Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

I wake up on a bed that is somehow softer than my own and also smells like Bram.

I turn my head on the soft pillow that smells just like his rich bergamot scent and blink my eyes to see Bram sleeping right next to me. I’m not sure when I ended up in his bed or when I even fell asleep.

But everything from last night floods back to me.

It’s weird because I don’t feel sad, which only makes me feel even more guilty, which was my original feeling.

Bram sleeps on his back. One hand under the covers, likely in his boxers, and the other tossed over his head. He looks soft, almost gentle when he sleeps. But then again, that’s the Bram I know.

He took charge last night and didn’t even have to think twice to know what I needed.

My fingertips graze against his cheekbone, and his one hand quickly snatches mine.

“Good morning,” I whisper.

“Morning,” he mumbles, grabbing my waist and tugging me against his body. His nose is nestled against the back of my head as he holds me. “How are you?” he asks.

“Is it bad that I’m not upset?” I ask, feeling completely vulnerable.

How fucked is that? She was still my family. I’d known her my whole life. But there isn’t this never-ending sadness rippling through me. Just a crippling guilt that my reaction isn’t normal.

“I think family is one of the most complicated things in our lives. You do not ask to be related to them, yet you are. From what I can tell, the relationship was a tense one. It’s okay for your feelings to be complicated.”

I run my fingers along the veins of his massive forearm, lifting his hand and kissing it.

“Thank you for last night.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and I smile, liking that he didn’t say some bullshit like it’s no problem or acting like he did nothing.

“Did Ethan go home?”

“Your Beta is on my couch,” he replies, and I turn around in the bed and search his face.

“I want this to work, Bram. Tell me we can make it work.”

“He isn’t so bad,” he replies, and I smile and grab his chin and give him a kiss.

“If he wasn’t in the other room right now, I think I’d make you consider your whole moving slow stance.”

“I might be changing my mind,” he replies.

“Is that so?”

“I missed you while I was gone. More than I’ve ever missed anyone. Not to mention I rubbed your slick on my shirt after I fingered you so I could bring your scent with me,” he admits.

Oh, my sweet Bram, ever so honest.

“You rubbed my slick scent onto your shirt and used it to jerk off?” I ask.

He nods his head and cups my jaw with one hand. “Yes.”

“That’s actually pretty romantic, I’m not going to lie,” I reply, and he smiles.

“Me, you, and the Beta. I can make it work.”

“Ethan,” I remind him.

“Me, you, and Ethan. I can manage that,” he replies.

I smile at him and place a delicate kiss against his lips. “You have the day off on Wednesday?” I ask, and he kisses me again before nodding his head.

“Just me and you, we can do whatever you want.”

“I’ll plan something,” he promises.

His bed is soft and warm. It doesn’t hurt that it smells just like him either.

“I guess we need to get out of bed, huh? I probably should head home and see how my dad is doing anyway. Don’t say anything to him or the team unless it’s brought up.”

“Practice is in an hour,” he grumbles, resting the bridge of his nose against my neck. When I look down at the larger than life man wearing only boxers, I have to lick my lips and mentally do my best to try and calm myself down.

God, he’s gorgeous. His chest is broad and muscular with a light dusting of chest hair that trails down to his boxer briefs, which are clearly housing a very hard to ignore cock.

“Ignore that,” he mumbles.

“It’s hard to ignore,” I reply, not ignoring it and staring a bit at the impressive bulge in his black underwear. Fuck, I bet his knot is massive. Just thinking about the stretch has me wanting to climb him and see just how big it actually is.

Bram’s hand slides from my jaw and down my body till he grabs a fist full of my ass.

“Little Omega, you better get out of my bed before my knot is deep inside of you and you won’t be able to move for hours.”

I lick my lips, my hand grazing down the hard muscles of his chest. His stomach flexes against the brush of my fingertips before he grabs my wrist.

“Just a little touch,” I tell him.

“Sloane, I’m all over little touches with you, and I need all night to fuck you the way I want to.”

I swallow heavily as his bedroom door flings open. Ethan is standing there shirtless with only his boxers on.

Fuck, he has slutty thigh tattoos.

“Oh, are we having some morning delight? I made pancakes. But this is better if you all are down for a third,” he says with a wide grin.

