My jaw snaps shut and I look away.
Yes,but that’s not the only reason I keep cock-blocking myself.
“Rune,” she whispers, smiling as she frees herself from my grip and cups my cheeks, her thumbs brushing under my eyes as Nikolai wraps his arms around my waist from behind. “Sweetheart, of course we want you. Welove you,and not just because we scent matched.”
“You’re kind of perfect,dobryy velikan,” Nikolai says as he presses a kiss to my shoulder. “You’re our hero.”
I frown but Olive nods. “Our hero, our scent match. Our big, giant teddy bear who gives a fantastic cuddle.” I snort and she smiles. “Rune, we love you because you’re perfect for us. You have a beautiful heart, the kindest soul. I don’t think you even realize how in tune you are with how we feel or what we need, and you’re more than willing to give that to us even when you don’t understand why we feel that way about you. Don’t roll your eyes, mister, it’s true.” When I do, in fact, roll my eyes, both of my omegas giggle and I can’t help the way it makes me smile. “You may have been through some shit, shit that you didn’tdeserve to experience, especially since it molded the way you see yourself, but that doesn’t make you unworthy of mates and love. Falling for you would have happened whether we matched or not because of everything that makes you who you are, but we have the added bonus of being able to threaten you with forever because of that. We are going to love you for the rest of time, Rune, and I need you to start trying to accept that.”
I look at Olive for a long few seconds, searching her beautiful green eyes for a shred of doubt or untruth, but there isn’t any. There’s nothing but that love she was talking about staring back at me, and the same way I have from day one, I cave to my omegas because I can’t argue or deny them.
“Plus,” Olive says with a grin as she slides her arms around my neck, putting us chest to chest as Nikolai tightens his hold. “You are hot as fuck and smell incredible. Do you really expect us to love you the way we do, as much as we do, andnotwant to jump your bones?”
Nikolai nips at my shoulder then rests his chin there. “Running out here in a towel, still wet from your shower, ready to kick some ass because Liv was being…herself… That’s catnip, big guy. You didn’t know it but you were basically asking to get fucked. In the nicest way possible, of course.”
My heart starts slamming against my ribs, beating out an unsteady rhythm as I pry myself away from my mates and get to my feet.
“Rune?” Olive asks as she climbs on the bed next to Nikolai, both of them watching me with worried expressions as I begin to pace. “Sweetheart, what?—”
“I can’t.”
“Your body says otherwise.”
I look down at my dick with a huff, still rock hard and standing so far off of my body it’s causing a fucking draft under the towel.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then explain it, sweetheart,” Olive says as she tries to stay calm. “Because honestly, if you don’t, I’m going to start getting a complex thanks to the mixed signals.”
I scrub my hands over my face as I let out a frustrated growl.
The last thing I want to do is tell my scent matches, to explain to my omegas that I can’t fuck them the way I want to because, even though I’m pushing forty fucking years old, I’d never been hugged until they did it, let alone made love to someone.Anyone.Hell, for the longest time, I was the only one who saw my dick and after that, it was The Circuit’s quack of a doctor when I got shot in the thigh.
I have no experience with intimacy or anything else like it, but my omegas have.
I don’t count Olive’s history. Where she was when I first scented her and everywhere she lived before, that’s not what I mean. She’s been living and intimate with Nikolai since living through that hell, and what they shared was beautiful. And Nikolai? He has a bonded alpha out there. Dimitri. I know how much he loves his mate, I can feel it. I didn’t need to see or hear about their love making for me to know it was just as meaningful.
Not only would I fumble through sex like an idiot, I don’t know the first thing about creating those kinds of feelings while performing the act.
I don’t want to have sex with my omegas if it isn’t going to mean something to all of us, and I’d hate for them to see me as weak because I don’t have a fucking clue what to do with the erection from hell that will not go away.
Embarrassment isn’t something I’m familiar with but I have a feeling that’s about to change.
“I don’t want you to think it’s because I don’t want to,” I finally say as I stop pacing and look out the window. “That’s just not true.”
“Okay,” Olive says as she sits up a little straighter. “Then why won’t you let yourself be with us if it’s not because you don’t want to?”
My hands ball into fists at my sides, hating the words I’m about to say, wishing I’d never corrected the way I speak in the first place, but I owe them an explanation.
“I’ve… I’ve never…” I clear my throat and face them. “I’ve never been with anyone, in that way, before.”
Olive frowns as Nikolai asks, “And?”
“And, what?”
“I thought maybe there was more to it than that.”
I shake my head as my brow furrows. “Does there need to be?”
