Page 35

Chapter 35

Ava

After what feels like an eternity, and yet at the same time only a single blurry day, my heat ends.

I know that actually it’ll have been about three to four days, maybe longer, depending, since my heat was blocked for so long. It was something that Caleb warned us about from his research—that after all of those pent-up hormones in my body were unleashed, I might have a longer and more intense heat than most.

So I’m not actually sure how long it lasted, just that time got syrupy for me. But I do know when it’s over.

I wake up, completely exhausted, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, my body isn’t on fire with desire. My legs don’t spread automatically, I’m not leaking slick, and I don’t feel painfully empty.

When I would wake up during my heat, it was like I couldn’t even think properly half the time. It was almost like being really hungry, reaching that point where you’re sure that you’re starving and all you can think about is food… except it wasn’t food I wanted, but sex. Lots and lots of sex. I couldn’t even form words sometimes, just whimper and moan and grab on to whichever of my Alphas was nearest.

Or multiple of them. And god, it was amazing.

I feel like I’ve been baptized by fire, if the fire was the delicious heat of orgasm. I feel transformed. I might be tired, my limbs heavy and limp, but I also feel completely content. Like the way my brain gets right after a good orgasm, except longer-lasting.

I stretch and roll onto my back so I can blink up at the ceiling. As my vision clears, I feel my mind clearing as well. My limbs are feeling a bit stiff, and…

Oh my god, I’m so hungry. Wow. I could eat an entire elephant on my own .

I sit up, then immediately wince as I feel… yikes . I look down at my body, specifically at my skin.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been this filthy in my life. It was hot as hell before, but now I really, really need a shower.

A hand lands on my thigh and I turn to see Ethan lying there, smiling sleepily up at me. “You good, sweetheart?”

I nod. “Hungry. And I need a shower.”

“Don’t we all,” he chuckles. His thumb strokes back and forth over my skin and I see him inhale. “You smell different. Is your heat broken?”

“I think so. I can actually focus on something other than sex, for one thing.” I grin.

Beside me, I feel the other three men stirring as well. Garrett groans as he stretches. “Remind me to not neglect my cardio so much.”

“I’ll just have to find other ways for you to do cardio,” I quip, winking at him.

Dante chuckles and smiles at me proudly, like he can read my mind and knows that if I’m this confident and flirty, it means I’m truly comfortable with them all.

Dante pushes himself to his feet. “You must be hungry. I’ll get something warmed up.”

I flush, embarrassed by the state I’m in. “Okay. I, uh, should really hop in the shower first.”

I didn’t think about it before, when I was in the throes of heat, but now I’m aware of just how messy I am, and I can’t help but feel a bit self-conscious over it.

Dante leans in and kisses me like nothing is wrong. “Why don’t we join you?”

Ethan sits up and kisses my shoulder, his hand on the small of my back. “You can take a shower alone if you’d like, it’s up to you.”

No. While my heat is finished, I do still want to savor the closeness with them, and have them touching me.

I run my fingers through Caleb’s blond hair to wake him up. He opens his eyes and blinks up at me, then gifts me with a beautiful smile. I’ve made these four men happy, somehow, and I don’t know what to do with that, other than to keep it up.

Garrett stands and scoops me up, making me gasp in surprise and then laugh. He carries me into the bathroom, the other three men following. It’s the master bathroom, the one with the massive glass-walled shower, and the soaking tub.

Caleb draws the water in the tub and they help me get in. Dante washes my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp, and I feel so incredibly relaxed, with all four of my Alphas around me purring and smelling like contentment. My heart feels incredibly full.

I’ve heard horror stories from other Omegas, back when I was in college and thought I was a Beta. There would be stories about how after your heat, once the lust died down, you felt like a wrung-out washcloth or somehow emptied and dried out. Not empty in a sexy way like during your heat where you wanted a knot filling you, but more like you’d been drained and scraped out, hollowed.

Now, I think those horror stories came from Omegas who didn’t have good Alphas providing them with the care they needed. I can easily see myself feeling just as crappy if I had to take care of myself completely on my own after such an experience.

But I don’t have to. I have wonderful, loving Alphas who are still pampering me. It makes my heart swell in my chest like I’m the Grinch and it’s growing three sizes.

