Chapter 10: Elliott - Wrong Date, Right Mates

Present Day

My eyes open on a white ceiling. Sunlight filters through sheer curtains. An ocean view sneaks in through a gap in the curtains. An air conditioner hums, filling the room with blessedly chill air.

“Alpha?”

With one orgasm under my belt, and refuge from the sun, I feel a little more lucid. Not entirely. That softness around the edges of my consciousness is still there, the simmering ache for another knot. I’ll need Tyler soon.

“You’re awake,” says a familiar voice, but it’s not Tyler’s. I follow it to a handsome blond man appearing from an attached kitchen. “Hi Elliott. I’m Alden.”

“Alden?” I sit up, and a sheet slides down my chest to cover my lap. I grip the armrest and scan the room. “Where’s⁠—”

“Tyler is my roommate,” Alden says, crossing the room. “He brought you here, but he had to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Yes.” He sighs. “He didn’t want to leave, but he had to.”

Why? What changed? What happened? He took such good care of me. He saved me. He chased away my pain with one of the best orgasms I’ve ever had, sucked my dick when no one else has, and he left?

His rejection burns, like my blood has turned to acid, and the empty feeling in my womb becomes a black hole.

Alden watches me with kind eyes, like he sees the storm inside me. I blush and look at my lap. I feel like I’ve betrayed him with my feelings.

“Tyler said your heat spikes started early?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I trace the hem of the sheet with my fingers. “I’m on suppressants, but they don’t always work for me.”

“That must be frustrating.”

“Terrifying.”

He clicks his tongue. “I’m sure. Well, I’m so glad you’re here and safe.” He pauses. “And I’m glad that Tyler kept you safe and helped you through your heat spike.”

“He told you?”

He nods once, succinctly.

“I’m sorry. I⁠—”

“Please don’t apologize. These things happen sometimes between alphas and omegas. Tyler is my best friend. I trust him. If I couldn’t be there, he’s the only person I would want to take care of you.”

I hear the words. I’m trying to believe them. But I’m still spiraling in rejection and guilt, and panicking.

“Can I come closer?” Alden asks. “I think it will help you feel better.”

I nod.

He stands, and crosses the room, dressed comfortably in linen pants and a casual tee that looks expensive. He’s slightly smaller than Tyler, and smoother in a way that’s hard to explain. Don’t get me wrong. He’s in excellent shape and total wet-dream material. I already knew that from the pictures we swapped, but where Tyler was all hair and testosterone, Alden is smooth and soft, chest bare.

His slate blue eyes are even more beautiful in person, almost mesmerizing. He does that thing with his pants where he lifts them before lowering into a squat beside the couch to make eye contact with me.

He smells good, really good, even better than the board shorts on the beach, and he smells a little like Tyler too. But where Tyler’s scent felt feral, Alden’s scent grounds me, something I need right now when I feel so untethered.

“Hi,” he says with an easy smile. “I’m so sorry for, well, everything. Tyler said you swam out to rescue him? That was very brave.”

My cheeks flush with heat. “I would have rescued him too if it weren’t for the cramps while I was swimming.”

He clicks his tongue. “I’m so sorry you’ve had such an awful start to your heat. And here I had the heat plan and everything. I wanted our first heat together to be together, for one.”

“Stop,” I tease.

He’s been joking about a heat plan since we started talking, said it was like a birth plan but for spoiling an omega. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, and that’s what I like about him. Most alphas make me feel inferior and objectified, reducing me to my role as an omega. Alden makes me feel like a person.

“The plan is real. Just you wait.” He sobers. “I want you to know that you hold all the power here. If you want things to stop, please tell me, and I’ll listen.” He pauses. “And I completely understand if you want to go home. You’re welcome to use the guest room alone too. I stocked it with new toys just in case.”

Dread simmers in my gut, making me queasy. Is he rejecting me too? “Situation?”

“If you came and changed your mind about spending your heat with me.”

“I didn’t change my mind.”

