"There." His arm wraps around my waist and holds me against him. "Feel that?"
"Yes." I shift my hips experimentally and the knot shifts inside me, pressing against my walls. The restlessness vanishes so abruptly my eyes water, gone between one breath and the next. "Oh. Oh, that's..."
"Your body knows what it needs, firefly." His mouth presses against the curve of my ear. "And your Alpha isn't going anywhere."
Amos pulls the blanket over us from the front as his hand finds my face. His thumb traces my lower lip and I take it in without hesitation, my jaw closing around the familiar comfort while Dominic is buried to the hilt inside me from behind. I don’t even know why I like this but it makes me feel full,claimed, theirs.My body goes heavy between them, every muscle releasing at once.
"You're going to sleep just like this, firefly." Dominic's voice is a low murmur against my hair. "Every time you move in the night, you're going to feel me inside you. Every time you breathe, you're going to feel my knot."
I let myself relax, melting between them before I can remind myself this is a bad idea.
Amos
Iwokeatfiveto the sight of them still locked together. Mattaniah's back was pressed against Dominic's chest with my thumb still loosely held between the Omega's lips, my Alpha awake and watching the both of us.
His eyes met mine over Mattaniah's shoulder and I knew immediately he hadn't slept, that he'd spent the entire nightholding still inside the Omega while Mattaniah's body pulsed gently around him.
Dominic has never done that with me. In all the years we’ve been together, he has never stayed inside me through the night. He finishes, he cleans up, he holds me, and he sleeps. The fact that he gave Mattaniah something he's never given me doesn't sting the way it probably should because I watched his face while he did it, and what I saw there wasn't strategy.
He pulled out carefully around five thirty. Mattaniah stirred at the loss and made a soft sound of protest, his hips pressing back into the empty space where Dominic had been. Dominic's jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth click but he merely pressed his mouth against Mattaniah's hair and whispered something I couldn't hear before climbing out of bed.
Now Dominic has been gone for an hour and I'm running bathwater for an Omega whose body is covered in bruises from the Alpha I love.
The bathroom fills with steam while I adjust the water temperature for the third time, testing it against the inside of my wrist. Too hot will shock his system after the night we had. Too cold will make the shivering worse. I find the narrow band between the two and let the tub fill while Mattaniah sits on the closed toilet lid wrapped in the comforter from his bed, his eyes fixed on the tile floor without really seeing it.
"Niah." I crouch in front of him and rest my hands on his knees. The comforter swallows him whole, only his face and his curls and his bare feet visible beneath the fabric. His eyes find mine slowly. "The bath is ready. Can you stand?"
"I think so." He pushes himself up and sways as I catch his elbow and guide him to the tub with a grip firm enough that he leans into it instead of fighting it. The comforter drops to the floor revealing the marks we left last night. Possessivenessflares in my chest at the claim we’ve left, but Dominic’s are much darker than mine.
Mattaniah steps into the water with a hiss, lowering himself in increments until he's settled and I can climb in behind him. My legs fit on either side of his body, the Omega tensing for a second before his back presses against my chest. His head drops onto my shoulder, the exhaustion rolling off of him.
"This is... you don't have to do this." His voice sounds scraped raw.
"I know I don't have to." I reach for the cup on the edge of the tub and fill it with warm water, then pour it slowly over his hair. His curls darken as the water soaks through them and a shudder runs through his frame. "Lean your head back a little."
He tips his chin up and I work shampoo through his curls, scratching gently against his scalp. His eyes close and the tension in his shoulders releases one degree at a time.
"Amos?"
"Mm."
"The thing Dominic did. After the... after it went wrong." He pauses, the water lapping against the sides of the tub while he searches for words. "When he was inside me and I fell asleep. I really liked that." His voice drops to barely audible on the last three words and his face flushes beneath the steam. I keep my hands moving through his hair.
"I know you did." I rinse the shampoo with careful pours from the cup. "Your scent was the most settled I've ever smelled it."
"It felt like being held from the inside." He shifts against my chest. "I've never felt anything like it. My body just went quiet for the first time in weeks. And the thumb thing? I don’t know what that is either. But I really like that too." His last sentence is barely above a whisper.
"Dominic noticed. He didn't sleep. He stayed awake the entire night to make sure you were comfortable."
Mattaniah is quiet for a long moment. "He did?"
"All night."
"That's..." He trails off. His fingers trace patterns in the water and I can feel him working through something, his body tensing and releasing against my chest in small cycles. "Maybe I should stop fighting this," he mutters, almost too quiet to catch. "Maybe I should just... let it happen and stop hating myself for wanting it."
"You don't have to hate yourself for wanting anything, Niah."
"You don't know my mother." A bitter edge creeps into his voice. "If she finds out about any of this, if she finds out I'm sleeping between two Alphas and purring and letting one of them put his cock inside me so I can fall asleep..." He shudders, his over-explanation oddly heartwarming. "She would take me apart. She'd tell Richard everything and burn the whole house down before she'd let me have something she didn't arrange."
