"Amos, I want to..." Another cramp hits harder this time, his scent shifting from the warm baseline into the sharp sweetness that signals the next wave. His hips push back against me as his fingers curl into the sheet.
Dominic wakes suddenly, registering the change in Mattaniah's scent as he reads the room. He moves up the bed, positioning himself in front of Mattaniah while I situate myself beside them, my hip by the Omega's face.
"I've got you." Dominic cups Mattaniah's face and the Omega's eyes are glassy, the lucid window already closing. "Look at me, firefly. Right here."
This wave is different from the others. Mattaniah doesn't demand or beg. He goes quiet, his body softening between us instead of tensing. His scent deepens into something I haven't detected during any of the previous cycles. The sweetness is still there but underneath it runs something older than the heat.
His head tilts back. His neck extends, the long line of his throat offered to the room, and my breath catches.
His body is doing this on its own, offering us his complete submission.
Dominic's eyes lock on the exposed throat and his nostrils flare. The predator surfaces in his expression, and the effort it takes him to hold back is visible in the tendons of his forearms.
"Not yet." I say it quietly against Mattaniah's ear. "Not during heat, Niah. You need to be able to think."
"I don't want to think." His voice is barely a whisper, his neck still extended, his body trembling between us. "I want to be yours. Both of yours. I want you to bite me and make it permanent. I don't care if I can't think because my body knows what it wants."
"Your body is in heat." Dominic's thumb traces the line of Mattaniah's throat without pressing down, a restraint that costs him something I can see in the tightness of his jaw. "When the heat breaks, if you still want this, we'll talk about it."
"Promise me." Mattaniah's hand finds Dominic's wrist and holds his thumb against his throat. "Promise me you won't pretend I didn't ask."
"I promise." Dominic leans forward and presses his mouth against the spot where a bond mark would go. Mattaniah's whole body shudders at the contact. "Now let me take care of you."
He pushes inside Mattaniah while I settle on my side beside them, and this time the pace is something neither of us has given him before. Each thrust is slow and measured, Dominic's forehead resting against Mattaniah's. The wave is here but Dominic is refusing to let it dictate the pace.
My hand slides down Mattaniah's stomach and wraps around his cock, stroking him in the same unhurried rhythm Dominic has set. Between us the Omega makes sounds I haven't heard from him before, soft keening notes that vibrate through his chest into mine.
I shift down further beside them, settling on my side with my ribs level with Mattaniah's face. His head turns against the mattress, his lips brushing across my skin, searching, and moving lower, and I realize what he's looking for half a second before he finds it.
His mouth closes over my bond mark.
The sensation that rips through me is unlike anything I've experienced. Mattaniah's tongue traces the scar and the pleasure that shoots through the bond makes Dominic's rhythm stutter.
"I felt that." Dominic's voice is wrecked, his hips stalling mid-thrust. "I felt that through him. I felt your mouth on his mark."
Mattaniah hums against the scar and sucks harder. The sensation doubles through the bond, making my vision blur.Dominic groans as his hips snap forward with a force that drives Mattaniah harder against my side, pressing his mouth tighter against the mark.
"Niah." The word barely makes it out. "Do you know what you're doing right now?"
He answers by sucking the mark into his mouth and running his tongue across the crescent in a deliberate stroke that makes both Dominic and me gasp at the same time. His hand comes up and presses flat against Dominic's chest, over the matching mark above his nipple, and the contact completes a circuit. Pleasure cascades through all three of us in a loop that builds with each of Dominic's thrusts and each stroke of Mattaniah's tongue on my scar.
The orgasm that hits me isn't localized. It rolls through the bond first, hitting Dominic before it reaches my own body. His shout of release triggers Mattaniah's, the Omega's body clenching around Dominic's cock while his mouth stays sealed over my mark. Dominic's knot swells and locks inside Mattaniah, the three of us collapsing into the nest.
Mattaniah's mouth releases my mark. His breathing is ragged against my ribs, his body shaking, his hand still pressed flat against Dominic's chest over the other mark.
"I can feel both of you." He says it quietly, his eyes closing. "When I touch both marks, I can feel what you feel for each other."
His eyes meet mine over Mattaniah's head.
"Go to sleep, firefly." Dominic's voice is rough against the Omega's hair. "The next wave will wake you."
"Amos said he loves me." Mattaniah mumbles it into my ribs, already sliding toward sleep. "I want him to know I heard him."
"He knows, firefly. Tell him properly when the heat breaks. Just him. When it's just you.”
"What if I forget?"
"You won't forget."
