Page 149 of Pack Frenzy
Her cheek smashes against my sternum, lips parted on a soft snore she’ll deny if I ever bring it up. Sweat-damp hair sticks to my skin. Everything smells like her—heat-sweet and wild and a little fried at the edges—layered over stale Gatorade, protein bars, and four days of bad decisions.
My back screams. My thighs burn. My cock has filed for medical leave. Totally worth it.
The dark curtains on her windows turn the room into a cave, but my body clock doesn’t care about light anymore. It runs on her breathing now. Each slow inhale drags her scent over my skin.
My instinct hums under my ribs, not that feral roar from the first night, more like a low engine idle, ready if she twitches wrong.
Empty bottles and crumpled wrappers litter the floor around her nest of twisted sheets, kicked blankets, and enough pillows to smother an army. The whole place looks like a storm hit and decided to stay.
Distant, through the walls, water pounds in the shower down the hall. Rowan and Eli. They finally tapped out to rinse off before we all permanently fuse together.
Jess shifts on top of me, that tiny, unconscious wiggle of her hips that sends a spark down my spine anyway.
“Easy,” I growl under my breath, not sure if I’m talking to my body or hers.
Her fingers flex against my ribs, little crescent moons from where she clung during one of our sex sessions. A soft sound escapes her, half whimper, half sigh, and she tries to burrow closer like there’s any space left.
Yeah. That does things I’m too wrecked to act on.
I drag my hand up her back, palm broad and rough over her spine. Calluses catch on her skin. These hands frame doorways, haul lumber, hit heavy bags until my shoulders sing. They’re not made for gentle.
They’ve learned her anyway.
“Cassian,” she breathes, the word nothing but a puff of air over my chest.
First time I met her, I couldn’t be bothered to ask her name. Slapped “sweetheart” on her like everyone else, and she demanded I use her name. I knew then I was a gonner.
Now my whole nervous system goes hot whenever she’s near me.
“Right here, Jess,” I rasp, voice shredded from four days of barking orders and groaning into her skin. I tilt my head and press a slow kiss to her hairline, tasting salt and the fading edge of fever. “You’re good. You’re safe. Heat’s backing off.”
She blinks up at me, lashes clumped, pupils big but not drowning-black. Pink flush still rides her cheeks, but the glassy, frantic sheen is gone. Her eyes actually focus, instead of just…fixating on the nearest Alpha willing to climb inside the fire with her.
“How can you tell?” she asks. Her voice is wrecked, all gravel and scrape. It hits me low, like a punch.
I let my hand slide down over the swell of her ass, skimming the dip of her hip, feeling how loose her muscles are now. No desperate clench, no jitter in her thighs ready to fling her into someone’s lap.
“The air isn’t buzzing,” I say. “You’re not trying to crawl under my ribs.” I dip my head, run my nose along her jaw, slow. Inhale. “Your scent’s still sweet. Just…less ‘I’ll die if you don’t fuck me right now,’ more ‘I’ll murder you if you get out of this bed.’”
Her cracked lips twitch. “That accurate, huh?”
“Yeah.” My thumb snags on a peeling patch of skin at her hip; four days of sweating, spot washing when we could, not exactly spa treatment. “I’m a professional.”
“You’re an ass,” she mutters. Her eyes soften. “My ass, though.”
Something in my chest stutters hard enough that I almost miss my next breath.
Not the first time she’s called us hers. Heat makes Omegas sticky like that—claiming, clinging. But this doesn’t feel like biology. It sounds like she’s filing paperwork with the universe.
My ribs feel too tight. Like someone swapped them out for a size smaller while I wasn’t looking.
“Yeah,” I say, voice coming out lower, rougher. “Guess I am.”
Her gaze traces my face as if she’s memorizing it, from the scar on my temple from a two-by-four that came down wrong. Crooked nose from a fight I technically won. The scruff I never fully bother to shave off. Her fingers follow, thumb brushing the scar, soft where the world was not.
“You okay?” she asks.
Stupid question. My whole body feels like it got hit by a truck and then backed over again. But shit, I’d sign up for another round if she needed it.
