Chapter 5: Elliott - Wrong Date, Right Mates

My alpha escorts me to shore without incident or shark sightings. What’s his name again? He’s definitely not Alden. That was the shock of a lifetime. Guilt twists in my stomach. Why does it feel like I’m cheating on Alden when we haven’t agreed to spend a heat together yet?

Another cramp nearly sweeps me off my feet, and the alpha tightens his hold on me.

As soon as the cramp passes, I say, “I’m Elliott.”

“Elliott,” he repeats, and it sounds so perfect from his lips I don’t want anyone else to say my name ever again. “Here.” He kneels at my feet and unfastens the leash from my ankle. It’s an oddly intimate gesture, or maybe everything is when I’m on the verge of heat.

His hand on my calf sends simmering pleasure to my center, and I feel myself getting wet. His nostrils flare. His eyes darken. He licks his bottom lip absently, not in that way some alphas do when they’re trying to manipulate you into kissing them. He looks like he wants to eat me, and I’ll gladly spread myself out like a damn picnic blanket, but a stronger cramp sends me swaying.

He stands quickly and stabilizes me with an arm curled around my waist. Each speck of sand beneath my feet feels like a shard of glass, and my panties are wet and sticky. I hate my body.

This is getting kind of ridiculous. Heat spikes aren’t supposed to stack like this. Even my heat spikes. Maybe I do need to be studied.

“Are you okay?” He abandons his board and carries me to the towel that I left rumpled when I nuzzled against it. I emit a pathetic whimper at the sand that immediately sticks to my ankles. God, this is humiliating as hell.

He takes the towel and turns away from me.

“Where are you⁠—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Just shaking out the towel.” He walks a few steps, then turns, blocking the sand with his body, then he lays it down for me.

Sitting down helps, but the sand between my toes feels all wrong and my blood feels too hot now that we’re out of the water.

He squats in front of me, knees flared. “Is there someone I can call?”

My brain cycles sluggishly through my contacts. I could call Noel, but then I’d have to go home.

“An alpha, maybe?” he presses.

“Oh. Right.” I cringe. “I was supposed to meet an alpha for a date.”

His jaw tightens.

“But I didn’t know how close I was to my heat. I couldn’t get ahold of him though, or remember the restaurant we were supposed to meet at, and then I found you, and here we are. I should probably send him a text so he doesn’t think I stood him up.”

“What an asshole.”

I know.

“Not you. Him. I would never leave an omega on his own, and I would have picked you up at your home.” He squeezes my shoulders and leans closer, surrounding me with his scent. “Elliott, it’s going to be okay. I’m sure he’ll understand, and if he doesn’t, I’ll wrestle him for you like the shark.”

I laugh. “Thank you.”

He smiles. “Now take a deep breath.”

Some of my tension wanes at the request alone. His quiet dominance is exactly what I’ve been missing. I lose so many things when I’m in heat. My confidence. My stability. My control. It can be really scary, especially because my submissive omega tendencies mean I’ll surrender that control to whoever is around me, no matter their intentions.

But this is the first time I’ve surrendered to someone I inherently trust. How could I not trust him when he saved me from near-drowning and potential sharks?

“Can you pass me my phone?” I point to the pants I left in a heap when I stripped. “I’ll try calling him again.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says briskly, like he’s relieved to pass me off to someone else, which… ouch. With clinical efficiency, he takes my phone and hands it to me, but he doesn’t let me take it yet, so we’re just there holding hands.

“Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you’re safe, okay?” He releases the phone and nods.

“Thank you.”

He turns his back to me and rummages through his bag, as if to give me privacy. I click the side button on my phone, but instead of turning on, it flashes a high temp warning and shuts off.

I bite my lip. Fuck.

Tyler reaches back to unzip his wet suit, and peels it down, revealing light brown skin, wide shoulders, and a muscular back. My anxiety fades into the background as he bends and pulls a towel from his bag, then wraps it around his waist and strips.

He glances my way. I drop my gaze to my phone with no chill or subtlety. The wet suit lands on the ground with a squelch, and I sneak a peek again. If that towel drops… But no. He pulls on bright teal swim trunks like he does this every day, and his wet suit is a second skin.