We get out of the tub when we’re finished, and I put on one of the lovely silk dressing gowns that were among the various clothes Ethan ordered for me. The men grab clothes from their rooms, and we head downstairs to eat something.

To my surprise, when Dante goes to start cooking, Ethan shoves him back into a chair at the table. “Hell no. You did all that cooking for her heat, and we ate you out of house and home. It’s our turn.”

“Oh, come on,” Dante protests. He tries to get up again but I grab his wrist, laughing. I don’t know what Ethan has planned, but I’m more than willing to go along with the shenanigans.

Besides, he’s right. None of us have eaten anything other than what Dante prepared for a week, just warming up the delicious food he made. And he cooks for us the rest of the time. He deserves a break.

Dante could easily throw my hand off his wrist. He’s definitely a lot stronger than I am. But he lets me keep him down at the table.

As a reward, I climb into his lap, nuzzling him.

Caleb starts to pull pots and pans out of the cupboards and Garrett snorts, grinning. “You two are cooking?”

“You’re damn right we are. You say that like you think we can’t.”

“I think I know Dante’s a reliable cook who makes me the food I want,” Garrett protests.

“You’re going to sit there and be a cheerleader,” Ethan orders. “Gimme an ‘A.’”

“Absolutely not.”

Caleb and Ethan really do put their hearts and minds to it, and I realize they must’ve planned this at some point, probably while Dante and I were asleep from exhaustion during the heat but they had woken up and grabbed something to eat.

We were all sleeping in various combinations, so it doesn’t surprise me, but it does delight me to be reminded of what playful, charming men my Alphas are.

I really do adore them.

Caleb and Ethan make us a huge spread. It starts with the crepes, filled with ham and cheese, or strawberries and Nutella, or bananas and chocolate, or spinach and eggs. Various combinations, and all of them delicious. Then there are the fluffy biscuits with thick sausage gravy, and the diced roasted potatoes that make my mouth water, sauteed with onions.

My stomach is yowling like an alley cat by the time they set the food in front of us, and I devour it like a wild animal. The Alphas are just as bad, all of us tearing into the delicious food like we haven’t eaten in weeks.

Heat really does take a lot out of you.

I eat from my perch on Dante’s lap, and if he minds, he doesn’t say anything about it. When I inhale, all I can pick up from their scents is happiness.

It makes me happy too.

“Not to ruin the mood…” Garrett starts.

“First time you’ve ever said that,” Ethan quips, clearly teasing his pack mate.

Garrett rolls his eyes but continues. “I think we should check up on work. See how things are going.”

Everyone glances at me, to make sure that I’m okay with it. I nod empathetically. “Yes, please.”

I had completely forgotten about their work, honestly, my head full of happiness and pleasure, but the moment that Garett brings it up, it all comes crashing back down around me. Marcus. The watch.

The men pull out their phones and tablets and check in. I really hope that my being in heat hasn’t affected anything. They were basically MIA for nearly a week. I know that they planned for it and I’m sure they told their employees how to handle things, and what they’d be up to, but what if there was some kind of disaster? I really hope that everything’s going well.

Dante curses.

My heart sinks. I’m guessing things… aren’t going great then. “What is it?”

Caleb sighs, and I can tell by their expressions that they’re all looking at the same thing on their respective devices.

“Marcus,” Garrett growls, and the way he says the name makes it sound like a curse word. “He’s released a preview of his version of the watch.”

“And it’s exactly the same as ours.” Dante turns his tablet so that I can see. “Look.”

I remember what I saw on Dante’s laptop when he showed me the schematics and preview images the other day, when he was in the kitchen. In this very spot, in fact. I was even on his lap then too.

This feels like a horrible mirror image of that day. Then, my heat was building and I was horny and teasing him. I enjoyed seeing what his company was working on and how he trusted me to see all of his work.

Now, his work has been stolen, and by my abusive ex-boyfriend, of all things.

I stare at the screen, almost as if, if I stare at it long enough, it’ll morph into something else. Something that’s not Dante’s design.

But there it is. Still there. Still Dante’s.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “He wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t for me.”

“You did nothing wrong,” Ethan replies. “He chose to be an asshole and do this. There’s literally nothing you can do to stop people like that. It’s his choice to do this. You didn’t provoke him.”

“But you were all taking care of me during my heat,” I point out.

The others all look at each other, confusion obvious on their faces.

