Page 34

Lila

" I choose you. Both of you. All of you."

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, raw and honest and carrying the weight of everything I've been fighting since I arrived in Honeyridge Falls. Julian's dark eyes widen at my declaration, and I feel Callum go completely still beneath me.

"All of you," I repeat, my voice stronger now despite the way heat is making everything feel urgent and desperate. "I want all of you."

Julian steps fully into the room then, something profound shifting in his expression. "Lila," he breathes, my name carrying wonder and relief and something that sounds like gratitude.

But then my heat scent hits him properly, and I watch his careful composure shatter completely.

His dark eyes go wide, pupils dilating. I can see the exact moment his body responds, the way his breath catches, how his hands clench into fists at his sides, the careful control fracturing under the weight of what he's seeing.

What he's seeing is me straddling Callum's lap, my oversized t-shirt riding up over my hips, grinding down against the hard ridge of his cock through his jeans.

Slick soaks through the denim beneath me, dampening the blankets of my nest, making everything slippery and desperate and wrong because there's still this aching emptiness inside me that won't go away.

"Callum..." I whimper, my voice broken and pleading as I rut down harder against him. The friction isn't enough—will never be enough—but I can't stop moving, can't stop seeking something to fill the void that's eating me alive from the inside out. "Please... hurts... need..."

Callum's grip on my hips is bruising now, his knuckles white with the effort of holding me still instead of flipping me onto my back like every line of his body suggests he wants to do. When he speaks, his voice is shredded gravel.

"Sweetheart, I don't..." Callum's voice is rough, uncertain in a way I've never heard from him before. His grip on my hips trembles slightly. "I've never... I don't know what to do. Don't want to hurt you."

The vulnerability in his admission makes my heart clench even through the heat-haze. This strong, capable man who fixes everything is afraid of breaking me.

"You won't hurt me," I sob, cupping his face with shaking hands. "I trust you, Callum. I trust both of you. Please... I need you..."

Julian drops to his knees beside us so fast. His elegant fingers tremble as he reaches out to brush sweaty hair away from my face, and when I turn into his touch, a low sound escapes his throat that's part groan, part surrender.

"We'll be careful," Julian promises, his voice dropping into something deeper, more commanding. "But first, you need to breathe for me, love. Can you do that?"

The gentle authority in his tone cuts through the chaos in my head like a lifeline. I nod frantically, trying to follow his instruction even as my body screams for more contact.

"Good girl," he murmurs, and the praise makes me melt completely. His dark eyes hold mine with steady intensity. "Do you want me to take control, love? Help you through this?"

The offer makes me sob with relief. "Yes," I gasp. "Please, Julian. I can't... I don't know how to..."

"Shh," he soothes, his voice dropping into that commanding tone that makes my omega instincts sing with satisfaction. "You don't have to think anymore. Just feel. Just let us take care of you."

The relief of having someone else take control is almost as overwhelming as the heat itself. Julian's calm certainty wraps around me like a safety net.

Something breaks open in both of them at my words. Callum growls low and rough, one thick hand sliding up under my t-shirt to cup my breast. His palm is warm and callused against my skin, his thumb circling my nipple before pinching lightly, sending electric shocks straight to my clit.

My slick gushes harder in response, scent blooming sharp with lust and relief. Finally. Finally, they're touching me the way my body has been begging for.

Julian's control fractures completely. I watch it happen in the way his shoulders drop, how his breathing goes ragged, the sudden hunger in his eyes as he slides his hand between my thighs from the front.

Two elegant fingers brush through my swollen, soaked folds, and the contact makes me buck violently against both of them.

A strangled scream tears from my throat, high and desperate and entirely involuntary.

The sound seems to echo in the small room, mixing with their scents—cedar and sawdust from Callum, bergamot and black tea from Julian—until the air itself feels thick with want and need and the promise of finally getting what my body is demanding.

"God, you're soaked," Julian breathes, his fingers exploring with that same careful attention he brings to everything. "So warm, so ready..."

The clinical observation delivered in his rough voice makes me clench around nothing, my inner walls fluttering desperately for something to fill them. More slick pools beneath me, soaking through Callum's jeans and dampening the nest blankets until everything smells like my desperation.

Callum's other hand joins the first under my shirt, both palms covering my breasts now, thumbs working my nipples with increasing confidence. Each touch sends lightning through my nervous system, building something tight and desperate in my core.

"Please," I gasp, my hips rolling between their hands. "Please, I need?—"

"We know what you need," Julian murmurs, his fingers finding my clit and rubbing in slow, deliberate circles that make my vision blur at the edges. "We're going to take care of you, love. All of you."

The promise in his voice, combined with Callum's rough growl of agreement, makes something crack open inside my chest. Not just the physical need, though that's overwhelming enough to drown in, but something deeper.

Something that's been locked away since I fled LA and convinced myself I didn't need anyone.

Julian's fingers move faster against my clit, firm circles that have me seeing stars.

Callum pinches both nipples at once, rolling them between his fingers until I'm sobbing with the intensity of sensation.

The combination builds and builds until I'm balanced on the knife's edge of something massive.

