TWELVE

Xander

"CLAIM ME, WILHELMINA," I reply, standing in front of her and Jax.

Billie holds my gaze, and then after a long moment, she pushes off Jax to stand on wobbly legs before me. She braces her hands on my hips, while her eyes continue to explore mine. Reaching an unsteady hand out to my chest, she lightly skims her fingertips over my skin, starting at my collarbone and tracing my torso in a serpentine pattern. My flesh tingles with every curve and light touch, until her hand lands back on my hip bone. Stepping closer, she sweeps her palm over my ass cheek and then squeezes. I grunt.

Tilting her head to the side, with a lick of her lips she inquires, "Are you asking me to claim you, Alpha?"

I close any remaining distance. My hard cock presses against her flat stomach, and my hands grip her hips. Wetting my lips and arching a brow, I clarify. "As your alpha."

Her mouth opens in an O. Through our bond, I feel her heart rate increase and a tenuous pressure of desire build in her lower stomach. Yeah, she wants this too.

Her hand lightly fondles my ass cheek, while the other strokes up and down the front of my thigh. "You're not just my alpha," she muses, slanting forward and laying several light kisses on my pec, close to my nipple. "You're also Ethan and Jaxson's alpha."

Under her gentle hands and soft lips, my body tenses with apprehension and curiosity, wondering what she may or may not be implying. My eyes lift to Ethan and Jaxson, who look at each other before turning to meet my gaze.

"What are you suggesting, love?" Ethan queries, lightly nibbling on his piercing while Jax rocks himself off the bed. He comes to stand behind Billie, and his fingers work on unraveling her braids.

Wilhelmina kisses and hums against my chest. "Participation."

Jax flicks his eyes from his fingers, spreading out her braid-kinked hair, and asks, "Would you trust us to..." He hesitates. " Help claim you, Alpha?"

The edges of his lips are ticked up in a playful smile, and his choice of the word help seemed intentional, letting me know he and Ethan would assist but not lead, easing some of my concern. Wilhelmina's lips continue to kiss their way down my body until she's on her knees before me. My skin feels alive, like every pore is opening up under her touch, trying to suction each kiss she lays on me.

Her lips press along the V-line of my lower abs to just above my cock, making my stomach clench and my hips push forward in a request for more. Ignoring my body's physical suggestion, she gently licks and nibbles her way around my cock and down the inside of my thigh. I loosely fist my hands at my sides to prevent them from taking hold of her head and guiding her where I want her. Her hands squeeze and massage the back of my legs, and my knees weaken as if she's molding my body to her will.

A groan gets strangled in my throat when her lips finally find my cock, dragging their way up my length. My crown beads with need. I tip her head back until she meets my desirous gaze and darts her tongue out, gathering up my precum and swirling it around my cap. Then she goes deeper and deeper until the head of my cock is fully in her mouth. Her lips seal, and she inhales a cheek-hollowing suck.

"Fuck," I groan, feeling the pull on my skin as she draws me in. Dragging her soft lips back up my rod and twirling her tongue around, only to push forward once more until my tip sits at the back of her throat. She holds me there, staring up at me through watery eyes, looking both powerful and submissive, waiting for my answer.

"Yes," I grunt out in agreement.

She hums her approval around my dick, sending shudders up my spine. With glowing green and white eyes, she gives one final long suck before releasing my length and demanding, "Lie down on the bed, Alpha."

My brain tingles from the authoritative tone close to a royal command. I nod, taking two long strides to the bed, and lie down on my back.

Appraising me with a gleam of mischief in her eyes, she bends down and picks up the thermal long sleeve that I tossed on the air mattress. Running the sleeve through her fingers she... shit, she pretty much struts toward me with an air of confidence that's got my cock twitching. With her eyes on her hands, she comes to half sit on the bed next to me. "Are you okay with being blindfolded, Alexander?"

Jax puffs out a low laugh. Loving how she's becoming more comfortable and adventurous with us, I can't stop the sly grin from slinking across my lips. "Yes, you can blindfold me."

A blushing smile sweeps over her face, and I lift my head up so she can gently tie the sleeve around my head. Once I'm settled back down on the pillow, Wilhelmina cups my jaw. With the absence of sight, the sensation of her small hand on my face already feels more acute. Her lips lightly touch mine, and she whispers, "Not too tight, is it?"

