Page 44 of The Beta: Part Two
Corso hops out of the truck and opens my door for me. He reaches up and I let him help me climb down so I can stretch the kinks out of my back before going inside.
Just as I'm lowering my arms Alex scoops me up into his arms, I wrap my arm around his neck as he carries me up the stairs and bury my nose in his chest for another hit of his smoky scent. Glancing behind us, I see that Reid is carrying my bag and Corso is bringing up the rear with the keys.
Corso reaches around Alex and I to unlock the door. The moment Alex steps over the threshold the familiar warm smells of the house and pack immediately surround me, and I close my eyes and savor it for a few breaths before I squeeze his shoulder to put me down. Nothing has changed since I was last here. I haven't been through the whole house yet, but if the foyer, hall, and what I can see of the main room are anything to go by then I don't think I'll find many differences from before.
Alex lowers me to the ground and then takes a step back so I can look around. I wish I wanted to ramble through the rooms and look at all the things I haven't seen since I was here last, but the only thing I want to see right now is my old bedroom.
I clear my throat and catch Corso's eyes. “Is my room still...my room? I can use a different room, but if that one is available I'd like to use it.”
He tucks his hair behind his ears, both ears which means he's nervous, and looks into the great room to where the stairs are. “It's still your room.”
I don't wait for him to say anything else. I snatch my bag from Reid and make a beeline for the stairs. I was right about the main room, I can see that everything is the same as I stride over the dark wood floor. I rush up the stairs, taking them two at a time, anxious to see if my bedroom is still the same.
Footsteps sound softly behind me but I don't look back. I move quickly down the hall when I reach the top of the stairs. My room is the second door on the left. I throw open the door and freeze where I am with my hand still gripping the knob. Nothing is different from the morning I left. The glass I kept on the nightstand is still there, right where I left it that morning, the water long since evaporated. The pillows are still a bit askew from my quick and stressful job of making the bed. The day before I left, Alex gave me a bunch of flowers he picked from the property and the dried stems are still in the jar on the desk surrounded by the aged fallen petals.
Corso's fresh laundry scent envelopes me and I can feel him standing close behind me.
“It's the same as when I left,” I say so softly that it may as well be a whisper.
“Yes,” he says and links his fingers with mine.
I don't know what to say. I probably couldn't say it anyway with how thick and tight my throat suddenly is. Guilt yanks at my heart for leaving them, for giving them the type of sadness that would have them leaving a glass on a nightstand for years. But leaving was the right thing to do, wasn't it?
I'm an omega now, but I wasn't then; and I would have never met my Jasper if I had stayed. I don't know if I would have switched over to omega if I had stayed, either.
“Stop. You did what you thought was right for us. You were trying to protect this pack even before it was officially yours. It isn't your fault that we couldn't let you go. You're ours now, bella. Ours. You'll never need to leave again,” Corso says against my hair and wraps his arms around me.
“How did you know what I was thinking?” I ask, needing to say something, anything, that isn't likely to make me cry like a fool.
“I could feel you through the bond. I can feel so many things. I've felt your anger, your sadness, your happiness and excitement...your need. I can feel it all. You feel me, too, don't you?”
He already knows, but he needs to hear it. I nod, “I can feel you, Corso.”
He leads me into the room, “we'll get the bedding changed, of course,” he says as he sits down on it.
“Actually,” I bite at my bottom lip, “I need a new bed. A bigger one, maybe a queen size. We'll need more room. I don't know how it's all going to work out, but I want to sleep with you and the guys most nights. When I'm not with Jasper. I don't know how that's going to work, either. I want him with us, too. And the rest. Maybe we need a king? Maybe two pushed together? They don't make sheets that big, do they?”
“That's the most adorable thing I've ever heard. Talia, my sour little love, you are fucking rambling.” Alex chuckles as he steps into the room with Reid close behind.
“I don't think Devon will want to be in a puppy pile every night, he probably snores, anyway. And can you even imagine Trent snuggling up to me all night?”
I can, actually.
The thought of Trent and Alex cuddled together in sleep is a sweet thought, but imagining how they'd look together has me clouding the room with the scent of my arousal.
Alex the ass grins at me, “I guess you can imagine. Tell me, naughty girl, which of us is top and which is bottom?”
Fuck it, I hold his gaze while I work it out. Which of them would top the other? I honestly think they'd each enjoy both equally if they let themselves, but I think Alex might like bottoming more than Trent would; if only for the attention it would get him.
I watch his nostrils flare, the more time I spend thinking about Trent railing Alex the stronger my scent becomes and I feel myself getting wetter and wetter. “You'd like bottoming more than Trent would, but you'd both probably be happy to fuck the other. And if it ever happens I better get a first row seat,” I say, and throw myself onto my bed beside Corso.
“You'll get a first row seat on my cock. If Trent's fucking me, then I'm fucking you while he does it,” Alex laughs. “Where are you putting everybody? We'll order you and Jasper the biggest beds we can find. Everyone else can deal with the beds already here until we get around to getting new ones. But you and Jasper will need bigger and better beds. I can't believe we get two omegas.”
He sounds wistful and dreamy in a way I haven't heard him before. “I'm not poaching your boy, sweetheart, but I'm going to spoil the shit out of both of you,” he says and starts to rake the dried flower petals off the desk.
“Stop!” I call out, jumping up off the bed to gather the petals, “I'm keeping those.”
I rake them off into the empty glass from the nightstand and put it back on the desk.
