Chapter Four

Just before dinner, Mia ventured from her room. She’d dressed after a long shower, hoping the water would scrub away the scent of her desire.

Maybe it was stupid to even think about spending time with them again, but she lacked options. She just needed to keep things professional.

Plus, they’d backed off when she’d asked. That meant all she needed to was remain strong, to resist them. They wouldn’t push and she had enough self-control not to beg them to fuck her…right?

When she stepped onto the stairs, a voice at the bottom caught her attention. She stilled to hear it clearly.

“That isn’t possible.” Shepard.

“It’s uncommon, but maybe it explains this.” Hart spoke more softly, giving her the impression they had tried to speak without her hearing. They expected her to be in her room rather than just above them on the stairs.

“Omegas are affected by alpha pheromones, not betas.”

“We’ve seen betas seem to react before. Maybe some are more sensitive than others. You can’t deny she seems to react to us that way.” Hart, always the quick thinker, had come up with a plausible explanation—wrong though it was—for her behavior.

Dax’s voice cut in next. “Does it matter what’s causing it? I was going to drown in her scent if I didn’t get a taste.”

Dax’s words had Mia throwing a hand over her mouth to muffle a moan. It took her back to how he’d looked at her on the boat, that absolute focus. Was that how he’d be in bed? The man who couldn’t seem to stay on a single topic for more than a moment or two, did he focus in like that during sex?

What a treat that would be.

“It matters,” Hart said with the same annoyed tone he used whenever he explained something to Dax that he didn’t feel should need to be explained. “Because what if she’s telling the truth? What if she really doesn’t want us? I don’t want to ruin the relationship we have with her now over a quick fuck.” The dirty word from Hart’s mouth was downright sexy.

Hart had always been the one with the best speech, the one whose vocabulary never failed to impress her. He had never, in six years, cursed in front of her. She’d thought he simply didn’t curse, but now she wondered if he’d done it on purpose, if he’d been one of those men who didn’t approve of using such language in front of a woman. He kept speaking, telling her the curse hadn’t thrown him. “I’d be as willing as either of you to indulge if we were sure she wanted it, but what if she doesn’t? What if afterward she feels like we tricked her? Like we made her do something she regrets? Do either of you want to see that look on her face?”

Silence met the question, and even without seeing them, Mia could picture their expressions. Dax would shuffle his foot against the floor while Shepard would simply glare at some spot in the distance, as if not looking at Hart could make his words less true.

“So what do you suggest?” Shepard asked.

Hart responded quickly, always someone with a plan already made. He wasn’t the wait-and-see sort of man—no, Hart preferred to think it all through before he ever opened his mouth. He walked into no conversation he hadn’t already played through his head a million times. “Give her space. We can’t risk forcing her into something she doesn’t want.”

“And if she decides she does want it?” Dax asked.

“Well, then I’m pretty sure we’re up to the task.”

And just like that, Mia needed another shower before facing them, because there was no way they wouldn’t smell just how badly she wanted them.

* * * *

The quiet of the house unnerved Mia and she wasn’t sure why. She’d lived by herself for all of her adult life, so quiet was normal.

Maybe it’s from spending these few days around the alphas?

After dinner, Mia had retreated to her room. The alphas had watched television for another hour or so in the living room—the sounds of which had been surprisingly calming for Mia—before they’d retired as well. They’d said nothing about what had happened on the boat or their little conversation.

So while she’d sat up, awake and with their words still running through her head, she’d decided some mindless television was the best course of action.

Sadly, there was no TV in the room she slept in. The owners must be those weird ‘bedrooms are for sleeping only’ people.

That had left her downstairs with infomercials on, the light from the show bathing everything in the dark room in blues. She kept the volume low, not wanting to risk waking up any of the trio.

She’d had more than enough of them during the day.

“I’d buy it.” Shepard’s voice made Mia jerk her gaze to the side to find him standing there, a dark silhouette.

