Page 36 of The Pack Next Door (The Wolfverse #4)

Briar

“You’re getting close again,” Mads said.

I was, and that’s why I needed to leave this morning.

Jacinta had stepped in to help and while there were some initial grumbles from Mum, the two of them started planning the next phase of the garden revitalisation process, leaving me free to go.

Not quite free. My heat was getting worse.

It wasn’t just waking up in a pool of sweat. That was par for the course in summer. My eyes flicking open as I gasped, the fevered touch of my dream lovers still having my body shuddering through the waves of a dream orgasm, wasn’t.

I knew what was happening.

Mads had tried to help me keep the heat at bay, but each gap seemed to get shorter and shorter. I was prepared to white-knuckle it to Honey’s and Tom’s. My heat would abate, but my business wouldn’t. If I just… My eyes slid sideways, noting that not one, but two alphas were joining me in the back.

Mads shot me a knowing smile. If I was going to try to mask what was happening to me, half jumping out of my skin because his leg pressed against mine made clear that wasn’t going to happen. His hand landed on my knee, anchoring me to the seat, right as the other car door opened.

Shit.

Gideon appeared in the gap, filling it completely. As Mads’ hand slid slowly up my thigh, I stared. He was so damn big. Every single one of the Whitlocks towered over me, but Gideon’s size went beyond height. Those broad shoulders, those big hands.

It’d hurt so damn good if he pushed one, maybe two, of those fingers inside me.

That thought had me blinking, because it wasn’t one I’d have under any circumstances about a guy I barely knew. Good thing too, because he looked at me expectantly.

“Omega?”

Those gold eyes narrowed slightly as he breathed in.

Whatever scent he caught had that serious expression shifting into a slight smile.

His weight shifted from one foot to the other and my eyes followed every damn movement, sliding down, down until I caught sight of exactly how he was responding to me.

When I jerked them back up again, he was smiling in earnest.

“You OK with me riding with you?”

“Are you OK with me riding you?” I shot back.

Where the fuck had that come from? When I looked inward at the wolf, she was just lying on her back, presenting her belly as she panted. Little ho.

“If that’s what you need.”

He swung inside, settling down on the other seat beside me, which left me sandwiched between two of the men that claimed they were my mates. Perhaps what happened next was entirely understandable.

“I need…”

Gideon’s eyes were too bright, too intent as he stared at me, and that had me turning to Mads. I at least had had whole conversations with him.

“I know.” Mads nodded, his grin fading as he stared at me. “Jace, get this party started. You drive,” he ordered, “while I see to our mate.”

That was all the permission I needed.

I reached up, tugging his head down, but it was his mouth that claimed mine.

Breath was sucked in through our noses at the feel of the others’ lips.

His were hard and demanding and mine were too soft, parting all too easily.

Gods, the first slip of his tongue against mine had me writhing, the car and the rest of the Whitlock pack forgotten, right before a hand grazed my stomach.

I jerked my mouth free and turned to see Gideon reaching over to clip my seat belt.

The frantic pulse of the car’s seat belt alarm filtered through, making me aware of where we were. Away from our houses, I was thankful for that, even as I blinked, trying to dispel the red haze clouding my vision. That effort was rewarded by the sight of Gideon hanging over me.

“Safety first.” He said that with his eyes entirely trained on my lips, not looking away for a second.

“Riding or whatever you need can come after that. Though…” With effort, he looked out the windscreen.

“You might want to wait until we’re clear of the town before you take things too far.

” Gideon glanced back at me. “I’m sure the sight of you reaching your peak is glorious, but it’s not something I want to share with all of Moon River. ”

Neither did I. The shame heating my cheeks had my fists balling, pressed into the tops of my thighs, trying to keep them together, but it was a fight I’d never win.

Mads’ arm settled along the back of the car seat, his fingers finding the baby hairs at my nape.

That touch dispelled my concerns for poor, unsuspecting bystanders with every swirl.

The entrance sign to the town was the most welcome sight, my breath escaping my lungs in a rush, right as Mads slid his hand up my thigh.

“We—” I started to say.

“Need to get you more comfortable?” His intent gaze contained both concern as well as desire. “This close to you, I can smell how much you’re aching, omega.”

I didn’t even complain about being called by my designation, because the woman would never have even considered getting fingered in the back of a car. The omega? She tilted her hips and opened her thighs as far as they would go.

Which resulted in them being pressed against Mads’ and Gideon’s.