His scent is stronger now, so delicious I want to rub myself on him like a cat, claim him and blend our scents. But those are omega delulu thoughts I definitely won’t be verbalizing.

He turns, brown eyes grave. “Can’t get ahold of him?”

I shake my head. I don’t trust my mouth to speak. Not when my alpha rescuer just revealed stacked abs and tight pecs, long arms and sexy lats. His treasure trail circles his belly button and disappears inside those bright teal swim trunks that contrast strikingly with his skin. His shorts aren’t skintight, but it’s hard to hide when you’re packing a Maglite.

Fresh slick fills my panties. I gulp. “How am I going to take your knot?”

Summoned by desire, by evolution, by instinct, I reach toward him, then stop. Impending heat or not, I can’t just touch a stranger’s cock. Even if said stranger smells like my happily ever after.

We both look down at my hand, so small compared to his size, hovering with a single question: Can I?

He clears his throat, and I look away. How long was I staring at his dick like a pervert?

Another cramp builds, much stronger than the last, and it’s definitely his dick’s fault. I curl over my bridged knees with a whimper.

He clicks his tongue, and rubs my back. “There’s no one else you can call?”

I shake my head, face pressed against my knees. “My phone overheated.” I don’t even know Noel’s number off the top of my head. How do I not know my best friend’s number?

“That’s okay. We’ll figure this out. In the meantime, you should probably drink something to replenish your electrolytes.” How very daddy doctor of him.

He unzips his backpack and pulls out a glass bottle. On the label, black birds stand in a dark parking lot in front of an orange sign that says C-A-W. “Grackle Juice,” I read the label.

“Don’t worry, no grackles were harmed in the process. I think.” At my appalled expression, he adds, “I’m joking. It’s cold-pressed kombucha. My friend invested in the company, which promptly went out of business, and now we have pallets of it.”

He cracks open the bottle, and the scent of fermented gym socks and old fruit punch wafts my way.

I lift my palm. “No, thank you.”

He gives the bottle a shake. “It tastes better than it smells, I promise.”

“Fine.” I pinch my nose and take a sip. It tastes okay, like blackberries with the tangy bitterness of grapefruit.

“Good omega.” He sits on the sand beside me and leans back on his palms.

His command and praise grounds me, chasing away some of my anxiety.

“Take another sip.” He rubs my back again, slower this time, almost lingering.

I comply, consciously submitting to him.

“Feel better?” he asks a few swallows later.

“I don’t know. We’ll see if it stays in my stomach.” I stifle a gag.

“Sorry.” He takes the bottle back, arm grazing mine as he pushes it into the sand, like a makeshift cupholder. “I’ll have to pack something better next time you try to rescue me.” His dark eyes crinkle at the corners.

“You’re teasing me?”

He holds his thumb and finger an inch apart. “Only a little.”

I inhale. “I think I can smell it on me.”

He angles his nose toward my neck, breath caressing my skin, plucking goosebumps and sending pleasure through my oversensitive nerve endings. He’s not smelling me, at least not in a way that’s obvious or lascivious. He’s just breathing. He looks down to my neck, thick, dark lashes nearly joining, then up to my mouth.

“You don’t smell bad,” he says, gravel in his tone. “You smell like orange trees in spring, like nostalgia, like home.”

My pulse pounds in my ears, but at a slower pace. It’s like someone turned the volume up enough for me to hear it. The frenetic undercurrent in my bloodstream clears. “Home?” I lean in until we’re in kissing distance, pulled closer by an invisible string tying me to him.

He cocks his head to the side, millimeters away from slanting his lips on mine.

The wind gusts hot, dry desert air, and I feel the shift of every strand of hair like pins pricking my skin. Feverish heat floods me. The corners of my vision ripple like Tyler is a mirage. Then the first true cramp of my heat rolls through me agonizingly slowly, building in intensity like a wave cresting.

“Elliott?” He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, there’s no lust in his voice. “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”

I shake my head, one quick jerk, jaw clamped down too tight. “I think my heat’s almost here,” I say between breaths.

“I think so too.”