"That's it," Callum rumbles against my ear, his voice pure gravel and want. "Let go, sweetheart. We've got you."

"Come for us," Julian adds, his precise fingers never faltering in their rhythm. "Show us how good we make you feel."

The dual command, delivered in voices rough with their own need, is what finally pushes me over the edge.

I scream as the orgasm tears through me, my body convulsing against them as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over me.

Slick gushes out in heavy, desperate waves, soaking everything beneath us as my inner walls clench and flutter around the emptiness that still aches to be filled.

For a moment, the relief is so intense I can't breathe.

My body goes limp against Callum's chest, boneless and shaking with the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm I've had in years.

Julian's hand gentles against me, soothing instead of stimulating, while Callum's arms come around my back to hold me steady.

"Good girl," Julian whispers, pressing a soft kiss to my temple. "You're safe... we've got you... we're right here."

The praise makes me melt even further into their touch, but as the immediate pleasure fades, the deeper ache remains.

If anything, it's worse now. The emptiness burning deeper, a void my biology demands be filled by knot and claiming and the kind of completion that orgasms from fingers can't provide.

"It's not enough," I whimper against Callum's neck, fresh tears starting as the need builds again. "Still hurts... still empty..."

"I'm afraid I'll..." Callum's voice is rough with strain, his hand stroking through my hair. "Afraid I'll bite you. Claim you before you're ready. My control's hanging by a thread, sweetheart."

The honesty in his admission makes my chest tight with emotion even through the heat-haze. He wants me so badly he's afraid of taking more than I'm ready to give.

"Julian," he says quietly, his eyes finding the other alpha. "You need to... I can't trust myself right now."

He's interrupted by the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs, heavy boots taking them two at a time. The bedroom door swings open hard enough to hit the wall, and Dean fills the frame like something out of my most desperate fantasies.

His broad shoulders heave with exertion, firefighter uniform half-unzipped from running, dark hair disheveled like he's been pulling at it. But it's his scent that hits me like lightning—toasted marshmallow and campfire warmth slamming into the room with enough force to make my head spin.

My body's response is immediate and violent. I clench so hard it's almost painful, fresh slick flooding out as my heat ratchets up another impossible notch. I arch involuntarily against Callum's chest, a strangled cry tearing from my throat.

"Dean..."

His name comes out like a prayer, like a plea, like everything I need wrapped up in four letters. He takes in the scene, me half-naked and trembling between Julian and Callum, the air thick with the scent of heat and slick and desperate want and something primal flashes across his face.

"Damn," he breathes, his voice rough with shock and arousal. "Lila, baby, are you?—"

"Need you," I interrupt, reaching out toward him with a shaking hand. "Need all of you. Please, Dean, I can't... it hurts so much and I need..."

My voice breaks on the words, but I can see understanding dawn in his eyes. Not just that I'm in heat, but that I'm choosing this. Choosing them. All of them.

The look that passes between the three men over my head is loaded with meaning I'm too heat-addled to fully parse.

Some kind of silent communication, a decision being made without words.

But whatever they're agreeing to, I can smell the change in their scents—sharper now, more focused, tinged with the kind of possessive certainty that makes my omega instincts sing with satisfaction.

"Okay," Dean says simply, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. "Okay, baby. We're here."

The promise in his voice, that they're not going anywhere, that they're going to take care of this ache that's eating me alive makes me sob with relief. For the first time since this heat started, I believe that maybe, maybe I'm going to be okay.

More than okay. Maybe I'm going to be exactly where I belong.

"We're here," Callum agrees, his arms tightening around me. "All of us."

"And we're not going anywhere," Julian adds, his hand still gentle against my overheated skin.

As Dean moves closer, adding his warm, comforting scent to the mix already saturating my nest, I feel something shift inside me.

Not just the physical need, though that's still overwhelming, but something deeper.

The last walls I've been holding onto crumble away, leaving me open and vulnerable and utterly certain of what I want.

I want them. All of them. Not just for tonight, not just to get through this heat, but for everything that comes after. The quiet mornings and busy afternoons and all the small moments that build a life together.

I want to choose them, and I want them to choose me back.

And as three pairs of hands begin moving over my overheated skin with increasing purpose, as their combined scents wrap around me like the most perfect blanket I've ever known, I realize that maybe they already have.

Maybe we've been choosing each other all along, and this is just the moment I finally stop fighting it.

The thought settles into my chest like a promise as Dean's calloused fingers join Julian's and Callum's on my skin, and for the first time since I arrived in Honeyridge Falls, I stop thinking about what I'm running from and start focusing on what I'm running toward.

Them. This. The beginning of something beautiful built from broken pieces, just like Julian's poem said.

Just like I'm finally brave enough to believe I deserve.

"Please," I whisper against Callum's throat, the word carrying all my need and want and the growing certainty that this is right. "Please don't stop."

"Never," Dean promises, his voice rough with emotion. "We're never stopping, Lila."

And as their hands continue their gentle exploration, as my body responds with fresh waves of heat and slick and desperate need, I believe him completely.

This is just the beginning.

But already, it feels like coming home.