Page 12 of Valentine's Heart

My doctor had told me I should have at least three months before the first one hit. I had time to taper off the suppressants. Time to lose my virginity with a beta. I didn’t want my vaj to be torn apart with some monster knot.

Searing pain zipped up my spine, of all places. Why hadn’t anyone warned me that heat cramps felt like being stabbed with knives all over? I whimpered through the next sharp wave, the sound of Donovan’s cursing distracting me a bit.

“What do you need, Valentine? What do you usually do for your heats?”

“I’ve never had one,” I gritted out. “This will be my first.”

The car’s engine was the only sound, as Donovan held his breath. Then he muttered, “Of fucking course.” The air inside the Hummer filled with an odd scent, like burning cedar.

I breathed it in, oddly comforted. “I’ve been on suppressants since… since I was sixteen. But the doctors said it’s dangerous. They were worried about my heart, my valves getting weak. So I had to stop.”

“That’s why you went to that club, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. If I d-don’t get my body back on track—” I groaned as another sharp cramp doubled me over.

“So no doctors?”

“They’d just send a heat-trained orderly in to fuck me, I’m pretty sure,” I half-joked, half-sobbed. Once this wave of pain passed, I’d take another one of the mild suppressants in my purse. A whole pill this time.

But I had a feeling it wouldn’t be enough.

“No hospitals, okay? N-n-no… strangers.”

The burned cedar scent grew stronger. “Okay, baby. It should only be another two and a half hours to your apartment, but the roads are icy, so I have to go slow. It could take four, or even five. I’m going to pull off and get some things for you. You can use them in the car on the way.”

I wanted to crawl under the seat and hide. I knew what he meant. Sex toys. Sure enough, when he pulled off the highway and into a parking lot in front of a neon-covered store that said 24-Hour Adults Only Toys and Dispensary on the sign, I started crying.

“Hey, baby, stop now.” A finger wiped away my tears. Out of nowhere, all the blankets from under the back seat were on my lap, and strong hands were wrapping me up in them. “You stay here, and I’ll go get some things that will help.”

“Don’t leave me,” I gasped. But he put his hands on both sides of my face and angled it up to his.

“I’m locking you in, and I’ll be back in less than five minutes. I want you to hold my phone up to your ear. If you need me, just tap the screen here. This is the app to speak directly into my earpiece. I can drop everything and run back.”

I held his phone up to the side of my face, wondering why it smelled ever so slightly like my favorite spa. Eucalyptus and cedar. It felt safe and relaxing, even after he’d disappeared into the store.

I pressed the phone to my cheek, then darted my tongue out to lick the side of it, where the scent was strongest. I licked a little harder, tasting it, knowing I was being weird. I didn’t care; no one could see in the tinted windows.

Time seemed to stretch as the cramps came faster and faster, and I babbled my thoughts out loud, the sound of my own voice keeping my mind off the pain. “I’m so scared—no, I’m terrified of this stupid heat. I don’t have any idea what to expect… Ah!” I panted through the pain, then kept on babbling aloud, the noise in the Hummer’s interior distracting me from the waves of agony. “None of the Omega League videos I watched at home covered cramps that feel like being sliced open with swords from the inside.”

Of course, none of them would’ve imagined an omega would need to tackle a five-year-overdue heat. They for sure hadn’t had a pamphlet on what sex in a delayed heat would be like, especially for a virgin.

And I was one hundred percent a virgin. Nothing besides my own fingers had ever been inside me, except a few slender tampons I’d used for the few periods I’d had before my sixteenth birthday had ushered in my new biology.

My sisters had tried to get me to play with toys for years, warning me that I needed to know what to do when the time came. What I liked. But I’d been stubborn, and scared.

Anyway, the suppressants I’d been on had killed any sex drive I might’ve had. Every time I’d thought about using the dick-shaped devices on myself, I’d felt slightly ill.

Sure, I’d used my hands. I’d had orgasms, or at least I thought so. They never felt like what the romance novels said, though. They took a long time to happen and reminded me of a soda pop with not enough fizz.

“Until Donovan. He’s got all the fizz I could ever want. I’d drink him down like a cream soda… No, stop thinking about him like that, Valentine. He doesn’t want you. Nobody wants the stupid, awkward, painfully shy omega who can’t even orgasm right.”

My heart ached as I pressed my lips together, letting the Hummer fill with silence at last, though my thoughts were every bit as noisy in my head.

What was I going to do? I’d never had a heat, not since the first one… I refused to think about that nightmare. The alphas who’d scented me at my high school, who’d shoved me into the boy’s bathroom, barked and barked to keep me quiet, and torn my panties off. If it hadn’t been for my necklace back then, I would have been…

Panic began to overwhelm me. I couldn’t do this. Not alone. I fumbled for my necklace, almost pressing the heart, then remembered.

I had Donovan’s phone. I looked for the button he’d shown me, then blinked. It was already connected, a wet patch of saliva on the spot he’d shown me.

---