Page 19 of Heat Clickbait
"And you baked," Blitz added with a grin that made his whole face light up, those dimples deep enough to hold water appearing in full force. "So much bread. The freezer was basically a carb morgue."
"Bread is comfort food," Milo defended, settling beside us with a plate of something I couldn't identify but my body desperately wanted. The warm honey and cinnamon scent of him mixed with woodsmoke from whatever he'd been cooking, creating an olfactory symphony that made my mouth water. "And it freezes well. Plus, I thought... an Omega might want familiar flavors. Safe foods during vulnerable times."
He held out a small piece of what looked like perfectly golden toast with something spread on it, his hands steady despite the way his pupils had dilated watching me. The first bite made me moan. Butter and honey and just a hint of salt. Simple flavors that tasted like ambrosia after days of primal need had reduced my diet to whatever I could manage between waves, and even then I didn't really taste any of it.
"The ceiling," I said, looking up at what I'd initially thought was just elegant lighting design. Now I could see the complexity, layers of adjustable panels that could create any ambiance from bright daylight to golden sunset to star-scattered darkness. The current setting mimicked late afternoon sunlight filtered through leaves, warm and dappled and alive. "Whose idea?"
"Mine," Blitz admitted, and when I looked at him, his expression had gone soft in a way that made my chest tight. His usual confident streaming persona had been replaced by something more real, something raw, the man behind the carefully cultivated thirst trap content. "I thought... thought an Omega might want to see sky sometimes. Even inside. Especially during..."
He gestured vaguely at my current state, and I understood. The freedom of open sky while safe in an enclosed space. The illusion of choice even when biology demanded surrender. The psychological comfort of horizon lines even when walls were necessary for safety.
"You programmed it with real sky patterns," I realized, watching the subtle shift of light that mimicked clouds passing overhead. "This isn't just randomized lighting changes."
His cheeks flushed with pride and embarrassment. "I may have spent a few weeks on my parents' roof with a camera, mapping light patterns throughout the day. For accuracy."
"The color shifts on the walls?" I asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it, wanting to understand the depth of consideration that had gone into every element.
"All of us," Nova said quietly, his cultured voice carrying notes of vulnerability I'd never heard in his business calls. "We couldn't agree on a single color scheme, so Ghost designed a system that could accommodate everyone's preferences. It responds to whoever's... active in the space."
Active. Such a clinical word for what we'd been doing. For the way they'd taken turns working me through each wave, their coordination seamless despite never having done this before. For how Milo's gentle care gave way to Ghost's silent intensity, then Crash's electric passion, Blitz's powerful control, and Nova's sophisticated dominance, around and around until I couldn't tell where one ended and another began.
The walls currently showed warm golds and deep blues, Nova's preferences, I realized, mixed with touches of the others. A visual representation of pack harmony that shifted and flowed like a living thing.
"You built a smart room," I said, wonder creeping into my voice. "You literally built a computer-supported heat nest."
"We built possibility," Ghost corrected, and his hand found mine, fingers interlacing with careful precision. His skin was cooler than the others, a refreshing contrast that my overheated body craved. "We built what we'd want someone to have, even if that someone never came."
The past tense made my chest tight. "But I did come."
"You did," Nova agreed, and something in his voice made me look at him properly. His control had cracked over the past days, that polished exterior giving way to something rawer, more real. His perfect beard was still immaculate, but his designer clothes had long since been abandoned for soft cotton that smelled like him, all aged whiskey and leather-bound books with hints of amber. "And the room recognized you immediately."
"What do you mean?"
He pulled out his phone, showing me data I couldn't quite parse through heat-fog. Charts and graphs that meant nothing to my overwhelmed brain but clearly told a story he found significant. "The environmental controls started adjusting the moment you entered. Before we even touched anything. The room's AI learned your preferences and started optimizing without input."
"That's impossible," I breathed, but even as I said it, I remembered how the lights had dimmed when I needed them to, how the temperature had adjusted to my body's demands without anyone touching a control panel, how even the air seemed to carry exactly the right mix of their scents when I needed them most.
"We thought so too," Milo said, offering me another piece of toast that I accepted gratefully. His SoCal accent had thickened with emotion, his usual projected cheerfulness replaced by something quieter and more authentic. "But Ghost checked the code. The room... chose you."
"Though we were first," Crash added with a grin that was all mischief despite his dilated pupils. His purple and neon green hair had gotten progressively more disheveled over the days, making him look like some kind of delightful chaos sprite. "That first whiff at the convention? Game over. Done. Finished. Roll credits."
I couldn't fight off the wave any longer, and I knew the one that was building was deeper. More intense. The kind that would demand more than just one of them could provide, that would require the full pack working in harmony to see me through.
"All of you," I gasped, my body making demands my mouth could barely articulate. "Need all of you. Please."
They moved like they'd choreographed it, like this was a dance they'd practiced in dreams for months before I'd appeared to make it real. The nest cradled us all, multiple bodies that shouldn't have fit comfortably but did, the depression in the center exactly the right size for this configuration.
"You measured," I realized as Nova's manicured hands skimmed up my thighs with practiced precision. "You actually calculated the exact dimensions for?—"
"For a complete pack scene, yes," he admitted against my neck, his breath warm and whiskey-scented. I felt his embarrassment even as his body pressed closer, that polished control finally cracking completely. "It seemed prudent to be prepared for all possibilities."
"Nerd," Crash accused fondly, his mouth finding that spot behind my ear that made me see stars. "You made spreadsheets about orgy logistics."
"Preparation is—" Nova started, but I cut him off by pulling him down for a kiss that was all teeth and desperation and the need from this wave finally finding voice.
"Tell me more," I demanded against his mouth when we broke apart. "Tell me everything you planned, everything you imagined."
Because somehow, hearing about their months of preparation, their desperate hope, their detailed planning for someone they'd never met, it made this feel less like biological imperative and more like fate. Like the universe had beenconspiring to bring us together, and they'd been building the stage for our meeting without knowing it.