The surprise of his appearance forced her to have to think hard to recall what was on TV. Right, a body shaper that was designed to be sexy. What a disastrous infomercial to happen to have on. Why couldn’t it have been those super absorbent towels?

Because even those would end up making me think about sex, because now I’m a horny teen.

“I’m not sure they’re your style.” Better to stick with something that didn’t open the conversation up to go much further.

Not that Shepard obeyed the clear attempt to end the interaction. Instead, he grasped her ankles, which rested across the couch, and lifted her legs. He sat in the spot and pulled her feet back into his lap. “I don’t know. I’ve always been a believer that black is so my color. You have those warm tones, so I’d think of you better in a red. Red would wash me out.”

Mia offered up a glare at the way he’d made himself far too comfortable, but as usual, his dry humor disarmed her. It was hard to be annoyed when she thought about him in the shapewear on the television. “I just don’t picture you in that sort of thing.”

“You spend a lot of time picturing me in my underwear?” Shepard cocked up an eyebrow, but before she could answer—not that she had a clue what she might have said—he went on. “You’re probably right, though. You women have a level of pain tolerance that us men cringe at. Cramming my goods into a snug thing like that? Wearing heels? Ripping hair one strand at a time from my body? No thank you.”

Mia rolled her eyes as she settled in. She picked up the remote and tossed it over, hoping to strike Shepard in the arm then pretend it had been an accident.

Instead, the bastard caught it with one hand. He flipped through the channels, the light from the TV reflecting in his blue eyes. “Besides, you don’t need shapeware.”

“Maybe I wear it all the time and you just don’t know.”

He snorted softly. “Trust me—I’d be able to tell.”

Mia didn’t respond as she considered the underlying message. Had he been watching her closely enough to actually be able to tell what sort of under clothing she might have had on? How had she not noticed it?

“You’re just saying that.” Her voice came out breathy.

“If you think I’ve never spent time looking at your ass, you’re oblivious.”

“Why would you do that? It’s not like you are ever short of company. Or is one ass the same as any other?”

“Not at all. Believe me, you’ve got an ass that makes an impression all on its own.” That crease in his cheek, the one that said he was making a joke, didn’t appear.

Instead, she jerked her gaze away from him and to the television where he’d put on a nature show.

Shepard set his feet on the coffee table and rested his hand on her ankles. He didn’t rub, but that didn’t stop the heat of his palms from sinking into her bare skin. “Why are you fighting this so hard?”

“Fighting what? Being another conquest for you all? Yes, what a crazy idea that I wouldn’t want to be used like that.”

“I think you’d enjoy being used.” As soon as he said it, he flinched, as if the joke had come out before he’d thought carefully about it. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just… I guess I don’t get why you’re so quick to refuse even the possibility.”

“Because you three sleep around—a lot—and I just am not into that.”

He huffed, as though the answer didn’t satisfy him. “You haven’t minded when a few of your boyfriends haven’t been a model of celibacy before you started dating them.”

“What do you know about my boyfriends?”

“Just about everything. Background checks are fairly thorough.”

She sat up at that. “You ran background checks on the men I dated?”

“Of course. Did you really think we’d be fine with you out there with god only knows who? Too bad Harvey’s hadn’t been more extensive.”

“I don’t want to talk about Harvey,” she said.

“You never did talk to us about him. You ever see anyone about it, though?”

“About what? Some asshole who left me without a word?”

She kept to herself the rest of that, like that Harvey had hit her, or that he’d been the only man in her life to do so. Of course she hadn’t said a word to anyone.

“About the shiner he left you with.” Shepard didn’t flinch as he asked the question.

Her stomach sank. How does he know?

As if she’d spoken out loud, he answered. “You really think I wouldn’t have seen that? Even through the makeup? Not that I couldn’t tell he was an asshole before that, but I didn’t think he’d sink that low. You should have talked to me about it, though.”

Mia swallowed hard. “Nothing to talk about.”

