So for a moment, we just held each other, probably looking super weird to the outside world, but once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop, some bone-deep skin hunger rising and rising, screaming for Colt. At some point, I had to pull away before we fused together into one big pod person, but with that distance came a realisation.
Being around Colt all the time had made me crazy horny in a way only a teenager could be. I’d spent hours being bombarded by him, and at some point, something had to give. So when he’d leave, after I’d had a shower, I’d get into bed and…
Colt’s smile shifted then, turning into something slow and sensual and utterly at odds with the boy I knew. This was a man now, and a fucking cocky one—one that knew exactly what I’d gotten up to.
“Did I feel you fingering your pretty little pussy as you dreamed of me?” he asked me in a low voice, eyes heavily lidded. “Yeah, love, I did. I thought it was so fucking obvious. Every day, I’d come around to your place rigid. My cock would be trying to bore its way through my jeans, my breath would be all ragged, and you’d just ask me if I wanted a Coke or something. I’d be looking over your damn textbooks, trying to focus on chemistry or physics, anything to get your breathy little moans out of my head and stop me from doing what I needed to.”
He reached out and stroked a hand through my hair, looking at me with such tenderness, I felt almost embarrassed to witness it.
“Whenever you’re not actively shutting me out, I can feel you.”
“And I can feel how damn hungry she is,” Haze said abruptly. “Let’s take this inside.”
We were greetedat the door by a waitress in a plain, severely black uniform, all in keeping with the restaurant’s minimalist interior. There was a whole lot of gloss black, broken only by splashes of scarlet and gold leaf, as we were led to the back of the crowded dining room and ushered into a private space. Rather than chairs, we sat down on thick cushions, richly embroidered in golds and reds, around the low black lacquered table. The waitress took our drink orders and then closed the door behind us, creating a strange space.
It was intimate, with the two of them sitting on either side of me, and because the door was closed, all I felt, smelled, was them. Expensive woody cologne meshed with their own musky scents to create something magical, but there was more than what I could sense. Our history, both ancient and recent, sat down with us, like another guest at the table. When Haze settled back with a cocky smile against the triangular-shaped back cushion, when Colt watched my every move, I was right back at high school. How had I ever mistaken their intent for anything other than romantic? We had been friends, sure, but that was just the tip of this iceberg, and I was about to find out how much more.
“So…you can step into my dreams and my fantasies?” I asked in a low voice, my eyes on the door. “And you see and feel whatever I’m dreaming?”
“It’s more like we share the dream space.” Haze’s hand slid down the back of my neck, feeling so warm, so heavy.
“We co-construct what happens,” Colt added. “We can change or add things, and so can you. Ideally, it’s us catering to you.” His eyes dropped down to my lips. “Working out what you want and giving it to you. Getting you used to the idea of us taking control.” I stiffened at that, and he smiled. “Not in a dictatorial way. An alpha’s job isn’t to force his mate. It’s to provide the perfect environment for her to surrender in.”
My eyes jerked sideways, catching Haze’s smouldering ones.
“That’s why you brought Colt in.”
“You needed more, and he was always the one who featured in your fantasies. We got a look in sometimes, but mostly, it was Colt,” he replied.
“Because he studied with me. He spent hours with me…”
Haze’s eyebrow cocked up at that, but the door opened and our waitress returned with our drinks.
She deposited them on the table, mine a lemon squash, theirs, beer, and then took our food order. The guys ordered an insane amount of food, but alphas were like that. They burned hotter and harder than everyone else—everyone but an omega preparing for her heat. I passed my menu back once I ordered my own meal, as did the guys, silence reigning until she closed the door again, then my focus, it slid back to Colt.
I watched one of those big strong hands wrap around his beer, lifting it to his lips, the strong column of his throat flexing as he drank it down. There was a confidence there now, a power that hadn’t been before. All that jittery teenage energy had been burned off and replaced with something else—something that stared back at me, quietly observing, when I persisted in looking at him.
“I dreamed of Colt because he was the most believable.” A small sigh of satisfaction from Haze as the words spilled out. “Fen was the golden boy and unapproachable. Ryan was always trying to keep all of us in line. Blake was distant—”
“Not distant, just useless with girls,” Haze corrected.
“And Haze?” I looked over my shoulder at him. “Even in my dreams, I would’ve assumed you would just laugh at me.”
“Guess we both learned something new then,” he replied, then nodded for me to continue.
“But Colt… I knew the scent of him—woody with a hint of musk and some kind of amber undertone,” I said.
“That was my dad’s aftershave,” Colt said, his eyes twinkling. “He beat the shit out of me every time he caught me using it, but fuck…” Some of that boy I’d known was back, a small smile forming. “When I felt how much you liked it, that you had to fight the urge to smell me…?”
His words trailed away as I realised something—this room, this restaurant, it was just like the dream. They were making it easier for me to surrender, but not sexually. I was given a private space, but not too private, not one that would push my buttons, but one that would free me. I’d never leaned in and smelled Colt, because fuck, how would I have explained that? But now? He set his beer down on the table hard when I did just that, burying my nose in the overly long strands of his hair and finding the man beneath them.
His hand cradled my skull, not holding me in place, but supporting me, making clear how much he liked this, as if his little groan of pleasure weren’t enough to go by.
“That’s it, love. Breathe me in. Suck me deep in your lungs because…”
“Same cologne,” I croaked out as I pulled back, and he shot me a lopsided smile.
“I bought that shit in the biggest bottle I could find and wore it always, for you.” Colt’s thumb brushed against my bottom lip, parting my lips. “Even when it broke my heart. Always for you, Riley. You’re my girl.”