His eyes snap up from his hands and his lips curl into a small smile. “Really?”

I nod.

His smile widens, reaching all the way up to his blue eyes. His scent blooms, filling me with warmth, a good kind of warmth like dipping into a bath that smells lush and green. Slick dews between my legs, but it doesn’t linger. I reach under the sheet and feel cotton wadded beneath me.

“I hope you don’t mind. I remembered you saying how much you don’t like to be wet, so I bought some slick-wicking boxer briefs.” Pink tints his cheeks. An alpha who blushes? “But it felt a little invasive to put them on you while you were asleep.”

Words fail me. Maybe there is a heat plan. He’s already taking such good care of me. I feel safe and cherished. A small cramp seizes me and more slick drips from me.

“Poor, sweet little omega. I hate that you’ve had soldier through a single cramp without me to take care of you. I’m here now. I’ll make it up to you.”

He kneels at my feet and gently lifts the sheet to expose my feet. With gentle hands and a firm touch to avoid tickling, he dusts the sand from my ankles and feet. His brow furrows and he frowns. “And you had the sand to contend with.”

“It’s okay.”

He looks unconvinced. He massages my calves and the arches of my feet. It’s so intimate my cock lifts, straining against the sheets, and I squirm as I feel myself getting wetter for him. My need grows, and I whimper through another cramp.

He gazes at me with open hunger as he rises to his feet. My alpha isn’t a golden retriever anymore. He’s a timber wolf. My mouth salivates at the sight of his cock filling his slacks.

“God, your scent is so sweet, so addicting. I can’t wait to taste you. Let’s go make a nest.” He extends his hand.

I’m nervous for a fleeting second. Something in me knows how intense this heat with him will be, but then he helps me up from the couch with so much care and tenderness I can imagine him doing the same when I’m pregnant. My heart twinges at the image. My heart is just as insane as my omega-addled brain is. The sheet falls onto the floor, and he gasps, actually gasps.

“You are perfect,” he murmurs, stroking my bottom lip with his thumb. “I’m so goddamned lucky you chose me.”

“I’m lucky too,” I whisper.

He bends down and kisses me, tender and sweet, and he tastes so good, I want more. Before I can beg him to claim my mouth with his tongue, I’m hauled off my feet as he hoists me up and against his chest with an arm under each of my thighs. I wrap my legs around him and submit as he kisses me again, tongue tracing the seam of my lips like he’s asking permission. I part my lips and grind against his stomach as he delves deeper, and moans, low and guttural, resonating in my blood.

We kiss the entire way, both growing more desperate. I’m panting and breathless, delirious with need. He pulls back, eyes glazed with lust, and backs us against a door before opening it, pausing to kiss me again before he carries me in.

“I can’t get enough of you.” He nuzzles down my neck with a long inhale before he licks and kisses me there. “It’s like you were made for me.”

My belly swoops. It scares me how much I want him to, so I say, “I bet you tell all the other omegas that too.”

His eyebrows dart inward with sincerity. “Never. No one’s ever smelled so good as…” He nuzzles his nose against me again and moans. Then he lowers me onto my feet, keeping his hands on my hips. “Well, here it is.” He sounds nervous, like he thinks I could be disappointed by the luxurious sanctuary before me.

Inside, it’s den-like, cooler than the living room, and lit only by the dim glow of a salt lamp by the bed. It’s the perfect setting for nesting during a heat wave.

He flips a switch by the door, and soft light illuminates the room. The walls are painted an airy blue-green, and a cream rug covers most of the ash wood floor. Layered boho curtains block out the sunlight and provide complete privacy. The bed is large and made of a similar shade of wood that’s sanded and unfinished, smooth like driftwood. Like the rest of the furniture in the living room, it’s simple in a way that looks expensive.

The bed is made, cream sheets peeking out from beneath a gauzy sage blanket, and a fluffy down comforter folded neatly at the bottom of the bed. A basket on the ottoman at the foot of the bed overflows with blankets and linen, each rolled up and positioned like a flower in a bouquet for easy picking. There’s a mix of thin muslin, cotton, and knitted blankets. Most of them are mellow shades of peach, goldenrod, and orange.

