Page 33 of Pack Frenzy
The ceiling is a good listener.
I roll to my side, nose in the pillow. Their scents are here, faint as fingerprints: Rowan’s sandalwood-and-rain calm, Eli’s clean bergamot with linen, Cassian’s warm leather laced with amber and black pepper. I pull a breath in like a thief. It hits me like a drink on an empty stomach. My muscles unlock one by one: shoulders, jaw, the tiny place at the base of my skull that’s always braced for impact.
My skin feels too tight. Too sensitive. The sheets are suddenly a rumor of texture I can’t stop noticing. Heat climbs my neck even though the room isn’t hot. My pulse lives everywhere at once—temples, wrists, sex—and the ache there is new and old at the same time.
Maybe it’s the shower, the tea, or that I’m horizontal and safe and my body finally believes me. Or maybe I’m just thirsty and not for water.
I slide a thigh over the other. The smallest drag of fabric has me exhaling too fast.
No, I should sleep.
Instead, my palm skates under the duvet, restless, like I’m checking the borders of myself. My covering shifts down with the movement, and cool air kisses my stomach. Goosebumps riseand then melt as warmth rolls through me in waves that don’t crest, but just keep building.
Don’t think about Cassian’s full, perfect lips. His tattoos run up his arms in thorns and skulls. Or about Eli’s easy nature when he made that delicious pie. How Rowan leaned his hip against the counter and watched me win at cards like it was his favorite sport.
I think about all of them anyway.
My fingers trace the line of my pelvic bone, not going lower, just playing with the idea. My breath hitches. There’s a hum under my skin now—quiet but constant, like a generator coming online. I drag my palm up, cup my breast, thumb circling my nipple, and sensation spikes. I bite my lip to keep the sound in, and that just makes the need sharper.
This is stupid. It’s reckless. It’s my hand, not Cassian’s, Rowan’s, or Eli’s.
I push the sheet down to my hips. The room smells like them again, and it feels like they’re closer, even if that’s just my ridiculous brain doing what it does best.
“Okay,” I whisper to no one.
I slip my fingers lower and desire answers, slick and honest. The first brush over my clit knocks a breath out of me. I press the heel of my hand there, slow, testing, learning the new edges of this wanting. It’s louder than usual. Needier. Every pass is too much and not enough, and I’m greedy for it.
Eli first, because the softness kills me. I picture him saying my name like he did—careful, like it’s a glass he means not to drop. I imagine his palm where mine is now, big and warm, the way he’d ask with his eyes before he asked with his mouth. My hips tip into my hand, and the sound I make is embarrassingly grateful.
Rowan’s next because he feels like competence and praise, and the exact pressure I didn’t know I needed until he gave it.I imagine him braced beside me, mouth at my ear, murmuring what he’s doing to me and what he wants to do.Tell me if you want more. Good girl, there you go.
The words hit something low and make the whole circuit go brighter. I circle faster, then lighter, chasing the edge and backing off because the edge feels razor-sharp tonight and I want it to last.
Cassian crashes into my mind. Messy, grinning, hand around my wrist pinning me to the mattress with just enough force to make my body quiver. I add a second finger and roll it low, slow. My thighs tremble, but I spread them anyway. The duvet skims my knee, sparks jumping everywhere it touches as I imagine it’s them.
I can’t get quiet. Every exhale leaves me on a little gasp. Sweat beads at my temple. I thumb my nipple until it goes hard and mean under my touch, a sweet little ache that answers the pulse between my legs.
The rhythm finds me: press, circle, lift. I keep almost breaking and then easing back, riding it like a tide. My stomach tightens. The world narrows to where my fingers move and the way my body chases them.
Rowan, patient and reverent. Eli, focused and kind. Cassian, reckless and sure.
My hips can’t; my hand slips lower, fingers sliding through wet heat before I come back up to circle where I want it most. The pressure builds too fast to hide from. I picture Rowan’s mouth on my throat, Eli’s breath against my breast, Cassian’s voice sayingshe’s oursas he pumps in and out of melike I’m something he found and won’t lose.
I moan on a ragged whisper, and then I’m gone.
Release hits hard—tight, pulsing, rolling through me. I clamp a hand over my mouth and still the other only enough to rideit longer, deeper, until the trembling in my thighs turns to aftershocks and the bed feels like a boat.
I lie there, panting, palm cupped over the soft place I’m still throbbing, the sheets bunched under my ribs, the pillow damp under my cheek. The room is quiet again. My heart isn’t. It beats at my fingertips like it wants out.
Warmth buzzes under my skin. Not Omega heat or anything stupid like that—just… relief, even though it feels like the beginning of everything I shouldn’t want.
Or maybe the suppressant shot they gave me is messed up. Either that or my body’s done pretending it doesn’t notice the two gorgeous Alphas down the hall or the Beta who watches me like he already knows how I taste.
I pull the sheet up and curl on my side. Their scents are softer now, like the tide went out and left me with the good parts—salt, warmth, the shine in my blood that saysstay.
“Annoying,” I murmur, but there’s no teeth in it.
I fall asleep with their three different voices calling my name inside my head.
