Chapter Seven

Mia clutched at the exam table to pull herself to unsteady feet, glad when the alphas didn’t come closer to help.

If only they’d stop staring at me like that.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The car has navigation, which includes the owner being able to track it.” Shepard’s voice felt like a blast of cold air against her heated skin, as if he helped just by being there.

“That answers how you found me, not why you’re here.”

“We were worried,” Dax said. “You weren’t there when we woke, and the car was gone. For all we knew, someone had abducted you.” An edge of anger in his tone almost made her feel bad.

Maybe it would have if she weren’t so distracted by their scents. They filled the room, so much better than the fake, old stuff the clinic tried to use.

“Why’d they even let you in?”

“‘Let’ isn’t the right word,” snapped the same doctor who had been in earlier. “I told you three you couldn’t enter.” She turned her gaze to Mia. “I’m so sorry. Should I call security?”

Mia looked at the alphas, the three of them standing so still, tension thick between them. They know. What was the point in throwing them out now? She shook her head and waved the doctor off.

Once alone again, Mia gripped the exam table to keep herself upright. The cloudiness in her head was worse, no doubt because of the alphas’ presence. Her body reacted to them, ready to get things started now that the other players had arrived.

“Just go,” she whispered, too tired to fight.

“You should have told us.” Shepard’s voice lacked his sarcasm, and she missed it, like some part of that normal life she kept thinking about that was missing.

“And you should have left me alone. Looks like no one does what they should.” She shut her eyes tightly, not wanting to look at them. Unfortunately, that only made their scents all that much more noticeable.

They slithered through her, a promise she’d never had to refuse before.

Before, she’d always managed to stay away from alphas when her heats hit. She’d never actually had to experience how tempting they were when she was at her weakest.

That’s not even it. Don’t lie to yourself.

It wasn’t just any alphas. It was her alphas. It was Hart, with his stern, serious behavior and his honey-colored eyes. It was Dax with his charming, boyish smile and his inexhaustible energy. It was Shepard with his smirk and the promise in his intense gaze.

They weren’t just anyone. They weren’t strangers, or merely bodies with useable knots attached. They were the men she’d spent six years working almost every day beside and they were the ones she knew, without a doubt, that she loved.

It forced her answer, her normal ability to lie and pretend stripped away by the pain of her heat. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know and want me just because of what I am.”

A heavy sigh, then Hart spoke. “What do you want, Mia? We’ll leave and wait outside until you’re finished if you want. You can take the sedation, and we’ll wait however long it takes.”

She wasn’t sure if her instant denial was more due to shame—she couldn’t imagine them sitting out there just waiting—or because she really didn’t want them to leave, so she only responded with, “Or?”

“Or we can help you. You wouldn’t be the first omega we’ve seen through a heat. We would take good care of you.”

Mia knew her body was out of control because he hardly had a chance to finish the statement before her brain went off on its own, picturing what Hart was offering. The three of them had taken women together enough, she was sure they were skilled at it. Hart, the strong and silent type. Shepard with his cutting wit and Dax with that focus he’d had before, the unnerving narrowing of all that energy that normally was scattered everywhere.

A sound soft and needy escaped Mia, and in her state, she couldn’t even hope to stop it. It was as though her body responded without her consent, as though it were ready to step in because she was clearly too stupid to do what it needed.

“Let us help,” Shepard said, his voice smooth and sinful.

Mia forced her gaze open to find all three standing there, looking moments from moving forward, from closing the small distance between them. What would it be like to have that much male passion all focused on her? To finally have what she’d denied for herself for so long?

“Please?” Dax was the one to ask, the plea sounding more like a demand than anything, torn from his throat and rough.

And Mia had no choice but to nod, because from the moment she’d seen them in that room, she’d known she couldn’t turn them away.

She expected them to rush forward, to start tearing at the gown she wore. Alphas weren’t known for restraint, and the fact that they waited for a yes was more than she’d given them credit for.

Instead, Shepard nodded toward the mattress on the floor. “You’ve got a little bit of time before it really hits. Go on.”