Shame bit at her. After all the work she’d done to keep herself safe, to avoid alphas, to live her own life, she’d still fallen for a man like an idiot. She’d still been the exact woman she’d sworn to never become.

And worse, she hadn’t been one who exploded after that, who had thrown things and packed her bags and left.

Nope. Instead, she’d been the woman to put on a layer of concealer then cry when he’d run off.

Pathetic.

At least it had reminded her that betas weren’t safe. It had been easier before Harvey to assume alphas were always the enemy, but as it turned out, anyone could be an asshole.

Shepard shook his head before he tugged on her ankles to her scoot down a bit until she lay back. “You blame yourself for too much, think you’ve got to do it all on your own when you’ve got people in your corner. Even if you try to pretend like we aren’t, you’ve got people who care about you.”

“He ran off after that,” Mia admitted, whispering into the dimly lit room.

“Course he did. Dax and I can be very persuasive, and we had a hell of a reason to persuade him into leaving.”

Mia looked at him, disbelief at the idea that she’d known so little, that they’d been aware of so much. She’d been heartbroken by Harvey’s quick rejection, but now to think that it had been caused by them?

It made sense. It accounted for how Harvey had gone from his sweet apologies and swearing he’d never live without her to disappearing with nothing more than a quick, vague text message.

It also reminded her that the night he ran off was one of the nights the alphas had to ‘work late’ and insisted she be there. They’d ordered all her favorites and had stayed until she’d drifted off to sleep in the early morning. They hadn’t left her, and as annoyed as she might have been at the time, the distraction had helped.

“Why would you do that?”

Shepard didn’t look at her, his gaze on the television. “Because you’re ours, Mia, and no one hurts what’s ours.”

When Mia could think of nothing to say back to such a claim, she turned her head and watched the television show as well.

Slowly, she relaxed, until her eyes slid closed and she drifted off.

* * * *

Someone kissed Mia, and good god how she had missed that sensation. She wrapped her arms around the faceless male—no, the alpha—and lost herself in the touches.

She wasn’t afraid of anything, didn’t worry about the ramifications. Years of hiding who and what she was thrown aside, and when a steady and confident hand grasped her breast, she didn’t care.

Her moan came on slow drawn out, as though an example of just how long she’d held it in. For years.

She’d had lovers, but not for a long time, and never like this. The scent—that mouthwatering and core-shaking scent that she seemed programmed at the DNA level to respond to—surrounded her.

She spread her thighs around narrow hips, the grasp of fingers tangled in her hair and the bite of teeth in her neck.

Another moan escaped her throat.

“Mia,” the faceless man said, but his voice was hard and tense. Nothing like the one who touched her.

She ignored the call. She could damn well ignore anything right then.

Except it came again. “Mia, wake up!”

She came to with a gasp, sitting up, her mind hazy and her body molten. Sweat made her forehead sticky, and she blinked in the darkness as she tried to work through what had happened.

All she knew for sure was that her body was still wild, her heart pounding and her pussy drenched and tightening in waves for the orgasm that had been snatched away.

The only thing that remained was that scent. Mia’s vision cleared, the details of the room coming into view. She was back in her own bed, not on the couch where she’d fallen asleep.

An orange glow in the darkness caught her, and moments before she could utter a scream, the rest of the face came into few.

Hart. His honey-colored eyes reflected the light from the hallway, and his gaze was down-right predatory.

Which seemed odd on him. He was always the steady one, the reasonable one.

He looked no more reasonable than she felt.

“You were sleeping.” His voice was low, and the smoothness it usually had was gone, as though it had broken and was nothing more than sharp edges now. “Shepard was out, and I thought you’d sleep better in your own bed than on the couch.”

Well, that explains how I got up here. Mia shifted, the action rubbing her damp underwear against her sensitive clit. She didn’t mean to whine, but it was impossible to hold in.

Hart didn’t move, a stillness that would have terrified any sane woman. He reminded her of the lions she’d watched in videos, who lay in wait in tall grasses, perfectly still, before leaping out at a gazelle.

