The bridge of my nose stings and my scent goes sour at the same time Jett’s lemon does.
“It’s okay if you don’t. It’s not for everyone.”
“No, I—” My throat is thick with emotion and I swallow it down, deciding it’s best to change the subject before I have a breakdown. It wouldn’t be hard with the after-heat hormones coursing through my body. It’s also been a long time since I came down from a heat with a pack, and they’re my scent matches. If I could describe how I feel right now, I’d simply go with wrecked. Wrecked in so many ways.
“Iris—”
I can’t take the worried tone in Jett’s voice or the way his brow knits in almost fear. The muscles in his arm twitch as if he’s going to reach out to touch me, and I need to get out of this bed before that happens. I don’t want to accept anymore from them. I’m surprised he’s even being this nice to me now.
“Can I use your bathroom to clean up?” I cut him off, already shifting off the bed. My Omega protests, not wanting to leave our warm, safe nest that smells like Jett, Mateo, Augie, and Wilder—like pack.
Unfortunately, this is not our pack, and it’s not ournest.
It is. They said we’re theirs.
I gently remind the fragile demon inside me that it was all heat talk. Nothing they said was true. It hurts to think of it that way, but it’s how these things work. The last time I was at a heat clinic the Alpha’s would say the same kinds of things.
It wasn’t the same.
“Of course you can,” Jett says. “You don’t have to ask.”
I don’t bother looking at him, pushing slowly off the bed, ignoring the delicious aches in my body as I move.
“Do you need help?”
A memory of him washing me during my heat appears in my mind. He was so tender, so caring. I didn’t have to beg for him to knot me, he knew what I needed and said sweet things to me while he used some sort of buzzing waterproof toy on my clit.
My soured scent starts to turn sweet and I shake my head. “It’s okay. I’m good.”
His eyes burn into the back of my head as I walk away, the T-shirt hardly covering my ass. I’m about to open the bathroom door when Jett’s voice rings out behind me.
“Iris!”
I turn and he’s standing at the end of the hallway with tight briefs hugging his lower half. Damn this man. He has to look like an underwear model right now? I’m sure I look like I’ve been put into the washer and set on spin.
He walks up and holds out his hand. “I thought you might want your phone so you can check in with Sadie and anyone else who may be missing you.”
Tears prick my eyes before I can stop them. Gods. I need to shower and get these hormones under control. I can’t cry every time they do something thoughtful. I’ve already proven how out of control I am by going into heat on set. If I have even a small chance at keeping the role, which I doubt I do, crying and acting weird is not going to help.
I take the phone from his hand, careful not to touch him, muttering a “Thanks,” before I escape into the safety of the bathroom, and locking the door shut behind me.
“Six days?”
“Y-yes,” Sadie squeaks through the phone.
“That’s—that should be impossible. My heats are usually four days tops.”
“It’s because of the suppressants and touch starvation. I’m sure meeting your scent-matched pack also has something to do with it.”
I run my hand through my wet hair as I sit on the edge of a massive jacuzzi tub. One that could easily fit three big Alphas, a curvy Omega, and a toned Beta.
I shake the thought away and focus on the facts at hand. I was fucked for six days straight. I remember the first two of them including Wilder’s rut, the rest are coming back to me but they feel like broken bits of hazy dreams.
Gods. That means the film has been delayed for longer given I remember my heat breaking sometime yesterday morning, Augie mentioning it was breakfast time, and Mateo coaxing me to drink a smoothie before I fell into a deep sleep. It’s morning again now, and the date on my phone confirms it’s been seven days since they brought me here.
“Iris?” Sadie questions.
I blow out a breath. “I guess that’s true. I’ll have to make an appointment with my doctor to make sure everything is alright. Not the fancy one that fucked me over but my normal one.”