Bram moans as he sits up, my hand no longer near his very impressive length. I just wanted to touch it a little.

“Another time,” Bram says, grabbing a T-shirt and throwing it over his body. Ethan and I both look at him lasciviously.

Wait… both Ethan and I?

I glance over at him, and the hot Beta, with a stack of pancakes in his hand, leans against the doorframe.

“He’s hot,” Ethan says plainly, and then I glance over at Bram who’s eyeing up “the not so bad Beta.”

“He’s good looking,” Bram says with a wave of a hand before going to the bathroom.

Wait a damn minute.

“Sloane?” Ethan says, breaking me out of my mental calculations.

This is what I had always hoped for. Having a pack who are best friends is amazing. But a pack where everyone is lovers?

That’s the fucking ultimate dream.

“Sloane?” Ethan repeats as the spray of the shower from the closed bathroom door breaks me out of my thoughts.

“You both think each other is good looking?” I say lamely.

“He’s not really a man of many words, but I guess he doesn’t have to be with a body like that,” Ethan says with a shrug, and I laugh. He looks me over with a smile and sighs. “How are you feeling, though?”

A deep pang of guilt hits me. Not only did I not really feel bad before, but I was totally about to fuck Bram and Ethan if the stars had aligned just a few minutes ago.

“I’m okay,” I tell him.

“Let’s go feed you pancakes, and then we can have that beast of a man drive us both home,” he says.

I want to live in Bram’s bed and not face my problems, but I do. The pancakes are almost as delicious as this morning’s revelations.

I scrub the hell out of Bram’s scent off of my skin before getting dressed, adding my dreaded deodorizers and grabbing my phone, which has a ton of notifications.

When I switch over to the app, I grin, seeing that the press coverage from the Humane Society event is doing exactly what I wanted it to.

The comments on the video of Ethan are amazing, and would you look at that, it looks like I won the bet with my father, not that now is the time to bring it up, but it still fills me with a sense of pride. Ethan is good at what he does. He just needed the right push and media attention to get him there.

My smile quickly falters as I click the link to the article that was posted in Pack Weekly .

Lady’s Man No More?

By Serenity Jade

It’s been quiet in the world of New Haven Foxes news as the season kicks off. While it’s definitely looking like another Stanley Cup isn’t in the cards, it has me wondering if we have a goalie that’s actually going to stick around for more than one season.

Most of you know Max Connery as our beloved Owen Connery’s (Stanley Cup winner, Alexi Bandnin’s Omega, and over all heartthrob) brother. Or maybe you know him from his reputation of being a womanizer who likes to party on the town.

Since joining the New Haven Foxes, it seems like the older Connery brother has kept his nose clean.

Or has he?

We spotted the goalie with his arm flung over none other than Sloane Applegate, the coach’s daughter and his pride and joy. It’s why she has her job on the team in social media management.

It makes this writer want to know: Is Max Connery’s image improving? Or is he going steady with the forbidden fruit?

I roll my eyes and click out of the article. Serenity Jade is known for writing articles that are speculative and never fact checked. Case and point here, but the fact is, people read this trash, and no matter what, there will be rumors.

Here’s to hoping that no one else on the team bothers reading this shit. The last thing I need is someone getting upset over something that’s not true.

Though when I look at the picture of Max’s arm slung over mine, I can’t deny that there is some longing. I quickly shut that thought down as I put my phone away and head over to my parents’ home. There are more important things to worry about than a stupid, inaccurate article.

My dad is in the kitchen, and I wrap my arms around him before he does the same.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, honey. I’m okay. What about you?”

“I just feel kind of guilty, that’s all,” I reply.

My mother Rosemary walks in, placing a kiss on my head before kissing my dad. “Leave it to Malin Applegate to fucking make people feel guilty from the grave,” she says before going to the coffeemaker.

I have to cover my laugh, and my dad shakes his head.

“She was a hard woman to love, but she was my mother. We’re having her cremated. Her sister is going to hold a service back home,” he says, and I rub his back.

“Are you going to tell the team?” I ask.

“No, it’s none of their fucking business. Today is just an ordinary day. Do you need a ride to work?” he asks me, and I shake my head.

“No, I’m going to drive. Let me just go see Mom before I go.”

