Dominic pulls out of my mouth and hauls me to my feet. He spins me and bends me over the edge of the bed, my chest flat against the mattress, my feet still on the floor. His hand presses between my shoulder blades and holds me down.
"Don't move." His other hand works his cock between my thighs, sliding through the slick, teasing my entrance without pushing in. "You wanted the Alpha. You're getting the Alpha."
He pushes inside me with a force that drives the air from my lungs. The stretch burns and the burn is exactly what I needed. His pace is fast from the first stroke, his hips snapping forward with a controlled violence that rocks me against the mattress with each thrust.
For the first two minutes it works. The spiral retreats under the pressure of him inside me and his voice in my ear telling me to take it, to let him use me.
Then the worduselands differently.
My body was made to be used. My mother's voice finishes the sentence for him.An Omega who gives away control gives away everything.
Every commanding word from Dominic's mouth sounds like her.Be useful. Be compliant. Let the Alpha take what he wants.
Dominic's hand presses harder between my shoulder blades and the pressure feels wrong. His cock drives into me and the pleasure is still there but every thrust confirms what my mother said.
I can't breathe. My chest locks and my vision narrows. Behind me Amos' fingers tighten on my hip, his pine scent spiking sharp and medicinal the way it does when he's worried.
"Mango." The word comes out quiet but clear in the space between thrusts.
Dominic's rhythm stutters. His hips slow and his hand lifts off my shoulder blades, his weight shifting backward. "Mattaniah?"
"No." I squeeze my eyes shut. "No, I'm okay. I don't know why I said it. I'm okay."
Dominic doesn't move. He stays still inside me and looks over my shoulder at Amos. The silence between them lasts two seconds, but I can feel it through the bond, the question and the memory of the time he didn't stop, the time it took too long.
Amos' fingers trace down my side, slow and careful over my ribs where my skin is trembling. "You don't have to push yourself, Niah." His voice is soft near my ear. "It's okay."
"I need this." My hands grip the sheets. "I'm okay. I promise."
Amos' hand comes up and turns my face toward him. His mouth finds mine, the kiss slow and unhurried, his lips moving against mine while Dominic stays still inside me, waiting. Amos tastes like the coffee he's been drinking all morning, his hand cupping my jaw and holding me steady, the tenderness of it making my chest ache in a way the roughness didn't.
He pulls back as his thumb brushes my cheekbone. "Okay." He says it to me, but the permission is for Dominic.
His hips find a gentler rhythm, and his mouth drops to my shoulder and presses a kiss there, the tenderness now worse than the roughness because it makes me feel cared for and I can't tell if that's real either.
Amos' hand stays on my hip. His grip hasn't loosened. His fingers press into the bone with a steadiness that says he's watching, he's paying attention, he's ready.
My mother's voice comes back louder.He's being gentle now because you flinched. That's not love, that's management. That's handling.
My scent goes fully sour, burnt wood and something rotten underneath the coconut, and I know they can smell it too because Amos makes a low sound behind me and Dominic's mouth lifts from my shoulder.
"MANGO." It rips out of me, half-scream, half-sob, loud enough that there is no possibility of it being missed. "Mango, mango, I can't, I can't do this."
Dominic is out of me before the last word lands. His hands go gentle on my body immediately, his palms light against my sides as he eases me upright from the mattress.
"I'm out." His voice has changed completely. "I'm out, firefly. I'm right here."
My legs won't hold me. I slide off the edge of the bed and onto the carpet and Dominic follows me down, his knees hitting the floor beside mine. Amos is there in the same second, wrapping around me from behind, his chest against my back, his arms circling my waist.
Tears prick at the edge of my eyes, the sob coming from somewhere below my lungs, a sound that rips through my body and shakes all three of us through the bond.
Dominic's arms come around me from the front so I'm held between them, my face pressed into his chest, Amos' forehead against the back of my neck. They hold me while I cry and the only sounds are my gasping breaths and the creak of the bed frame where Dominic's knee presses against it.
The sobs slow in stages. The sharp, tearing ones give way to shuddering breaths, then to hiccups, then to the dull, wrung-outquiet that comes after. Dominic's hand moves slowly through my hair. Amos' thumb traces circles on my hip.
Dominic tips my chin up. His eyes are red-rimmed, the muscles in his jaw pulled tight and he presses his mouth to mine so gently that I barely feel it, a kiss that asks for nothing.
"I trusted you." It comes out between hitching breaths, muffled against his mouth. "I gave you everything I had and you... you started it as a game."