Needing more connection, my hand runs up her bare thigh, and my lips close around hers. "No, it's just right." Just like she is. We are. All of us.

She pulls back from our kiss, and I can not only hear but feel her hesitation before she says, "Xander, if we do anything you don't want, if you feel uncomfortable, let us know."

I nod.

Wilhelmina removes my hand from her leg and playfully chides, "We need your words, Alpha."

Biting my grinning lower lip, I answer, "Yes, I'll let you know." Then she's gone.

She's moved off the bed. I can't see anything—only hear, smell, and feel. It's completely disconcerting, and my heart races from the lack of vision. I think I hear shuffling and feel weight move around on the bed as I wait... wait for someone to touch me. My entire body is on tenterhooks from toes to head, every inch of my flesh alert with an eagerness to feel. Finally, fingers comb through my hair, and each follicle tingles with the sensation. I release a low moan, tilting my head toward the source as if it were the first few drops of rain after a month-long drought. The long, thick fingers go from soft sweeps to aggressive tugs, and I soak up all of them.

I'm so lost in my hair that it takes a moment for me to register the feeling of a hand skimming over my chest—a hand that feels far too large to be Wilhelmina's. Without warning, my body goes rigid. My muscles stiffen, and my lungs can't seem to expand. I can't breathe, and my heart seizes in terror. It's like I've become paralyzed by my own fear. I hadn't thought about how I'd react to Ethan or Jax touching my skin, my scars , in this intimate way—let alone while blindfolded, unable to see what's happening, how they're touching me. More so, I can't see their expressions at feeling my mutilated flesh.

Sensing my inner struggle, I hear Ethan murmur, "We all love you." And instead of removing his hand, he keeps it there, firmly pressed down on my scars like he's imprinting himself on top of them. With my body immobilized, I can't move away from his touch, and the thought of speaking slices through my raw throat like shards of broken glass. My lungs are burning, making staying calm nearly impossible. And then I feel them. Featherlight kisses on my lips. Soft lips and a small mouth. Wilhelmina.

My mouth fastens onto hers like a victim of smoke inhalation strapping on an oxygen mask, and I use the safety of her lips to break through the frozen form my body has become. She moans into our kisses, and my mouth opens with the desire to swallow them down, cracking through the plaster-like cast around my ribs, freeing me. Finally able to breathe, I inhale, filling up my lungs with her air and feeling life pulse through my body once more.

Wilhelmina brought love and feeling back to my skin for the first time in over a decade; she knows how to use familiar touches that I crave to help me become accustomed to ones I want to be comfortable with. We kiss and breathe, and the rigidity of my body dissolves, allowing me to embrace the vulnerability of Ethan's hand holding steady on my chest. A hand that now feels more like armor and less like the weapon my body treated it as.

The fingers in my hair swirl over my scalp and twirl my strands once more before releasing, while Wilhelmina's mouth absolutely devours mine, and mine hers. Her hand comes around to palm the side of my neck, massaging the tendons and sinewy flesh on the way down to my torso, eventually joining Ethan's hand. Then they move in tandem over my chest and scars, both hands applying the same pressure, neither feeling tentative or restrained. Their touches are confident, almost eager, which I expected from Wilhelmina, but not Ethan. I'm so throttled by the idea that someone else besides her would want to touch my scars that I check into my bond with Ethan. Love and desire, that's what I find. That's what touching my scars makes him feel. I inhale a gurgled groan, my throat congested with an emotional truth that's hard to swallow.

Moments later, fingertips begin tracing light circles over my shins moving upward. The hairs on my legs stand up, seeking out the touch with a want for more. Gentle caresses on the insides of my knees have my thighs parting in welcome. My body is teeming with so much need that I don't even think about the fact that if my mouth is still consuming Wilhelmina's there's no way those fingers on my legs are hers.

I just want to feel.

Fingers turn to hands pressing and kneading their way up my thighs, and my legs continue to spread for them. Fresh beads of precum pool in my slit and soon crest over the edge, dripping down my iron-hard cock. My hips buck up, only to be pushed back down by firm, large hands on my upper thighs. His thumbs press and rub perpendicular across my quadriceps, and the painful pleasure has me hissing into Wilhelmina's mouth. She tears her lips away from mine. I growl my displeasure.

