything except how much I need them.
The realization slams into me with the force of a freight train.
Heat. This is heat. Real heat, not the mild symptoms I've been experiencing for the past week. Not the nesting instincts orthe heightened senses or the way my body temperature has been running two degrees high since the press conference.
This is the main event. The nuclear option. The biological imperative that makes omegas lose their minds and alphas lose their control.
I've read about this. Researched it obsessively since Pedro told me it was coming. Nothing prepared me for the reality.
My skin feels too tight. Every nerve ending is screaming. The cotton of my sleep shirt, which was perfectly comfortable eight hours ago, now feels like sandpaper against my nipples. The sheets beneath me are damp with sweat, and I'm simultaneously freezing and burning alive.
God, the emptiness.
There's a hollow ache between my legs that goes deeper than anything physical. It's in my bones. My blood. Every cell in my body is crying out for word which loops through my brain like a broken record. I don't even know what I need. Only that I'll die without it.