My dad rubs my shoulder, holding a conversation with my mom as I head upstairs to my mother’s nest. There’s no doubt that she’s there right now. I lightly tap on the door and hear her soft voice from the other side.

I open the door but don’t enter.

A nest is a really personal space, and even though I’m her daughter and I can’t be scented right now, it could still be upsetting. Honestly, it depends on where she is in her heat cycle.

I make sure to avoid the house completely when that business goes down. It sucked a lot when I was younger because we don’t have any close family, so my parents basically rotated out of my mom’s heat to watch me or they paid babysitters.

“Hey, sweetie, come take a seat,” she says, tapping her massive beanbag chair.

I plop down next to her, and she rests her head on my shoulder. She grabs my hand and laces our fingers together.

“I called the matchmaker,” she says.

Shit.

“I know you aren’t going to her.”

Double shit.

I go to open my mouth, and my mom gives me a look that says to save my lies for someone who will believe him.

“It’s one of the players from your father’s team, isn’t it?”

“Did you talk to Dad?” I ask.

“Henderson might have crumbled under some light questioning,” she says. “Plus, I saw some things online,” she says, and I groan.

My Beta father and I are going to need to have a little chat. Part of me thinks about throwing him under the bus for smoking. But even if he didn’t slip up, she would have seen that stupid article anyway.

“It is,” I reply. I’ve never been great at lying to my mother Willow. I don’t know if it’s because she’s also an Omega or just how incredibly close we’ve been my whole life.

“Kristoff will hate it, but he’ll get over it. But you need to be sure you want to keep him. You know your father is going to put him through hell regardless.”

“I really like them,” I reply.

“Them?” she says with a laugh. Her long red hair falls behind her. “You’re going to give him a fucking heart attack.”

“Well, right now it’s one player and the mascot.”

She shakes her head and laughs. “You are my kid. But, Sloane?”

“Hmm?”

“I can tell your heat’s coming around sooner than later. You need to be prepared for when the time comes, no matter what that looks like. Whether you want to wait to bond or bond before, but at least have that talk with them.”

“Dad’s gonna flip when they have to take off mid season for my heat,” I say with a wince.

“At least it isn’t during the Cup like that poor sweet goalie last year,” she replies.

That makes me think about Max and how some feelings have been lingering with him, but Bram has all but stated he hates the guy. I’m asking Bram to bend so much already; asking him to be packmates with someone he hates is just too much.

“When did you know?”

“Hmm?” she hums.

“That you were going to go into heat?” I ask.

She’s already given me the best education I could have asked for on being an Omega. Hell, on being a person.

“It’s like an itch you can’t scratch. Sometimes it sneaks up on you, and other times it's a gradual ache. Obviously feeling aroused is a part of that, but there are other signs too. Like needing comforting scents, only wanting very particular scents. If you need more touch than usual is another indicator. The pain usually only hits right before your heat is about to start, but if you’re preemptive and sated, the pain shouldn’t last long at all,” she says calmly.

“I had hoped I’d be bonded before my heat,” I say, feeling a little dreary about it all.

“You have time. Plus, a bond isn’t required, just trust and proper planning. We both know you’re great at planning.”

I smirk. She doesn’t even know the half of it. But her guidance has me thinking a little differently. If my heat comes sooner than expected, I need to be prepared and truly be in tune with my body.

We both relax into the soft beanbag.

“I was on a date with them when I got the call about Mormor.”

“Leave that woman to ruin a date even from the depths of Hell,” she says, and I shake my head as she laughs. “She was a mean fucking woman who never liked me. Your dad should have cut her out of his life years ago, but he’s too forgiving and kind. You don’t have to be sad, Sloane. If anything, just make peace with however you’re feeling because it’s valid.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I reply.

“Also, I’d appreciate a heads up before you tell your dad about…” She glances over at me, and I sigh.

“Bram,” I whisper.

“I knew it. The alternate jersey you bought last year was his. But what about the new guy Connery?”

“We’re just friends,” I say with a hint of sadness.

“As long as you’re happy, Sloane we’ll be happy. Follow your heart and your instincts. Your body and your mind know what’s best for you. You just have to listen.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I’m always here for my girl,” she says as she kisses my head.

I think that despite my parents’ upbringings, I’ve been gifted the best parents in the universe.