I sigh. “It’s just… if I wasn’t in my heat then you would’ve caught this sooner. You could’ve been in the office this whole time taking care of the situation.”

“You need to stop blaming yourself,” Caleb says gently.

“First of all, baby girl, you’re our Omega,” Dante says. “Everyone understands how important it is to help an Omega through their heats. It’s a matter of your safety and wellbeing.”

“Second of all,” Garrett adds, “it’s on him to be a jackass. Why should we beat ourselves up for something he did? If he stabbed someone would you blame yourself for that, too?”

I laugh weakly. “Well, when you put it like that…”

Dante cuddles me close. “You have nothing to be sorry for. None of this is on you. He did this. He chose to be an asshole.”

“My question,” Ethan says, squinting at his screen, “is how he was able to apparently make an exact copy of our product.”

A chill sweeps through me, and my stomach twists again. Dante showed me the schematics of the watch, the imagery… a whole bunch of things.

And Marcus is my ex.

“I think it’s obvious,” Garrett snaps at Ethan. It’s clear he’s not angry at Ethan, just upset in general. “Marcus has someone on the inside.”

“A mole?”

“It has to be.”

I feel sick. Surely they won’t think…

But none of them look at me, or raise an accusing voice.

The moment of panic passes and I feel almost silly for letting myself think for a second that they’d accuse me.

I’m terrified of Marcus. I can admit that. It’s not crazy to think that maybe he threatened me somehow, and I gave him information to keep him from hurting me.

But there’s no time I could’ve done that. Marcus has no way of getting in touch with me, if he even found out where I am, and I’ve had one of the Alphas with me constantly, keeping me safe and keeping me from contacting anyone without them knowing.

I would never betray them. And it looks like my Alphas know that.

Dante shakes his head. He looks stricken. “The people at this company have been working for us for years. We keep a smaller team for a reason.”

“Nobody’s immune to the power of money,” Ethan says darkly.

Caleb looks as upset as Dante does. I’m not surprised, with how in tune to emotion Caleb is. He’s an empathetic person.

Garrett looks more like he wants to commit a murder. “Whoever it is better hope that I’m not the one who finds out who they are.”

I have to admit, he sounds sexy when he says that. But his hurt and anger are real, and there’s nothing sexy about that. It just makes my heart hurt.

“Are you sure?” Caleb asks. “There has to be another way that he got a hold of this information, right?”

“Not that I know of,” Dante admits. “He’d have to find a way to somehow beat our system and hack into it, without any of our security picking up on it. It has to be an inside job.”

“While we were out of the office, it was the perfect opportunity,” Garrett adds.

Guilt strikes me again, but Dante rubs my back as Ethan adds, “But he has to have been planning something like this for a bit, hasn’t he? This was just a good opportunity or maybe he decided to go big or go home because of Ava. But I don’t think this was out of the blue. I don’t think he just walked up to someone we work with and handed them a wad of cash.”

“True,” Caleb says slowly. “You need to investigate, see who might be a weakness. Who has bad debts, a gambling problem, who might be dissatisfied with the company…”

That relieves me, somewhat. It might not have to do with me, at least not completely. It could be in part that Marcus is just, well, an asshole.

I shudder in relief. Dante feels it and looks at me. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I just…” I try to smile, but I know it’s weak. “It just hit me how lucky I am that I got out, and that he didn’t know at the time that I was an Omega. If he’s bought off someone in your company…”

The sentence trails off, and I know that the others are thinking the same thing I am: how impossible it could’ve been for me to get away if I’d let him bond with me and claim me. He’s a powerful man and it could’ve been bad for me.

“Well, you’re not with him,” Dante assures me. “You’re with us, and you’re safe.”

I nuzzle him. “I know. Thank you.”

“Okay, I’m reading through,” Ethan pipes up, “and we have two problems. The first is that I think from this press release that someone was feeding him information starting weeks ago, before he knew about Ava being with us. But that does mean that he also has all of our latest innovations to the watch, like the changes we discussed the other day with the heart rate measurements.”

“Oh, joy,” Garrett mutters.

“The second is that unless something goes really wrong and he has to delay…” Ethan flips his tablet around so that we can all see the screen with the date on it. “His watch is definitely going to come to market first.”

“Fuck,” Garrett says.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.