16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

INIKA

I was going to be kneeling in a puddle at this rate.

My eyes watered. Drool leaked out of the corners of my mouth. And my pussy was a full-blown waterfall.

Every time I bobbed my head, taking the silicone further down my throat, it filled the room with the lewdest squelching, gagging sound I'd ever made in my life. My face burned with a desperate kind of humiliation, and it made me ache for the stretch of Blake's knot.

I was being a good girl. I wanted my reward.

Blake squeezed his shaft and I released the dildo immediately, letting out an omega growl of discontent. That was mine. I wanted it.

"In the nest, omega," he said lazily, a smug grin on his face as he helped me up.

He didn't need to tell me twice. I kept hold of his hand, dragging him with me.

"Wait," I ordered, climbing onto the mattress and organising things the way I wanted them so there was a perfect, Blake-sized spot in the middle. "Okay. Now, come in."

That it was the first time I'd ever had an alpha—or anyone— in my own personal nest didn't register until much later. In the moment, all I cared about was getting on that sweet, sweet knot and orgasming until I forgot my own name.

Hadn't I meant to end this arrangement yesterday?

Best not think about that now.

Blake was ever the conscientious alpha, letting me shift him where I wanted him and arranging cushions around him once I had him in place. For a long moment, I just admired him lying there amongst my things, increasingly drenched in my scent.

What a pretty picture he made.

"You finished staring, princess?"

"I don't know. You're very easy to stare at."

I could have sworn he blushed this time.

Instead of waiting for him to take the lead, I shuffled down the bed on my knees, straddling one of Blake's legs and bending over him to take his cock into my mouth.

In the back of my mind, I was faintly aware of the warning bells telling me that this had to be the last time. My heat was approaching. The hallway project was nearly done. I was going to have to deal with the fallout with my friends and family.

All of the walls were closing in on me at once. But for now, I was in paradise and I planned on enjoying every second of it.

"Omega…" Blake rasped, arching back and bucking his hips as I took him deeper, moaning at the taste of his precum on my tongue.

He wasn't mine, but he tasted like he was.

"Up," Blake snarled, all impatient alpha as he tugged my head up, easily lifting me up his body and sitting me on his cock. I sunk down with a half moan, half gasp of surprise, my eyes rolling back into my head.

Oh, how I was going to miss this.

Between the mirror show and the blow job, I'd pushed Blake to breaking point. There was no dirty talk now, just ragged sounds of pleasure as he moved my body, using me exactly the way I wanted to be used.

Like I was just an omega fucktoy, there for his pleasure.

I came almost instantly, clenching around him as Blake continued to bounce me on his cock. My nails dug into his chest, desperately attempting to keep myself upright, though nothing had ever felt harder.

"Fuck, princess," Blake rasped, veins and tendons standing out in stark relief as he held back his own orgasm. "Tell me this pussy is mine."

This was a dangerous game. And yet…

"It's yours. This pussy is yours."

I didn't think it was possible for me to get any wetter, but that did it. Blake's hands were possessive everywhere they touched me, his fingertips feeling like brands against my skin.

As much as I wanted to drag this moment out—because we couldn't keep doing this, we couldn't— my body wasn't cooperating with my demands to make this last.

This time, I took him over the edge with me. My wobbly arms gave out, but Blake caught me before I could collapse, guiding me down so that I was laying on his chest, my nose at his throat.

It was such a position of trust, and combined with the fact that we were in my nest—a space I'd never shared with anyone—it sort of made me want to cry.

What an unsexy impulse. I deliberately clenched around Blake's knot, the ripple of sensation setting off another wave of orgasms that distracted me from everything else that was going on. Everything I couldn't have, everything I needed to do, everything that was out of my control.

There was no problem that an orgasm couldn't fix. At least for a few minutes.

Blake's fingers found the base of my spine, but instead of stroking it like he usually did, he began probing gently at the muscle.

"You're so tense," he murmured, rubbing a spot that I hadn't even realised was stiff until he'd started massaging it.

My eyes drifted shut, and I all but melted against him as he worked his way up my back, the occasional rumble of a purr breaking free before he quickly got it under control again.

Had this been a terrible idea? My nest reeked of him—of us—in the best possible way, but it was going to be torture to sleep in it tonight. I'd never be able to look at the tiles in my shower again without remembering how it felt to be pushed up against them, with Blake's tongue buried in my pussy from behind.

I might genuinely have to burn both the mirror and the blue dildo currently suctioned on to it.

What was it about Blake? I couldn't seem to stop making bad decisions where he was concerned. The last time I'd been this willing to make questionable life choices where an alpha was concerned was when I'd fallen in love with a Spanish waiter on a whirlwind holiday when I was nineteen, only to be ghosted the day after I'd flown home.

Mama had been quite adamant afterwards that I hadn't been in love with him—that I'd imagined the whole thing—but I'd never been so sure about that. Love wasn't a finite resource. It may not always be logical, and it may not always be forever, but there was plenty of it to go around.

In my own incredibly immature and naive way, I'd loved Marco.

But I was in love with Blake, and that was a far more terrifying prospect.

I was in love with the way he treated me. The way he treated Freya. I was in love with his integrity, his drive, his discipline.

I was in love with Blake, and it was probably going to ruin my life.

I dived into the shower the moment Blake's knot had gone down, and by the time I emerged wrapped in a towel, he'd left. Which wasn't surprising, and wasn't even a bad thing because what would I have done if he was still there?

