Page 75 of Use Me Up

Instead, I close the way I always close, silent movement, compassion prayer with a general call for self-compassion as well, and then I let everyone go, get on my phone, cancel the rest of my afternoon, and text Kane.

Way ahead of you, he texts back. Got our suitcases packed, putting them in the car. You get here, and we’ll head out.

In the car, he drives and I sit in the passenger seat, drumming my fingers against my thigh. I’m second-guessing this. “He told us he wants space. We both agreed to give him space. We both agreed no contact.”

“Yeah, and when we talked about what happens if he goes into heat, he said he would be on suppressants, and that it wouldn’t happen, but that if he had a breakthrough, he was not going to be a martyr about it.”

He did. He said that. He said that he didn’t want anyone else to take him through a heat besides us, and that he didn’t want to go through another heat without alphas. But the suppressants he got were really good at keeping heats under control, something like ninety-nine point three percent or something. And anyway, he didn’t go into heat often, he said, even when he wasn’t on them, or at least, he hadn’t gone into heat in a long time.

The one heat we had with him was a bit of a shitshow, admittedly. I don’t know how we ended up biting him.

I’m not usually one of those out-of-control alphas. I don’t like it when people blame their designations for eroding boundaries, not usually. But Ellis unravels me.

I feel a certain element of trepidation at seeing him again.

Excitement, too.

But, uh, yeah, that boy, he’s possibly the worst thing that ever happened to me.

Kane reaches across the car and squeezes my knee. “Babe, it’s going to be fine. He gave us his new address for this exact reason, and we’ll go in, knot him silly, break his heat, and then we go home. It’s what we always wanted, anyway. Omegas are like puppies, right? They’re cuddly and fun but they’re a fuckton of work. We’re all better off this way.”

I swallow hard. This is what Kane wants. Me? I don’t know. We’re not getting any younger, Kane and me. He is thirty-three, and I am thirty. When I was younger, I was on board. Just him and me. We’d work hard and play hard and have a great house with nice things and travel a lot. No need for, uh, puppies. Or children. Or omegas. Or…

Sometimes, out of nowhere, I feel this ache in my chest. It’s as if, for all of the comfort and ease of our lives together, for all of the pleasures—good food and good wine and leather couches and art on our walls—everything seems empty and pointless.

I know that Ellis was work.

I know that having children would be hard. Night feedings and stuffy noses and skinned knees. But what’s the point of doing anything if you don’t have people to do it for?

I have Kane, but Kane doesn’t need me. Kane and I are self-sufficient roommates who fuck, that’s what I think sometimes. I don’t want Kane to be needy or anything. I don’t want to depend on him either. I am an alpha, so I need to be self-sufficient.

Mostly, I just let these things go. I know that desires come and go, and that being unsatisfied is a temporary state of being. My pain is not me. My desire is not me. My dissatisfaction is not me. These are just things that happen to me and pass through me.

I look out the window, trying to center myself again.

Another flare comes through the bond, however, and Kane feels it, too. He gasps as he grips the steering wheel.

My cock wakes up. Fuck, I have a knot, and it’s huge. I grunt.

Kane switches into the fast lane. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll get us there.”

It should be a two-hour drive.

We do it in an hour and twenty minutes.

hannah

Ellis tries to tell me that he does not need me, but this is ridiculous, and I don’t go anywhere. I get him into his nest, and I get his jeans off of him, because they are soaked through with slick.

He’s shivering like crazy. He says he does not need to fuck me, and I figure that’s bullshit, so we fuck. I straddle him and grab his hands and pin him down and ride him through three condoms.

He’s still shivering so bad.

At this point, he tells me about space heaters, so I bundle him up in about ten blankets and I go find them.

When I get back, he’s thrown off all the blankets and he’s up on his elbows and knees in the nest, presenting, his asshole glistening, still shivering all over, rubbing his forehead into the blankets and moaning.

I set up the space heaters and he groans something about toys. I find them, along with his porn magazines and lotion. He tells me I do not need to put them inside him, and I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit, too, and we do that for a while, me fucking him with toys and rubbing his cock.