Mia’s gaze darted between them and the blankets. She swallowed hard, the idea of doing what should come so naturally to her terrifying. Except, it seemed instinct didn’t much care about her worries, because she moved toward the mattress. No one touched her. They didn’t crowd. If anything, they moved back to give her room. Her knees pressed into the mattress when she knelt, and she brought one of the blankets to her face.

Her lip curled up at the scent, or rather the lack of scent.

Wrong, her mind complained.

A piece of cloth hit the mattress beside her, and she gripped the black fabric with trembling fingers. Hart. It only took a small whiff to catch the scent, and she twisted to find him shirtless.

The shirt felt right. It bothered her, that they knew what she needed even when she didn’t. Still, as much as it irked her, an odd sense of safety sat there, too. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t trying to figure it out on her own. She was with males she trusted, with ones who understood her better than she did.

Mia went about moving the blankets, tucking the shirt into them as she made a space. The few times she’d done it before, when she’d known she would suffer through a heat alone, she had only made the area big enough for her. Without consciously considering it, Mia pushed at the bedding until she had a space large enough for another three bodies—not that any would have a lot of room, but for their plan, they didn’t need much.

As she worked, another two pieces of fabric hit the bedding—Dax and Shepard’s shirts, along with Dax’s sweater when even they weren’t enough. She added them all, letting the scent of the alphas ease her and fill the space.

None of the men spoke. Even Dax, who could rarely stop talking, kept his mouth shut. They didn’t try to help, didn’t move anything or attempt to make it better. They had to know that this was her job, that she needed to make it just right.

She had no idea how long it took, but eventually sweat covered her brow and the rolling waves of pain in her abdomen couldn’t be ignored anymore. Thankfully, she’d finished, her anxiety almost immediately lowered by the completion of the nest.

Still standing there, the alphas watched. She’d always thought of them as easygoing—even Hart, despite his serious nature—because they’d been pushovers for her. They did not look so easygoing right now.

The intensity of their gazes, the way their scents spilled from them and the press of their erections to their pants told her they held themselves back with a hair-thin level of control.

They stood so tall from her perspective, yet they waited for her say so. They didn’t enter the space she’d made, content—or at least willing—to wait until she called them forward.

Despite the way she seemed the submissive one, being on her knees, desperate, smaller and weaker, she knew she controlled them without a doubt. Anything she asked—or demanded—they’d do.

It gave her a rush of want so powerful, she trembled, and as though they saw it—or perhaps smelled it—the alphas answered with low growls.

Mia beckoned them forward with a crook of her finger, obviously the sign they had waited for, because they moved together so quickly it was as though they’d been on that edge the entire time.

Dax was first—no surprise—to fall to his knees and pull her into a kiss that said the man might act childish but knew his way around more adult matters as well. His lips were soft and warm against hers, and he stroked his fingers along her jawline.

Heat pressed to her back, through her gown, and a hand slid around her throat. No fear swamped her—these three would never hurt her. Instead, the touch seemed one of reverence, as though the alpha cherished her. Lips to her covered shoulder and a rumbled, “So sweet,” told her it was Shepard.

She had only a moment of time to wonder about Hart before strong fingers grasped her chin and turned her face toward him. He’d taken a spot beside her in the nest. “You still have a little while before your heat truly starts. You should try to sleep.”

Rest was the last thing she wanted right then. How could he ask her to do that when she finally had the three of them there, with her? She had long, hard stretches of skin to explore. Dips and rises over muscles and each tiny reaction to discover on each of their bodies. She wanted to test Hart’s stoicism, see if Shepard could still be as snarky once she’d wrapped her lips around his cock and find out if Dax truly could stay so focused for more than a minute or two.

It felt like showing her everything she’d wanted and snatching it away.

Hart offered a rare ghost of a smile. He traced his thumb over her full bottom lip. “I like that you’re eager, but trust me, rest will do you the most good right now. Once we start, you’ll need all the energy you can manage, because the three of us don’t intend to go easy on you.”

Mia took his thumb into the heat of her mouth and teased it with her tongue. Despite the way his honey-colored eyes turned molten, he showed no signed of bending. It meant she followed his order, the four of them moving and twisting until they lay tangled together, so much wonderfully hard alpha against her she snuggled in and closed her eyes.

Mistake or not, she didn’t much care anymore.