She swallowed hard, something in her begging her to move and break the spell, to be the thing he wanted to chase so badly.

The things she’d read before came back to her, the words she’d tried to block out. She pictured Hart deep inside her, that thick knot of his swelling, teasing her in a way nothing else could. She whimpered as the idea of how he’d stretch her, how she’d be trapped there and against him. It would be so easy to finally know what it feels like…

Except as quickly as the thought came, she shook herself awake.

Do you want to lose everything? If you sleep with them, they’ll know what you are. You’ll have to leave your job, have to move.

The idea of losing them was worse than any of that. She couldn’t have them now, but at least they were part of her life.

She tried to breathe evenly, to rein her body back into some semblance of control. A dream couldn’t really do this, could it? Wet dreams were a problem for teenage boys, not adult women.

Except then she pulled in another breath, another lungful of that delicious scent that was more than just alpha, now. There was no doubt he was aroused, as if the obvious outline of his hard dick against his sweats didn’t make it clear enough.

With that scent came a rolling of her stomach, a fear that didn’t shrivel up the lust but transformed it into a beast for her to fear.

What if I go into heat?

She thought back to her last, doing math in her head. It had been a long while, since she’d upped her dosage to help prevent it.

Mia was off the bed a breath later, her stomach uneasy with something that was not close to lust anymore.

She was unsteady on her feet, her muscles not quite having woken yet. Still, she rushed to the bathroom, catching herself on the vanity.

The pill bottles on the counter were lined up in front of the mirror, and she reached for the one she needed—the suppressants that would help stave off the risk. She couldn’t go into heat. Not here, not with the three of them around.

She clutched the bottle, but nerves and fear made her hands clumsy. She couldn’t get the top off, even as she twisted and slid to the floor, her back to the vanity.

She tried to take the lid between the teeth, ready to chew through the bottle if that was what it took.

Anything to get the pills, to swallow them down.

Hands closed over hers, and Mia lifted her gaze. She’d forgotten all about Hart, yet there he was, crouched in front of her and taking the bottle from her.

He twisted it to read the label, his eyebrows pulling toward one another for a heartbeat before he opened it himself.

He poured one pill into his palm and held it out to her.

She snatched it from him and dry swallowed it. She didn’t need water. She needed for the medication to work, to know she wouldn’t fall prey to a heat here of all places.

Her breathing sawed in and out of her chest painfully, her head swimming.

Hart didn’t move, his weight on the balls of his feet, his gaze unflinching. He set the bottle of pills—lid replaced—onto the counter, but he never pulled those honey-colored eyes from hers.

When she could get one full breath, when the normal sick sensation from the pill hit her, Mia covered her face.

She hated this. This was the part of being an omega that was the worst, the inability to avoid the truths of her designation. Sure, being at the mercy of others, the fear for her safety and freedom, those were all challenges.

But she wasn’t free from her own body. Even in a perfect world, one where omegas didn’t have to fear anything, she’d never be able to resist her own hormones, her own biology.

She would always be controlled by it.

Steady hands grasped her by the arms and tugged, and Mia lacked the strength to fight it. She’d used up all that in her panic, in her blind clutching for a pill as if it were her only savior.

She was pulled against a hard chest, and once again lifted. She could almost imagine how Hart had carried her up the stairs, and that he could make her feel so small astounded her. Yet another example of alphas having all the power, she supposed.

She was lowered into her soft bed, but Hart didn’t leave. He got into the bed beside her, seating himself near the top of the bed, his back to the headboard.

Mia gave up pretenses, too exhausted to fight. She set her head in his lap, grateful, she supposed, that his erection had gone away. What man would still be interested after that little display?

He ran his fingers through her hair, the slight tug to her scalp reassuring.

She opened her mouth, not sure what to say.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he assured her.

Mia sighed and accepted the comfort. Tomorrow they could deal with the mess she’d made.