Page 81 of Into the Fire: Before

I reached over and grabbed one luscious thigh, pulling her so she straddled my face and my tongue could attack her own core. Candy-sweet slick dripped from her, and I moaned as I licked a drop up the length of her thigh straight to the source. I couldn’t see Lin anymore, but I felt him when he started moving again, apparently content to watch us eat each other out while gliding in and out of my own wet pussy. His hands brushed mine as we both gripped Taryn at the waist. I twined our fingers together, and we both tightened our grips.

Brooks wasn’t one to be left out and positioned himself above my head, sinking down lower to line his wet cock up with Taryn’s entrance. She mewled into my fevered cunt as he slid in, pushing back against my mouth and Brooks’s cock.

It wasn’t long before the four of us found a rhythm, our own ballet of pushing, pulling, bucking. A symphony of groans and satisfied sighs. Choreography of hands grazing over skin, clenching into sheets, clutching at legs and tangled in hair. The air was nothing but sweat and slick and musk. Pure hedonism, but so much more than that now.

Taryn’s movements on top of me sped. Her moans against my own wet clit where guttural, primal. She was chasing her climax, I knew it. Reaching up between our flush bodies, I found one of her nipples, rolling it between two fingers. My other hand reached back, grabbing as much beta ass cheek as I could,pulling him hard against her, driving him deep. I gave her nipple a sharp pinch at the same moment I rolled her swollen clit gently between my teeth.

Her slick, her scent, damn near flooded me as she came with a cry. She leaned her forehead against my pelvis as she bore down against Brooks impaling her and my mouth still teasing her. I released it from between teeth, only to tenderly, gently suckle it. All the while, Taryn never quieted. Her legs trembled on either side of my ears. Eventually, she collapsed on me, breathing heavy. The rest of us paused, breathing heavy and giving my sweet omega the chance to catch her breath.

None of us expected her giggle. Or the next one. And certainly not the raucous laughter that stole her breath anew.

Brooks gave her a teasing slap on the ass as he said, “Keep laughing like that and I’ll make you come till you cry.”

Taryn rested her cheek on my abdomen, and I could feel her smile as she fought through more laughs to speak. “I just…I was thinking this position”—She was full-on cackling now—“they should call it the sixteen-ninety-one.”

Peeking out from around Taryn’s thigh, I met Brooks’s equally confused face. He looked between me and Lin, still hidden from my view. “Did we fuck the sense right out of her?”

“Orgasm-induced insanity?” Lin put in.

“Cum-sanity?” Brooks responded.

“No, no, no!” Taryn whined, still giggling uncontrollably. “No, because—because Brea and me, we’resixty-nine,right? And then—then—”

Maybe because I’d known her longer, or maybe some micro-psychic connection through our bond connected the dots for me, and then I was howling too as I explained the rest to the two still very confused men in the room. “And you’re the ones on either side.”

For a moment, it was just me and Taryn giggling into each other’s fleshy bellies and thighs. Brooks broke first, resting his forehead on Taryn’s spine as he shook with laughter. When he rolled to the side, pulling Taryn off of me with him, I could see Lin again. A quizzical look lingered on his face, one brow slightly raised. “What?” I asked.

“Sixteen-ninety-one.” He gave a tiny shake of the head. “Was just thinking, that’s quite the mouthful.” The corner of his mouth twitched, as though he was trying and failing to stymie a laugh of his own. “For two of you, at least.”

That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. We roared with laughter again, Lin pulling out and collapsing down next to me. We were a tangle of arms and legs, trembling with rib-cracking laughter.

In that moment, I knew. I knew where our futures lay—at least, where I desperately wanted them to lay. And I knew I’d do whatever I had to, to make sure they did.

Iwokeonstrangesheets, but somehow immediately felt at ease. In the languid breaths between consciousness returning and when I could pry my lids open, my mind spun over the memories of the night before like a movie reel. Remembered sensations of heat and touch and breath and ecstasy filtered back to me as I finally blinked open my eyes.

The room was still dark. Still night. All around me, bodies slept. Lin behind me, Taryn in front, and Brooks behind her, his arms curled around her like a boy with a teddy bear. Lin seemed to like a little more space when he slept; he lay on his back with his hand pressed against the curve of my ass, the pressureintentional enough that the connection—meager though it was—was undoubtedly desired. Maybe even necessary.

I wondered how Brooks and Lin shared a bed when it was just the two of them. Did Lin have to constantly scrape Brooks off him like a barnacle off a ship? No, that picture didn’t make sense even for a moment. Not when I’d seen myself the quiet smirks they exchanged, the star-filled gazes.

Maybe Lin was cuddlier when he really knew someone, really loved them. Or maybe they’d found a happy medium between them. Hands held between two close-pressed bodies, or maybe Brooks got to be little spoon.

Sweet images of the alpha and beta in various snuggle configurations made me smile. I hoped I’d get to see it for myself someday.

But for tonight, someone was missing.

Quietly as I could, I disentangled myself from the various limbs and crept my way from the bed. I found the first shirt I could in the dark, pulling it over my head as I stepped carefully for the door. It must’ve been Lin’s from the smell alone, though the over-large fit confirmed as much.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to do. To knock on his door or simply slip my way into his room. Both plans flew away as my eye snagged on the silhouette in the living room. Caine’s, standing, gazing out the window that overlooked downtown.

Had he been to sleep yet? Or had we woken him?

When I stepped beside him, he raised the glass I hadn’t noticed in his hand and took a sip, glazed eyes not moving. He tilted the glass toward me, offering me a sip of my own. The motion was so small, so easy, I wondered if he realized he’d done it. I took the glass, raised it, relished the minor sting of the whisky against my lips before handing the glass back.

Caine took it, holding it down by his side. All without a word.

The pained tightness in Brooks’s eyes as he’d spoken of Caine the very first night returned to me then. And Lin’s tense swallow, how he’d clenched his fist. The pain they both felt for their packmate. Their brother who kept himself on the outside.

I didn’t want Caine on the outside of this. And not only because I had zero intention of letting Brooks and Lin slip away from us. But I knew he wouldn’t step inside himself. He needed to be pulled in.

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