"He's okay," Jax says in a light voice while his strong hands continue to labor over my legs. "Just working out some muscle adhesions."

"Shit, Jax," I groan, feeling him dig into a large knot, my legs instantly contracting.

He places both hands on one thigh and teases, "Relax, Alpha. Let us take care of you." Exhaling, I let the tautness go and reach my hand out to find Wilhelmina's waist urging her back to me.

Our mouths readily return to each other while her and Ethan's hands continue to caress and brush my torso. Jax's hands rub their way higher up until they're on either side of my dick, so close that the press of his fingers on my inner thighs is felt by my balls—and damn if my cock doesn't twitch with startling desire. The anticipation builds, and my body, including my lips, get held under the pressure of the moment. Wilhelmina kisses her way down my neck to her mark.

I want to let this happen.

I want to see if we can be like this. Both Ethan and Jaxson have accepted my touch, and now it's my willingness that's in question. Based on the pulsing of my cock, my body is more than okay with this. It's only my mind's openness, or lack thereof, that will stop us. My hand on Wilhelmina's waist glides upward to just under her breast. Her mouth on my neck stills and she adjusts her body so I can fully encapsulate her breast. My hand kneads her soft yet firm flesh while finding the right angle to flick my thumb over her swiftly hardening nipple. She hisses, and her teeth graze through her mark, eliciting goosebumps to pebble over my skin.

Then I feel it.

Not a hand. Not a finger.

A tongue.

Jax's wide, wet tongue is dragging up my shaft.

"Holy fuck," I shriek out, both in pleasure and disbelief.

Suddenly my hand is empty, and my mouth is being filled with Wilhelmina's breast. Groaning, I open wide and suck as much of that tender flesh into my mouth as I can. I clasp my hand around the rest and work on lavishing her nipple, sucking and scraping her hardened peak in between my teeth.

"Alexander," she sizzles a groan.

Another set of lips, lips with a piece of hard metal in the middle, skate along my shoulder and neck, just as the tongue on my dick circles around my tip and then becomes a mouth. My eyes, which have been closed behind the makeshift blindfold, fly open. I still can't see.

I stretch my neck out for Ethan. He groans his approval, nuzzling into the crook of my neck before greedily licking and sucking my flesh from shoulder to ear. My hand squeezes Wilhelmina's breast hard, while my tongue frantically licks and laps her nipple.

Jax continues to work my cock deeper and deeper inside his hot mouth, sucking and releasing. When his tongue delves into my precum-filled slit, he moans long and low, slurping up all my arousal. I bite down on Billie's nipple and, fuck, I actually whimper. A growl thunders from the depths of Jax's chest into his mouth, vibrating my dick, and then he takes me all the way in. My tip hits the back of his throat, and I feel him swallow around it. I can't tell if I'm going to come or have a panic attack from opposing thoughts and feelings. Before I can even consider an answer, Jax takes one last long suck of my dick before releasing me.

My mouth lets go of our mate's nipple, and my head falls back on the pillows while I try to catch my breath and regain some control over my spinning emotions. Then a large hand takes hold of my marked one. His thumb brushes over the tender flesh, the mark that was recently tainted this week. The mark I rub, stare at, and adore more than any other part of my body. It's too new, too precious, too tied to just her and me. I only want Wilhelmina and me touching it with intimacy and intention. "No, not that mark," I pant, and he calmly glides his hand up my arm. Mere seconds later, a small thumb rubs over her mark, and I groan in relief and desire.

Her touch is connected to me there in ways I cannot explain. When she lightly blew on it at the bar, I was assaulted by images of taking her in front of everyone while she bit down on me again. Yes, we're all together in this relationship, and yes, I want us to be close, but we also have our own personal connections. Better to accept and appreciate them as they are than to force it when resistance is high.

The lips on my neck travel from my ear to under my jaw, getting closer and closer to my mouth. I feel the bed move on the other side. Wilhelmina's hands are on my hips, and another hand is holding my cock, guiding me into her soaking pussy. Her inner thighs are tacky with Jax's cum and her previous orgasms. But inside? She all heated, moist desire for me. My hands find her thighs, making sure not to grip. She leans forward and places her hands just below my chest. Her lips find mine. "S ei la mio alfa, il mio cuore ," she whispers. "You are my alpha, my heart."

