Arms held me,hands stroked me, soothingly now, while I revelled in the deep pressure of being sandwiched between two bodies, until I finally sucked in a full breath. I opened my eyes when someone brushed a hand across my forehead and saw Ryan standing in front of me.
“You’ll need tending a lot, love. You’ll have a few hours but…”
“If you ignore it, it will hurt.” Haze’s expression was grim, as if to make clear exactly what he thought of that idea.
“I caught everything on camera,” Colt added, holding out his phone to me. “You want to study this process and I figured you might want it, but we can delete it if it’s not useful to you.”
I blinked then, staring at each one of them, feeling the vestiges of the pleasure that washed through me, their concern, their care, and most of all, their closeness.
Which was perhaps why this happened next.
I stared at them, each and every one of them, and then yanked myself free of their grip. I shoved my clothes on, the lot of them making sounds, so many sounds, but I couldn’t listen to it. Before, I had been swept up in…what? A sensual haze? A feeling of rightness that came from being near them? Pleasure, more pleasure than I’d ever felt before, but now came something else.
This wasn’t me. I wasn’t someone who let five guys touch her in her damn office, leaving the whole room reeking of sex. I wasn’t an omega. And then the most important one—I didn’t lose control.
I scowled at them, although even in this state, I knew that wasn’t fair or rational, but I wasn’t feeling like either of those things, which was important.
Because I was so used to feeling like that all the time.
Not like this, I thought furiously as I shoved my white board out of the way.
“Riley.” Fen said my name, injecting so much into it, yet no command. I was grateful for that. “You want to run.”
Yes, yes, yes! That was exactly what I bloody wanted, my body trembling with that need now that my other needs had been seen to, and that made me pause.
It felt like a war was being waged inside me on too many fronts. Dealing with my past with them, finding our way towards each other. Trying to hold down my job, and better, becoming a success. And the impulses that were swamping me, removing any cool, calm objectivity, turning me into this reactive mess.
When I opened the door, I confirmed everything Fen was saying, but even as I spilled out into the hallway, more shit came with it.
Guilt at walking out on them. Pain too, an ache starting in my chest, making me think an ECG might be good for other reasons. I needed to go back to my office and I needed to get the fuck away and I couldn’t seem to reconcile either impulse.
“Hey, you OK?” Candy asked as I stumbled out into the lab.
“No,” I said, the first honest thing. “Candy, I can’t do this.”
Chapter 30
“What the hell did you do to her?” Candy asked as the guys spilled into the lab. She moved until she formed a very small but very spirited barrier between them and me. “Like, I know what you did to her and I hope like hell that scream was of pleasure. And if it was, do you guys have another set of brothers or cousins maybe who might be interested—?”
“That’s not helping,” Fen rumbled. “Riley, I know you’re scared—”
“I’m not scared!” I spat as I began to pace back and forth. “I’m…” Words, too many words swelled up, ready to fill that gap, creating a log jam in my head. “I’m not me,” I finally ground out.
“Or maybe you’re more you than you’ve ever been and that’s fucking terrifying.” My head jerked up, my eyes wide as I saw that Colt had stepped forward. He didn’t crowd Candy, respecting the boundary she’d made and looking beyond it. “Maybe we all are. When you’re a kid, your reality is created for you, told to you by your parents, your family, your school, and your community.” His lips thinned down then. “Ours lied. They told us a story about who and what we are, thinking it would help in the long run. Did it?”
I could’ve shoved off his sweet words. I could’ve snarled if any of them had come at me, but this? I was never neutral when I was around them. The analytical mindset I craved fell to pieces the minute I was with them, but… He stared at me, eyes stark but still their reassuring hazel colour. He didn’t posture, intimidate, or do anything but ask me a damn question, forcing my mind to race to answer that.
“I made something here,” I replied, my voice shaky and emotional in a way I fucking hated. “I made something I was proud of. I was starting to build a career, find my feet as a researcher, and develop a good reputation. How am I gonna do that if…?”
My hands went to my breasts, wincing at the warm pulse of pleasure that washed through me, which just seemed a further betrayal by my body.
“Is that what’s got you running out here like the hounds of hell are chasing you?” Candy asked, turning to me. “Fuck, girl…” Her eyes shone as she stared up at me. “Who says you can’t have both? I am totally a have your cake and eat it girl.”
“I know,” I shot back without thinking. “You have mine and eat it all the time.”
“God, just because you got that super special Black Forest cake with the ganache,” she said, pulling a face. “You left it in the fridge for days.”
“Hours,” I argued.