Okay, so there is one hundred percent a heat plan. I’m hyperemotional right now so of course my eyes mist over a guest room. It’s just… He listened and he remembered. He thoughtfully sourced bedding in my favorite sunset shades.

Distantly, I wish that Tyler were here too. Not to replace Alden, but to join us. They smelled so good together when I balled up the towel and board shorts. I’m already imagining how I’ll craft our nest to fit both Alden and Tyler.

But Tyler isn’t here. No matter what Alden said, if Tyler really wanted to stay, he would have found a way. It hurts. A lot. But Alden makes up for everything. My feelings for him didn’t diminish after I connected with Tyler.

Alden feels like my mate, but in a different way. I guess I have room for more than one mate. And yes. I’m insane. Fully aware. I just met these men, and I’ve got hopes and dreams that don’t include settling down with two alphas. Journalism and writing are my focus, and I don’t want a family now.

I close my eyes and force myself to live in the present, then step onto the rug, and stop at the decadence beneath my feet. I look to Alden. “It’s so soft.”

He smiles. “It’s not home, but hopefully it’s good enough.” He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the door.

“It’s perfect. Better than home. Better than most homes.” I grab a bedpost and swirl around the corner of the bed. “Can I move in?”

His eyes turn to crescents as he smiles. “I’m so relieved.”

“It’s too much,” I say.

“No. All omegas should be treated this way.” He looks at me with such fondness I feel a tug in my center, a warm kindling.

My cock hardens, and slick starts to flow. His nostrils flare, and he licks his bottom lip like he wants to taste me there. The gaze between us grows charged, but I don’t look away. My pulse slows. I’m hypnotized.

“Before we take this further,” he says, pushing off the door frame. “You need to drink something with electrolytes to replenish your stores after all you’ve been through today.”

Now that he’s mentioned it, I notice how dry my tongue is. He’s right. I’ve been too focused on heat-related things to take care of my body. “Okay. As long as it’s not Grackle Juice.”

He laughs. “It’s disgusting, isn’t it?”

“So disgusting.”

“I definitely need to get you hydrated if Tyler felt it necessary to offer Grackle Juice to a cute omega.”

I laugh too, warmth filling me, at least until a stronger cramp begins. I hiss and clench my stomach.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ll knot you soon, I promise.”

My belly swoops. Again. There’s nothing but belly swoops where Alden is concerned. He’s sweet and sexy and unguarded. I can’t believe I only met him for my Omega on the Street column.

I brace for him to leave the room. After what happened to Tyler, I have every plan to follow him closer than a shadow. He guides me to an armchair in the corner of the room that would make a perfect reading nook.

“Sit, please.”

Once I do, he crosses to a sleek, nondescript wine fridge beneath a narrow side table stocked with water, sparkling and still, Sumo oranges, and favorite snacks of mine, like peanut butter pretzels and chocolate brioche.

What did I do to deserve him? The contrast is so jarring from my last heat, or any other, to be honest.

“We never got to discussing protection,” he says without turning, like he’s giving me privacy to think while he plunks three ice cubes into the glass. “I have condoms. And I got tested recently.”

“Me too.” I had a lot of testing after the alpha smorgasbord.

“Given how irregular your heats are, I assume it’s best to use condoms?” He twists open a bottle of my favorite peach mango juice and pours it over the ice.

“Yeah. I don’t want to risk it. My doctor basically knows nothing about how my body works.”

He turns, making eye contact. “Of course. I’m happy to use condoms.”

I nod.

“Now drink.” He passes me the juice.

“Good omega,” he says once I’ve drained half of it. “Okay, now don’t hate me, but I think we should take a quick shower before we nest.”

I open my mouth, intent on having the most melodramatic tantrum when he says, “Sand, remember?”

Fucking sand.