Shit. I can’t wait until morning. I need them now.
I labor to sit up. Even doing so is like pulling the tendons from my body; unnatural and more difficult than you could ever imagine. The only way I can get to my feet is by kneeling first, then using both my arms to help push myself up. As I stand on my own two feet, I sway, and my lower half reminds me that I need some help by shooting pain down my legs.
I thought a silicone alpha knot would help me through this? What a joke I was. How blind. And stupid.
Swaying on my feet a bit, I manage to stumble through the room in the darkness. By the time I reach the door, I’m out ofbreath and coated in sweat. This shit sucks. I literally can’t think straight.
Rourke. Asher. Mason. Their knots.
It’s all I can think about as I open the door and shuffle down the hall. It’s like pulling teeth, but somehow I manage to reach someone’s room. My right hand curls into a fist, and I think about knocking hard enough to wake the sleeping alpha inside, but suddenly all the energy in my body drains out, and I can only open the door before I collapse on the ground.
The door pushes open, and I have to take a moment to simply breathe before I can say the alpha’s name.
This is it. This is the beginning of everything. All of the running, all of the resisting; it culminates here and now. I’m an omega, and I need my alphas.
I open my mouth to say a single name, “Rourke.”
Chapter Twenty-Four – Rourke
My dreams are full of Jess. Her pretty amber eyes. Her messy blue and black hair. Those full, luscious lips. And that scent of warm, sugary peppermint that ignites me to my core. I’m lost in a dream of her when I’m suddenly woken up by that same peppermint scent and a raspy voice that calls my name.
“Rourke.”
The air is thick, and regardless of whether it’s due to how strong her scent is or the dream I was in the middle of, my cock is rock hard when I fly out of bed to find Jess on her knees near my bedroom door.
“Jess,” I breathe out her name as I pull her into my arms. My chest is bare; I wear only boxers. I’ve found I can’t sleep in any of the clothes that are here. Just too tight to be comfortable in at night.
Her scent is so strong, it could knock any alpha off his feet. I know what’s happening before she says it, and when she does say it, she has to speak it through gritted teeth: “It’s here. It hurts.” She whimpers against me, clinging to me.
“Let’s get you back to your room,” I say as I stand. Every move I make is stilted and rough; the only thing I want to do is lay her down right here, tear off all her clothes, and go at her like an animal. She’s drenched in sweat, which means she’s been feeling this way for a while now, and I hate that it took her this long to come to one of us and let us know her heat is officially here.
It’s here, and that means it’s up to us to take care of her.
I carry her down the hall as she trembles in my arms. All that talk, and now the time is finally here, and it’s like all the discussions disappeared. I can’t remember them. I don’t know what to do. I am someone who’s been trained to keep myselfstable during times like this—the last thing you want when you’re rescuing an omega in heat from bad circumstances is to lose control—but it’s different here and now.
It’s Jess. She’s mine. She’s my scent match, literally made for me, and whatever willpower I would have if she was someone else simply doesn’t exist.
In her room we go, and I carefully lay her down on the floor, amongst her nest, and I nearly trip on multiple pillows when I head for the lamp on the nightstand. The overhead lights would be too bright and garish for the time of night, while the lamp would illuminate the room just enough.
I return to her side, kneeling near her. “Do you need something to drink? Something to eat? Let me wake Asher and Mason—”
“No,” she breathes out the word. “I need—” She swallows before she finishes her desire. “—you.” She sounds so desperate, her voice so urgent, I temporarily forget everything outside of this room. All I see is her and the pain she’s in.
And that pain? I can make it better. I can help her.
“I need you, Rourke,” Jess whispers, panting out my name in a way she’s never spoken it before. No one’s ever said my name quite like that.
“Then you’ll have me,” I say as I lower myself to her level, laying on top of her and pinning her down with my body. Burying my nose in the crook of her neck, as sweaty as it is, I breathe her in and fill my lungs with her sweet, minty scent. “You’ll have all of me. Is that what you want? You want my cock, omega, my knot?”
As I ask it of her, my cock strains against the pants I wear, reminding me it’s already hard and raring to go. It’ll take some effort on my part to not knot her immediately. To go slow, to take her, to fuck her nice and long and wear her out before I let that knot swell and lock us together.
Fuck. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this for ages. Keeping myself away from her has been nothing short of torture.
She nods against me. “Yes. I want it.”
I don’t make her beg. Doing so would be cruel. I give her a hard kiss before I sit up and help her out of her clothes, piece by piece. Honestly, I don’t know why she’s still clothed to begin with. The fabric sticks to her everywhere, her body drenched. It makes undressing her more difficult than it needs to be.
But I manage, and soon enough she lays there, utterly bare, her chest heaving in anticipation, her hair splayed around her head like a dark halo.
