But it’s already starting—that tight flutter of embarrassment in my chest, the slow flood of realization.
I’ve been here. In this bed. With them. However long yesterday was ago.
I ease out of the tangle of limbs, my joints stiff, but before I can swing my legs off the bed, Simon is there, sitting up.
“Hey. Slow down.” He’s already out of bed, crossing to me like I might fall over. “Bathroom?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, because my bladder’s making itself known now, too.
He takes my arm, steadying me when my knees wobble, and guides me across the room. It’s too much—the gentleness in the way he doesn’t let go, the way his hand stays at my elbow even after we’re inside the bathroom.
When I’m done, he’s waiting with a warm, damp cloth so I can wipe my face and neck, and something about that small act hits me harder than I expect.
By the time I shuffle back into the bedroom, Levi’s sitting against the headboard with a hairbrush in hand. “Come here,” he says, patting the space in front of him.
I sit, my back to his chest, and he starts brushing—slow, methodical strokes from root to tip, untangling knots without pulling. My eyes sting, maybe from how good it feels, maybe from how intimate it is.
It’s overwhelming.
“Hey,” I say suddenly, twisting a little to look at them all. “I’ve never… been with Alphas before.”
That gets me three different reactions at once—Beau stills in the act of pulling a T-shirt over his head, Simon’s eyebrows lift in quiet surprise, and Levi’s hand pauses mid-stroke in my hair.
“Ever?” Simon asks.
I shake my head. “Only Betas. This was…” I trail off, heat creeping up my neck. “Different.”
Beau’s mouth curves in something between a smirk and a smile, but there’s no mockery in it. “Yeah, I guess it would be.”
Levi’s voice is quieter. “Different how?”
I’m tempted to deflect, but they’re all looking at me like the answer matters. “More intense,” I admit. “Like… you were in my head and under my skin at the same time. I couldn’t—” I break off, my throat tightening. “I couldn’t get enough.”
No one laughs.
Instead, Simon says, “That’s normal. Heat does that. It’s supposed to. But with your suppressant levels, it shouldn’t have been anywhere near this strong.”
The reminder makes me frown. “How long was I?—?”
“Close to three days,” Beau says, coming over to sit at the foot of the bed. “We stayed. Didn’t leave unless we had to.”
Three days. My stomach flips again. “You have jobs.”
“We have you,” Levi says, still brushing my hair. “There was no way we were going to just leave you.”
I drop my gaze, unable to meet theirs. “Did you… mark me?” The words come out quieter than I mean them to. “I knowI didn’t know much about the knotting and everything, but I know… Alphas? They mark the Omegas they sleep with.”
“No.” Beau’s answer is immediate. “We agreed before we started that there would be no biting, no matter what you asked for.”
“Why?”
Simon sits beside me, his hand warm on my knee. “Because that’s something you choose when you’re clearheaded. Not in the middle of a heat. Marking changes thingspermanently. We’re not doing it unless you want it for real.”
The knot in my chest loosens a fraction.
For the next couple of minutes, the room is quiet except for the sound of the brush moving through my hair. Then Simon says, “When you’re ready, I want you to come to the hospital. I can draw blood and run some tests. See if I can figure out why you’re breaking through suppressants.”
“Is that… common?”