Fuck, she kills me. She fucking kills me sometimes. How she knows me. How she intuitively gives me what I need, what I want, without me even knowing.

"I am your alpha, il mio cuore ," I avow. She leans back and begins lifting herself up and down. My dick rejoices, eagerly wanting to feel her take me how she chooses. Wilhelmina angles herself forward, tilting her hips so her clit rubs along my lower stomach. Her soft channel presses around my swelling cock, and her breathing is a mix of inhales, moans, exhales, and soft whimpers. My hands on her thighs remain relaxed while my teeth grind with my effort to hold out.

"Please," she pleads just as two mouths envelope my nipples, sucking hard.

"Come for me, Wilhelmina!" I shout in a tight voice, and she cries out her pleasure.

I'm embracing the feeling of her orgasm when a pair of thick lips finds mine, softly kissing me, moving to my ear, and whispering, "You're my alpha." It's Jax.

Another set of lips finds mine, kissing me with greater pressure and trailing their way across my cheek to my ear. My skin wets, and I realize it's his tears. His trembling hand holds my cheek. "You saved my soul. You gave me a family. You are my alpha," Ethan whispers in a thick voice full of emotion I did not expect, but welcome. He's coming back. Ethan is coming back to us.

"We saved each other." I assert, feeling my own eyes water. With a nuzzle of his cheek he moves away, and I'm free to feel the physical pleasure of the heated flesh surrounding me.

Wilhelmina changes position, twisted herself slightly, rifling her channel around my cock while increasing her hips tempo and force.

"Fuck just like that Wilhelmina!" I yell out, digging my fingers into her hips. A rush of intense pressure fills my cock. With a roar, I climax, spray-painting her channel with my seed. I immediately pull her hips down, holding her in place while lifting mine up off the mattress, pushing myself as deep within her as possible, always wanting there to be a trace of me inside of her.

Panting, I shoot up to seated and band my arms around her, pulling her into my chest. Jax or Ethan remove the makeshift blindfold, allowing me to see for the first time, and yet my eyes stay closed. I want to keep my sense of touch at this heightened intensity. Fusing our flesh together, sweat pours out of us, mingling and scent-marking us. Urgently I burrow my way against her ear, inhaling, nipping, and licking it. Her arms come around my neck, and her tongue licks my face to my ear. Our heated cheeks press into one another, the gesture feeling far more intimate than one may think.

The whole experience was mentally jarring and emotionally stirring—a lesson in sensory deprivation, focused sensation, pushing of boundaries, and trust. None of this would happen without the woman on my lap and in my arms. None of us would feel this comfortable with exploration, sexual or emotional, if it weren't for her. And deep inside I know that neither would she without us.

I am their alpha.

"Join us," I command my lips still attached to her neck. Both Ethan and Jax kiss our heads and wrap their arms around us, our shifters humming through our chests with the harmony of our pack song.

Jax and Ethan have pulled away. I'm still not ready to release her. My fingers skim up and down her spine, memorizing her body through touch alone. Her head rests lazily on the crook of my neck, and I finally open my eyes.

She feels it, feels me coming back. "Will you take me to the shower?" she asks in a wispy voice.

"My pleasure." I exhale with a slant to my lips.

"There's a shower off the kitchen, guys, if you want to take one. Be careful. The Den might be back." She yawns over my shoulder.

With me in boxers and Wilhelmina in my arms wearing my O'Sullivan's T-shirt, we leave the guest room. There are definitely people downstairs, girls and guys. We're about to walk past her room when she hears something.

"Stop," she says, and I put her down on the ground.

I'm right behind her with my hands on her shoulders when she opens the door to her bedroom. Turning on the desk lamp, we find Dom and Enzo completely passed out on her bed—feet to head, fully clothed minus boots, on top of the covers. Just then, we hear a woman's voice from downstairs. "Where's that hot one with the face scar?"

Wilhelmina shakes her head before quietly closing the door. Turning around, she grabs my shoulders. "Up," she commands, and I happily oblige.