Chapter 23: Bathwater
The fever’s worsened overnight. It’s the third night of this and I know I need a doctor and most likely a drip. Molten metal runs in my bloodstream, everything hurts, a deep aching spreading through bone and marrow.
I kick the blankets free, gasping warm air into already scorched lungs.
River’s awake, still next to me.
"Frankie."
"I’m dying."
He sits up, presses his hand to my forehead and goes very, very still.
"Bad?" I croak.
He looks back to me. "It’s okay."
"That’s not an okay face."
"Your temperature’s climbing." He soothes.
No shit.
With a clench of his jaw, he calculates his response. "Baby, I need the others to–"
The door bursts open, slamming against the wall. Jax barrels in first, Leo, Corrian and Ezra are right behind him. Have they been standing out there the whole time?
Jax takes one look at me and swears loudly. "She’s burning up."
Corrian steps forward, controlled as ever even though tension rolls off him. "We need to cool her down."
"I’m right here," I mutter. Nobody listens to me.
River says something quietly to Corrian I can’t process because another violent wave of heat hits and my vision blurs. My whole body arches. The ache between my thighs pulses hot and desperate. I can smell them all too strongly, Male skin and clean sweat.
I need—
Leo moves. One second he’s across the room. The next, enormous arms slide beneath me and I’m lifted effortlessly out of the nest.
I squeak in outrage. "Put... down."
"No." His voice rumbles.
I glare weakly at him while clutching his shoulders because the room is spinning again.
"You’re sweating through the mattress."
By the time Leo shoulders open the bathroom door, I’m trembling. He sets me carefully on the edge of the tub. Cold stone beneath my thighs makes me gasp, then moan. Raw nerve endings alighting with each movement.
"Easy," Leo murmurs.
The others linger behind him, Jax looks devastated.
Leo says quietly, "Out."
Nobody argues.
As soon as the doors shut he crouches in front of me. Massive enough that even sitting down he makes the room feel smaller. His braided mohawk hangs over one broad shoulder, the scar across his eye catches faint silver in the low light.
"I’m so hot."
His throat works once. "Let’s fix that, baby."
I grab the hem of my shirt and yank it off, same with the shorts, then underwear. Any dignity is a distant memory. Leo looks away.
"You don’t even want to look at me." I whisper miserably.
His head snaps back. "Don’t say shit like that."
He strips his boots off before climbing fully clothed into the enormous bath. The cold water he’s filled it with sloshes around him as he reaches for me.
"Come here."
I crawl into his arms, freezing water closes around my body, relief. Sweet, beautiful, relief.
"Oh fuck."
Leo groans quietly under his breath. I settle between his legs with my back to him and lean against his chest, naked and burning while he sits fully clothed beneath me in freezing water.
The cold helps. The hands that settle carefully on my thighs beneath the water do not.
"Better?" he asks roughly.
I nod against his throat and inhale. Need like I’ve never know makes me feel sick, I squirm against him.
"Frankie."
I can feel him beneath me, hard and huge. I shift to feel his cock better, try and push it through clothes to where I’m craving it. If I can just–
Leo’s head drops back against the edge of the bath with a muttered curse. My brain’s melted enough that embarrassment barely even lands any more. All I know is ache.
I clutch at his soaked shirt behind my back. "Please."
"Please what?" He grits each word out.
"I need you," I whisper.
His grip tightens on my thighs beneath the water. Every time I shift, water laps against all my sensitive spots, I feel every strained breath he takes his chest rising and falling against my back in slow, deliberate motions. I need to cum, now, right here. I’m chasing release against him, using his body to scrape and scratch, for sensation. I move to sink my fingers deep in my pussy, Leo’s read my mind and takes my wrist before I can finish the movement.
"Frankie."
No, he doesn’t understand. I can hear and smell them all. They’re just on the other side of the door. I hang my head back and close my eyes. So clearly, I can see how amazing it would be. All of them naked, lay in a pile on the bed stroking their cocks, fisting each other’s lengths, while I lie between them. They take turns, eating me out, nibbling, biting, sucking, whispering their want. I fuck them, one at a time, all at once, riding them, they fill me with cum, it drips from me, mingles with my own, a sweaty, horny writhing ball of exactly what I need.
"Please fuck me." There it is. I barely recognise my own voice. "I can’t think," I whisper shakily. "Please just fuck me."
He doesn’t so much as breathe as I scrape my oversensitive skin against him.
"It’ll be good," I whisper brokenly.
That does it, he grabs my hips hard enough to stop me moving entirely.
"Listen to me," he growls. "Not like this."
Rejection is hot and awful. "Oh."
"No, sweetheart, fuck."
