“Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. My voice sounds like someone else’s. “Bathroom.”
My legs carry me through the bedroom door and down to the guest bedroom’s bathroom as I try to wrap my head around the idea ofmates.
20
Lorenzo
Oliver is boneless against Nicholas’s chest, his breath fogging the Alpha’s collarbone, his body still locked around that knot inside him. His eyes are half-lidded and his mouth curves into that loose, wrecked smile he gets when he’s pushed over the edge with pleasure. Glitter smudges the pillow beneath him and trails onto Nicholas’ jaw where Oliver’s cheek pressed these last few minutes.
It’s moments like these I remember how beautiful those two are together and how close we’ve come to asking Nicholas to stay. This time around, I don’t think I’ll have a choice in the matter. Oliver will 100% claim him and Wilson is already his.
I sweep my hand to Oliver’s chin and tilt his face toward me. His pupils are still blown wide, the blue of his irises barely there, though his scent has settled from the desperate surge of twenty minutes ago into something richer.
His mouth parts before I lean in, and I kiss him thoroughly, my tongue sliding against his, tasting the salt on his lips and the copper tang from where he bit the skin. His fingers curl weakly in my shirt, tugging, and a low, satisfied sound vibrates from his throat into my mouth.
“Zo.” Hearing my name pressed against my lips feels like a prayer.
My thumb traces his jaw before I pull back. His eyes already drift shut, his body melting further into Nicholas’s chest. The Alpha’s arms wrap around Oliver’s back, hands splayed between the Omega’s shoulder blades. The knot will hold them together for another fifteen minutes at least.
That wasn’t a heat spike so I’m sure the combination of the four of us orbiting each other definitely set his pheromones off. It also means his regular heat schedule might be thrown for a loop but it’s too soon to tell.
Nicholas meets my gaze over Oliver’s head. His look is raw, like a man who’s just made a sound he didn’t intend. I settle my hand on Nicholas’s shoulder and squeeze, holding a beat longer than casual. An understanding seems to pass between us. While my priority is Wilson and Oliver, I’m beginning to see that Nicholas’ place is beside me, not in challenge to me.
It’ll take me a while to truly believe that, Nicholas’ Alpha biology constantly at war with my own instincts. Right now, though, I need to check on Wilson. The way he left tells me something broke during this moment but I can’t fathom what it was.
“Go check on him,” Nicholas purrs softly. “I got your Omega.”
“Our Omega. Nicholas.Ours.”
The bathroom door is closed when I reach the hall, the shower hissing behind it. I tap twice with my knuckles and push in without waiting.
Steam fills the room. The shower is running, the glass fogged, but Wilson isn’t in it. He’s at the sink under the harsh overhead light, both hands braced against the porcelain, head bowed. The shower’s white noise fills the space with the sort of cover a man turns on when he doesn’t want to be heard through walls.
The scar on his neck is fully exposed, the jagged ridges clear from where I stand in the doorway. When his eyes lift to the mirror and find my reflection, his hand shoots up to cover the damage, palm pressed flat against his throat as his body twists away from me. I’m not even sure why it matters. I’ve already seen it.
“Don’t.” I close the distance in two strides. My hand slips around his wrist, holding his palm against his neck while stopping his retreat. “You don’t get to hide from me anymore, Wilson. I already saw it—and it doesn’t bother me.”
His jaw clenches. “Lorenzo, you don’t understand what this—”
“I understandexactlywhat it is.” I cup the side of his face with my free hand, turning him toward me. His eyes are red, lips pressed into that tight line he uses to keep everything in. “You did what you needed to remove yourself from an abusive relationship. You survived something that should have broken you, and you came out the other side with a scar instead of a grave.” I press my thumb against his cheekbone. “I’m proud of you. I’m so fucking proud of you, Wilson.”
His face crumples. That tight line of his mouth buckles, his chin drops, and his hand goes limp in my grip. I hear Wilson’s voice barely above a whisper against the shower’s hiss, his words shifting the conversation. “That sound Nicholas made. You know what that means.”
“I do.”
His eyes sharpen, the grief in his expression folding behind something harder, more accusatory. “You knew. When you invited Nicholas to do security at the club. When you let himinto your bed. When you pushed him toward me at every opportunity. You knew what he was.”
“I’m not ashamed of keeping people around me that I know will become a permanent fixture in my life.” My hand stays on his face. “Nicholas fit with Oliver. He fit with me. And the moment I watched him look at you across that club floor, I knew he’d fit with you.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Wilson’s hand drops from his neck, exposing the ugly, defiant scar again. “I mean how can you be okay with all of this? An Alpha in your pack who makes a claiming sound for your Omega. For me. How does that not—”
“Wilson.” I step closer until our chests are inches apart. Steam wraps us both as the shower drums against empty tile. “Why won’t you let yourself have what you want?”
His mouth opens, then closes as his hands press against the sink behind him.
“You’ve tortured yourself for years. You’ve punished yourself for wanting a pack, for wanting Nicholas, for wanting anything at all, and it’s gotten you nowhere except more hurt. More alone. More nights on a couch counting exits in an empty room.” My voice drops lower, pressing through the steam. “You deserve love, Wilson. You deserve a pack that holds you when the nightmares come and fucks you until you can’t think and brings you cinnamon rolls without being asked. You deserve all of it and you won’t take it.”