I turned towards the silent stranger of a mate, wondering how he’d respond to this.

He gave so little away, his face an impassive mask, right before he let out a little snort and picked up my leg, hooking it over his knee.

Being spread open, my inner thigh muscles quivering at the sudden tension, had me tilting my hips further.

It felt like my clit popped free of my body, straining against my underwear, right before the car took an abrupt left turn.

“Side quest,” Jace announced in a growl, pulling off the asphalt road and sending us bouncing down a thin dirt track. The pine trees of the plantation that surrounded the town loomed above us, and soon we were swallowed by its cool depths.

Which only made things worse.

Now, the world had that familiar green gloom of the night I’d woken up in the forest. Jace was right there, parking the car abruptly, then wrenching the seatbelt off as he turned in his seat.

“You’re hurting.” I looked up at Mads. “How the hell were you going to drive to a place three hours away?”

“Toys…?” I ground out.

Walking into a lingerie shop owned by a family friend and buying sex toys was not something I wanted to do at all, but needs must.

“Don’t need them when you have us,” Jace said, but the movement of Gideon’s hand drew my attention. Little circles on the terribly sensitive skin of my inner thigh had my breath coming in faster and faster, and he noted every heave of my chest.

“Do it,” he snarled. “Ease her. You’re the ones that she knows, trusts. Do it, or I’ll…”

“Or you’ll what?”

Some devil rode me, getting me free of the three of them, only to clamber onto Gideon’s lap.

His claws raked across the seat cover. Anything rather than touch me.

That was fine. I’d do the touching for the both of us.

Those cheekbones were so sharp, as if they were formed with the flat of a knife.

I touched them right now, something electric happening with my nerve endings.

A feeling of rightness I’d never felt with another man pulsed through me as they slid down, getting closer and closer to his mouth. His hands clapped down on my hips, grinding me against him so I could feel exactly how he was responding to all of this.

“Whatever the fuck you want.” Gideon’s hips pushed upwards and sparks exploded inside me, wanting, needing more. “Serving his omega. That’s what an alpha does.”

My fingers shook as I pushed them through his hair. Loose curls straightened and then smoothed back, as if my hand was never there.

“Hasn’t been a whole lot of serving so far.” My fangs flashed as I stared down at him, forcing Gideon to be quiet as I continued. “But you could correct that mistake right now.”

Betas misunderstood the alpha/omega dynamic, thinking it fit with their own weird social structure of wholesale submission to higher authorities.

I was smaller, outnumbered by each one of them, and yet I wasn’t in a position of weakness.

With just a shift of my hips, I had the big bad alpha questioning every decision he’d ever made.

We exchanged power, it taken just as freely as it was given.

“Seems like a perfect opportunity to get things back on track.”

Mads peeled me off Gideon’s lap and turned me over on my back, but my head tilted backwards to stare at his brother. The way it revealed my neck had each one of them groaning, right before Gideon’s fingers traced the curve of it.

“You can’t give true consent in an overheated state.

” His words were drops of ice water on a red hot grill.

“There is no way you’d touch me if you weren’t in heat.

” I watched his lips purse, a small frown form, right before his eyes bled dark as Mads pushed up my t-shirt, revealing my bare stomach and bra. “I shouldn’t participate in this.”

My hands went to the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head. The engine was still running and I felt some sympathy for its frantic pulse, the cool of the air conditioning bathing my skin.

“Help you become the ruling pack,” I ground out as Mads’ hand slid over my ribs, then teased the band of my bra.

“In return for…” My train of thought was abandoned as he pushed my bra cup up and over a too-swollen breast. The nipple pulled even tighter in response to the cool air.

“In return for helping me survive this fucking heat because…”

Mads launched himself at me, capturing that nipple with his mouth.

The stubble grazed my skin, sending a thrill of pleasure rushing through me, before he began to suck.

Liquid pleasure had me writhing, my hands landing on his hair and caressing the shape of his skull as he pulled more and more pleasure from my body.

“You agreed…” My eyes were open only a crack as I tilted my head back to meet Gideon’s fascinated gaze. “You?—”

“Kill the engine,” Gideon growled at Jace. “Put the park brake on. We’re not letting the car roll mid way through…whatever this turns out to be.”

My grin spread across my face as he tugged his shirt up and over his head, revealing the most perfect golden body. Massive, heavily muscled, the wolf saw a male that could protect and serve us, but I…

I just saw a guy on the edge, ready to jump off.