Humiliation crawls over me. Of course he doesn’t want me, sweaty and pathetic and begging. I try pulling away.
His hands tighten. "Look at me."
I can’t, tears spill freely.
"I said, look at me."
I crane my next back, so I’m looking into his face, inches from mine, upside down.
"Baby," he says roughly, "I am hanging on by a fucking thread here." His eyes drop to my mouth, then lower. "You’re not thinking clearly," he says hoarsely. "You’re sick."
"I need it."
"I know." He shifts, spreading his thighs wider beneath the water and pulling me back, circling me with huge arms like a straight jacket. I whimper.
"Breathe." He groans quietly. "Breathe." His thumb strokes slowly along my thigh beneath the water.
I focus on his voice, inhale shakily.
"Good girl." The praise is lightning in my veins. Slick juices surge from my pussy, my channel throbbing trying to milk a non-existent cock.
He curses under his breath. "Jesus fucking Christ."
Crying freely, I whisper. "I’m sorry,"
"Never apologise for this, sweetheart." He soothes. "I’ve got you. Sleep a little."
Held against the chest of a terrifying man who could break bones with his bare hands but treats me like something precious instead, I finally do.
*****************************************************************
My room’s dark and the fever’s eased enough that my thoughts aren’t melting together anymore. My skin still aches with heat, but duller now. Manageable. My body feels exhausted instead of actively possessed.
None of this is normal. Last night I dry humped Leo and begged him to fuck me. I’ve never begged a man for anything, in my life.
I make a furious sound at myself. "Absolutely pathetic."
Staggering to the dresser, I start grabbing clothes blindly. Jeans. Underwear. Tank tops. Socks.
Leave. I need to leave now. I shove everything frantically into the duffel bag. Panic is building too fast, the kind that makes your fingers shake and your chest ache and your thoughts start sprinting over each other.
I need space to think, distance from this shit show, to escape whatever the hell they’ve done to me.
I grab more clothes from the bed and stuff them into the bag. I look into the open duffel. Corrian’s flannel sits right on top, Jax’s hoodie underneath it, one of Leo’s shirts twisted around River’s pillowcase.
My eye twitches. "What the fuck."
I hate this.
I hate this house.
I hate them.
I stand in the doorway of my room for nearly a full minute before I actually move. The house is silent in that way only big places can be, every creaks amplified, every shadow’s watching.
My duffel bag feels absurdly heavy hanging from my shoulder. The staircase groans beneath my weight but nothing happens. No doors open. No giant wolf-men appear to drag me back upstairs. My pulse hammers anyway, beating alongside one careful step after the other. I’m tiptoeing, creeping and by the time I reach the kitchen my palms are slick with sweat.
"Keep moving," I whisper.
Nightfall transforms this place from a home to a creature sleeping around me. The huge open-plan space stretches into darkness, counter tops gleaming faintly beneath moonlight. Their mingled scents wrap around me from every direction, and for one second I nearly turn around and go back. The urge so strong I grip the edge of the kitchen island until my knuckles ache.
No. I’m leaving. I’m getting answers. I’m not staying here until I completely lose my fucking mind.
The back door clicks shut behind me. The night air holds no relief, because as soon as I take a step from the threshold, I’m smacked with sharp, vicious pain cramping my gut.
I. Am. Leaving.
I make it maybe twenty yards down the path before my legs start shaking, thirty before nausea twists violently through my stomach, forty before I’m bent over, dribble pouring from my mouth as I do everything to not throw up into the bushes. Every instinct I have is screaming to turn around. Go back. Go back. Go back. Clawing at me from the inside.
By the time I collapse onto my knees in the dirt, tears are streaming down my face.
The gravel crunches softly behind me. I don’t have to look up. I know it’s him. River crouches beside me without a word, taking in the bag, the shaking, the failed escape attempt. There isn’t a trace of anger on his face. Just a kind of quiet sadness.
"If you still want to leave when this passes," he says softly. "I’ll help you pack myself."
"Oh fuck you," I sob.
I fold forward, my forehead hitting River’s shoulder as another shudder tears through me.
"I need to go," I whisper brokenly against his throat.
He wraps one arm under my shoulder, helps me stand and starts guiding us back to the house. Every few steps, he presses absentminded kisses into my hairline. As we stop inside, the nausea abates, all traces of pain and suffering are gone.
Half-asleep now, I mumble weakly against River’s throat, "Still might run later."
River huffs a quiet laugh. "Okay."
Unsteady legs struggle with each step up, so he scoops me up with care and cradles me the rest of the way back.
I’m asleep before he reaches the room.
Deep in the haze between consciousness and exhaustion, I realise River isn’t carrying me back to bed.
He carries me home.
Back to the nest.
