Chapter Twenty-Three – Jess
Five days go by before I realize something’s wrong. Something is terribly, terribly wrong.
What is wrong, you might be wondering? Oh, I’ll tell you. This house doesn’t have enough pillows. Like, you’d think with how big it is, there would be pillows aplenty, but there isn’t. My ankle feels fine, and after a lot of reassurance, I finally don’t have the guys breathing down my neck while I go room to room, gathering all the fluffy pillows I could find.
Those stupid decorative ones that are hard as a rock? I don’t bother with those. I don’t want those. Those are as useless as pillows could be. Seriously, what’s the point of them?
I want fluff. I want softness. I want…
It’s as I stand in the middle of my room, surrounded by pillows and blankets and other things I took from various rooms in the house—including stuff from the guys’ rooms—that I realize I’m starting to spiral.
I’m nesting. Shit. So much for possibly not having any pre-heat symptoms, huh? That’s Murphy’s Law coming to smack me across the head and bring me back to reality. I might not be able to smell, but I’m still more than capable of nesting like I’ve never nested before.
And, in a way, I haven’t. Not like this. I’ve never had to prepare a room for what will be the Olympics of sex.
I tore off all the bedding and pillows from the large mattress and spread them out on the floor. I then layered the sheets and pillows I took from the guys’ rooms on top of that and surrounded the entire thing with pillows from the living room and every other room, minus the hard ones, like I said. Just because I can’t smell my guys’ scents on the things I took doesn’t mean they don’t still bring me comfort. They do.
It’s a weird thing, realizing I’m nesting and thereby realizing my heat is going to start at any given moment. I suppose I have been eating more during meals; I’ve taken to shoveling down my food much like the guys do when they eat. Like animals, seriously. I’ve had some emotional outbursts that made me feel like I was going crazy, but none of the guys said a word about any of it being pre-heat symptoms.
I bet those jerks knew the moment I started to lose it. I bet they talked in secret about how to prepare for this while letting me stay blissfully unaware of my impending heat. The jerks. I can’t believe they didn’t say anything to me.
Not that it would’ve changed anything. My heat is coming regardless.
Asher knocks on the door; I’ve taken to leaving it open. My room is no more off-limits to the guys, not after that little chat we had about becoming a pack after everything’s said and done. He takes a single step into the room, his eyes wide as he surveys the absolute mess that has become of it.
I set my hands on my hips, expecting a critique. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” I look around me, at the blankets and pillows. I don’t think I can see an inch of the actual floor beyond my mess. “Just say it: it’s terrible. It’s horrible. It’s a pathetic attempt at a nest, isn’t it?”
He chooses his words carefully as he steps over the pillows and comes to my side, “I think it looks very… comfortable.”
I pucker my lips and angle my head back. He now stands a good foot in front of me, and instead of focusing on the nest around us, he’s staring squarely at me, like I’m the only thing that matters in this room.
Come on. A nest is super important. If I’m not happy with my nest, then I surely won’t be a happy camper through my heat.
“Comfortable?Comfortable?” The second time I echo the word, I sound a little hysterical. The thing is, I don’t know how to switch it off. I feel almost out of my mind.
“Yes,” he says, bringing his hands to my arms and rubbing me in a gesture that’s probably supposed to calm me down. “It looks perfect.” His hands move to cup my face, and at first I think it’s so that I don’t keep staring at the room around us, but when he lifts my face and makes me gaze up into his eyes, his calmness fills me, and together we let out a long, slow breath.
Never been one for breathing exercises, but not going to lie, I do feel a bit calmer now. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper, referencing the whole heat thing.
It’s not really fair that nature forces us omegas to go through this. It’s just not fair. All the schooling, all the classes, everything we learn about heats in school; nothing can actually prepare you for the real thing.
Asher still radiates a quiet tranquility that seeps into my bones. “You can do this. I know you can.” I open my mouth to argue with him, but he goes on, “You have me, Mason, and Rourke here to help you through it—and that thing you brought, if you want it. We’ll do whatever you want us to. We will be your servants.”
I swallow hard. “What if I don’t know what to do?”
“You will.”
“How can you be so sure?” This hesitation, this uncertainty… it’s not me. It’s like someone else is taking the reins and steering. I’m not someone who wavers in the what-ifs. I might linger in the past and how much everything sucked, but I’m not like this.
Asher steps closer, and in doing so my chest leans against his upper stomach. His head bends as he smiles down at me, the warmth flowing through him ebbing into me. “Because you’re you. You got this. And you have us. We’re here for you.”
I whine. The sound slips out of me before I can stop it. An omega’s whine is a deep, innate sound, and it’s meant to elicit a certain type of reaction from an alpha. It’s not the same as whining when you’re complaining about something. It’s a more primal sound, no words necessary.
The moment that whine surfaces, Asher responds in the only way he can: he lowers his face to mine and brings his lips to my mouth, kissing me softly as a low rumble risers in his chest. That rumble is something I feel deep within my soul, in my core, in every part of me. An alpha’s purr.
