Page 100 of Use Me Up

“Would you.” I shake my head. “No, that’s not their dynamic. It’s not that Kane is more dominant. Kane is flashier. Gatlin is more cautious. Kane excites Gatlin. Gatlin is buttoned-up and proper, and Kane is everything Gatlin is not, and therefore everything Gatlin wants.”

Hannah thinks about this and nods.

I tell her that Gatlin’s love language is acts of service or whatever, right? Kane’s love language is gifts.

I mean, I think that’s right. We did a group therapy session once and talked about love languages.

My love language, from the quiz the therapist made us take, is supposedly also acts of service. But that seems crazy, because I really resent being obligated to people.

Hannah glares at me.

I think I should probably stop explaining the alphas and go back to groveling. “Hannah, you should know that I’m sorry, really sorry—”

“How did they bite you?” she interrupts.

I explain to her that I went into this surprise heat, and I called them, because I was miserable and they were the nicest alphas I knew. They came over to my place and came into my nest and took turns knotting me, and they were real patient with me and real sweet, and they made me feel like, you know, a princess.

I smirk at Hannah when I say that, but I think she knows what I mean.

So, I was in heat, and they were licking me all over, and I started begging for bites. And then they bit me. We were crazy turned on, and there’s the way the air smells when our scents are activated. She knows. She’s smelled it. It’s heady and it makes it easy to do things.

But then it happened, and it was just very obviously done, and there was very little any of us could do to alter it. Also, none of us were admitting that we might want to alter it. All of us were very vocally telling the other two that we were super freaking happy about this and that we wanted to make it work.

Gatlin wanted me to move in right away. He fixed up a room for me—without asking me what I liked or anything, admittedly—and then he showed it to me. By the way, he hadn’t even told Kane that he’d done this, so Kane was there when Gatlin was showing me the room and was all, “Move in with us, omega.”

Kane didn’t say anything. He didn’t rescind the invitation or anything. Instead, he was a little too vocal about how I should definitely move in.

I really did want it to work.

Obviously, I moved in.

And then, you know, we tried.

There, that’s it, then, I think I’ve explained everything. Back to groveling. I wonder if I should grovel on my knees or something, really go for it?

Hannah speaks up. “So, all three of you tried? So, why didn’t it work? And don’t tell me it was your fault, because I know there’s more to it than that.”

I think about this, blowing out a huff of air.

I think and I think, and then I have it.

I think I can illustrate why everything went wrong between us with one story.

So, we’d been living together for a while at this point. It was after I tried to go to therapy and things got weird and I quit therapy.

It was after I took down my profile on the website, because my alphas—notably Gatlin—were not entirely cool with my having all these pseudo-relationships with alphas online.

“That’s weird to me, too,” says Hannah, breaking in. “Because I would think Kane would be possessive.”

I think about that. “Kane’s possessiveness is balanced by his desire for independence,” I say. “So, if he recognizes that giving me freedom means he has an excuse to not commit and be free, too, he’s fine with it.”

She makes a face, as if she doesn’t really like that.

I decide to tell the story.

Basically, it was an argument that we had because Kane wanted us to go to another of these clothing-optional parties, and he had purchased me this outfit. It covered all the major body parts, but it was a very sexy outfit.

Kane liked dressing me up and taking me places, showing me off. I liked it, too, because it made my omega feel very claimed and chosen.