Sugar Coated

7

Emil West

I stepped into the downtstairs den to look at the offending jukebox. Jax is right, you can't haul the damn thing upstairs into your nest and expect she won't know exactly what you're doing.

Delaney had reattached the back panel loosely with two screws. The rest sat nicely in the little container she'd left, even in the dark of the early morning I could see them, more a product of my watchful gaze from the night before than any visibility. My tracing fingers slid down the edge of the panel to touch the power cord that she'd re routed through the hole in the cover. That had been a bitch, but she'd done it easily with swift fingers that haunted my cock like I'd already had them there.

I grabbed the cord and pulled it so viciously against the sharp edge of metal on the inside of the jukebox and scraped it back and forth until even the metal filaments of the wire began to bend and break under my frustration, just like I had three days ago when Delaney still hadn't shown up at the shop to see us again. I couldn't take it. Each fucking time I saw her it whittled a little bit more away from my sanity until I could go fewer and fewer days without doing something that would have Jax calling her back to the shop, whether it was clipping leads on the LED screen until it didn't work, or shattering whatever was on the circuit boards inside, sometimes even dumping water into the damn thing and begging it to be so broken she'd have to stay for more than a few minutes or an hour.

Begging it to be as broken as me, to need her as much as me.

The cord broke off in my hand and I dropped it like it was a snake, watching it flop to the floor right where Delaney had been sitting hours earlier.

I left the shattered remains of my sanity in the downstairs den, returning to the nest where my mates were still sleeping, the space between them empty and waiting for me. I crawled in between them and their arms wrapped around me even in sleep. Jax pulled me, tucking my head underneath his chin until all I was bathed in his scent of apricot turnovers. Andres pressed against my back and buried his face into the hair at the back of my neck, whispering something to me that even I couldn't hear despite the quiet of my nest.

I wanted her in this nest with us, bundled in blankets until we were wrapped together in a cocoon smothered in the scents of our pack. I wouldn't let her out of my sight, would keep her warm and wet until the rasp of her voice was too tired to even call our names, her arms too exhausted to brace that I'd splay her in our pillows while we went through our heat.

Our heat. That thought stopped me in my tracks. She's a beta. She won't have a heat, she'll just have me. If I'd been what my father wanted this wouldn't be a problem, but I wasn't. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't

"Stop worrying," Andres voice was thick with sleep, but his hand massaged my hip where it had been resting. "We'll figure it out in the morning. For now we need to sleep." He pressed tighter against my back, sandwiching me between him and Jax, and the close safe quarters helped to ease the stress that was threatening to eat me alive, spurred on by the fact that she was out there alone, without us.

***

"We don't have to drag the jukebox up the stairs," my teeth teased the edge of my tongue, threatening to bite it off over the traitorous sentence.

Jax didn't even look my way. The blonde slashes of his eye brows would have disappeared into his curls if he hadn't pulled his hair back into a tight knot at the back of his head. "Any reason for the change of heart?" He was folding croissant dough like a madman and dammit if it didn't do something to me to see him dusted with flour and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Patience is a virtue, Jackson," I scoffed.

Andres grip landed on the back of my neck. He pinned me to the bar top counter, his other hand slipping down the curve of my back, "And you're the farthest thing from a saint, Em."

He pulled a whine that was all omega out of me that had Jax slowly turning to look our way, the slow heat smoldered in his eyes while his hands stilled with the dough, "Don't tempt me while I'm working." His citrusy scent was thick in the air, mixing with the warm smell of the fresh baked pastries he'd put into the oven to prep for the morning.

"God you smell good, Jax," at this rate I'd tell him he smelled better than any heat combined. Omega hormones had to be fucking with me. Breeding hormones. My thoughts corrected me with no hesitation.

Instincts were riding me to mate in a very new and unexpected way, telling me to hole up with Delaney and our pack until someone's something took somewhere. I was foggy on the details.

"At least refrain from tempting me until I can put the croissants in the damn oven," Jax palmed the line of his cock that was at attention in his sweats. Even the frilly apron we'd bought as a joke couldn't hide the tent of it.

I could lift the apron up and slide those sweats down. Take him into my mouth and let him rut...

"Omega," Jax pinned me with a glare. There wasn't a bark in the words but I whined as they pinned me to the spot anyway. The lines his back sharpened as he locked every muscle down while he stared at us.

Fingers slid down my neck to trace the curve of Jax's bite. My dick had the best intentions but the worst timing, even with the hint of warning from my frustrated alpha. I was half convinced you could have taken my pulse from it with just the right kind of pressure.

"Andres..." Jax's eyes flicked to where our beta was teasing the both of us, tapping his fingers against his bite on my shoulder.

"Are you wanting, Emil?"

God was I desperate in the worst kind of way.

"Andres..." Jackson's tone took on a growl.

Andres just laughed, a dark chuckle in my ear that told me he knew he could get away with more than what a beta usually could. The hand at my hip reminded me of his bite, a crescent just on the inside of my hip on the upper edge of my thigh.

It was the perfect place for him to cover while his hand made its way to the fabric covering my throbbing flesh. "Do you want to be fucked, Em? Or maybe...—" he gripped me tight, eliciting a low moan as my hips rolled, pushing the tip of my cock through the ring of his fingers, "...maybe you want to fill something up? Is that what you want?"

My mind was a riot. My legs braced before I'd even known what was happening, the fabric of my sweats was damp in an instant with precum and slick. "Fuuuuuck..." my hips jerked forward. The thought of fucking until I spilled inside someone hadn't had me this hard since before I'd first perfumed. My head dropped back on Andres' shoulder while he stroked in time to my rocking hips right here in our kitchen.

"Get out of my kitchen while I'm making croissants," Jax snarled at the both of us. Even if it didn't have a bite to it, we still scuttled out of his way. We'd known better than to start something while he he was prepping for the day. Any other heat Jax would have come running after me to soothe the ache, just like any good alpha would for their omega, but this one felt different. I had no doubt he'd hunt me down later, for revenge, but I think deep down the whole pack knew these urges wouldn't be so easily sated by a rough and tumble fuck and a knot, no matter how good they were.

I'd been spoiled and patience had never quite been my virtue. I swiped Jax's phone while Andres dragged me back to my nest. I kept it nearby even when instincts had me bent over Andres form pushing into his heat and my lips skimming over the line of his throat.

Delaney didn't text until much later, well after Jax had finished the daily pastries and Andres had left to open the shop. It was a cut and dry text letting us know she'd found the wire that she needed and it's price, barely even a need for a response. It certainly didn't require her number being added to a group text message with the whole pack.

But it didn't hurt either.