And yet, it stung a little, regardless.

Shaking it off, I pulled out a plum-coloured loungewear set, fully intent on spending the evening in my inconveniently perfect-smelling nest, watching the most mindless movie I could find. Maybe I'd order a greasy pizza. It was my favourite indulgence, especially right before and right after my heat.

The intercom beeped gently on the wall, disturbing the peace I was desperately trying to acquire. But Graeme only buzzed directly into the nest if it was urgent, so I padded across the room to answer him.

"Um, Ms Dara?" he began uncomfortably. "Your father is here to see you."

I took a deep breath in, using Blake's lingering scent to calm myself, before exhaling.

"I'll be right down. We'll take tea in the drawing room—"

"Your father felt the dining room would be more appropriate."

And, of course, Graeme had agreed without hesitation despite the fact that this was my house and I theoretically set the rules.

I disconnected the conversation without saying goodbye, scraping my hair back into a neat ponytail, slipping my feet into slides, and dousing myself with Om-Guard from head to toe.

It had probably been close to twenty years since my father had seen me without a stitch of make-up on, dressed in lounge clothes. I'd spent my evenings when I was away at school looking like this, but I was expected to put my best foot forward on weekend visits to my parents.

Graeme would have mentioned if Mama was here, so at least I didn't have to deal with the fallout from her seeing my outfit. She'd have probably fainted, and it would have turned into a whole thing.

I startled at the sound of tools clinking together further down the hall as I headed out of my nest and downstairs. Blake had apparently left my nest, but he hadn't actually left the house yet. Maybe he was just packing up for the day.

"Inie," Papa said, looking at me in surprise as I entered the dining room where he was already sitting at the head of the table. "Did I wake you?"

"No." I took the seat kitty-corner to him, choosing not to elaborate.

"Inie," Papa sighed. "We really must talk about that… conflict the other morning. You've been avoiding us—Mama is very worried, you know. It's very unkind of you to do this to her."

I squeezed my fingers together in my lap, digging my nails into the backs of my hands to stop myself from saying something that I'd regret later, like "I'm sorry. I'll be a good omega. Please stop being mad at me. It makes me want to crawl out of my own skin."

Those were instincts talking, though. And I was more than just my instincts.

"I'm going to buy my own house after this heat has passed," I said calmly. "With my own money. You can have this one back."

Not that it had ever been in my name or anything to begin with.

"Honestly, this is a decision I should have made a long time ago. I supposed, with Om-Guard always on the table and yet not quite in my reach, I felt as though I couldn't make a decision yet. But now we have clarity over that situation—"

"We do not ," Papa insisted.

"—I'm able to make plans of my own with a clear conscience. Inika Dara has always felt like a role I had to play. I want to find out who I am when… well, when no one else is watching, I suppose."

I thought of Blake and the way he looked at me—both in bed and out of it—and admitted to myself that perhaps that statement wasn't entirely true. I liked who I was when he was watching.

When all was said and done, I really hoped we could at least stay friends.

"This isn't like you, Inie," Papa fretted, shaking his head. "Your heat is approaching, and you've been alone so long. It's making you think crazy things."

"A lot of thought has gone into this over a number of years, Papa. Please don't reduce all of that down to heat hormones, it's incredibly disrespectful."

"It's the only thing it can be," he insisted. "I will ask Dr Batuk to come out and visit you—"

"I don't need to see a doctor."

"—she always has excellent advice." Papa nodded to himself, satisfied that he'd solved the problem. Typical alpha nonsense. They barged in without a shred of situational awareness, did whatever they wanted without consultation or feedback, and declared the problem solved.

I thought about arguing with him, but there wasn't any point. He'd send Dr Batuk around, regardless. At the very worst, I could have a general physical done.

"I will arrange that for you," Papa said decisively, pushing out of his seat and already heading for the door. "All will be well. She will give you whatever it is you need. And then we can discuss this Hugo again, yes? Yes. All will be as it should be."

I sighed heavily, pouring myself a cup of tea from the untouched tray on the table and adding a dash of milk before carrying it upstairs with me in the hopes that it would help me settle down.

Papa had got so in my head that for a brief moment, I'd forgotten that Blake was still upstairs in the hallway. While soundproofing had been added to most of the house, the dining room had enormous archways on three sides, opening it up to the other rooms for entertainment purposes. There was no soundproofing that .

"Everything okay?" Blake asked, looking at me like he already knew the answer.

"Fine," I replied quickly, following it up with my best attempt at an airy laugh. "Just my parents being… overbearing. I'm practically geriatric for an unmated omega. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you how that goes."

He probably hadn't had quite the same pressure put on him, but mating and settling down was still very much seen as the only acceptable path for alphas and omegas, despite all the empowering self-determination talk we'd parroted at school.

Blake watched my expression closely. "Not really. Once Leo took a mate, my parents never really brought up the subject with me again. Apparently, so long as they got at least one grandkid, they were content to leave the subject alone. Though, maybe if Ella hadn't died and then Mum shortly after, they'd have expected me to settle down." He shrugged. "There's no way of knowing now."

Guilt churned uncomfortably in my stomach. Blake had real problems. Heavy problems, like grief and the challenges of raising a child who'd lost her mother. And I suspected that he didn't whine half as much as I did.

"Well," I began awkwardly, sidestepping him so I could return to the safety of my nest. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess. Sorry you had to hear… all of that."

Blake scowled. "Don't apologise for that. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Positive."

Not even a little .