Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
“Sprinkles, no! Not the cushion!” I snatch a crocheted throw pillow from between the Newfoundland’s teeth as Blake drags the dog away from the couch by his collar. “It will hurt your stomach if you eat it.”
Quinn pops up from behind the armchair, a juice stain darkening the front of her striped sweater. “Mr. Leif said I could build a fort with the cushions.”
Blake groans. “Of course he did.”
“I said she could ask permission,” Leif corrects from where he kneels on the floor beside the dismantled board game.
As he sorts pieces back into the box, the mauve strands of his hair fall over his forehead, and he shoves them aside with the back of his wrist.
The entire Wright Pack had shown up for our Saturday gathering this week, and it was nice to have a full house, though my cottage is a little cramped without the backyard space to flow into. A heavy rain the night before had turned the garden to mud.
Holden appears in the kitchen doorway, an empty coffee mug in hand. “Who wants to be in charge of the world’s loudest seven-year-old on the drive home?”
“I’m not loud,” Quinn protests.
She flings both arms open, and Sprinkles lunges forward to lick her face, sending her toppling backward with a shriek that rattles the window glass.
Dominic winces, one hand rising to cover his ear. “I second the loud thing.”
“I want to stay with Miss Emily and Uncle Jared.” Quinn scrambles to her feet, one hand tangled in Sprinkles’s fur. “We haven’t even finished the game yet, and I was winning.”
“You were not winning.” Nathaniel folds a throw blanket and sets it on the sofa. “You landed on Boardwalk four times. With hotels.”
“That’s bad?”
The five Wright Alphas exchange looks over her head.
“Besides,” Holden adds. “You stopped playing the game to build a fort. Which is why Mr. Leif is putting the game away.”
“But I didn’t say I was done!”
I crouch in front of her. “Next time, princess. We’ll finish the game when you come back.”
Her lower lip juts out. “Promise?”
My heart does the stupid soft thing it always does for this kid. “Promise.”
Blake scoops her up under one arm, her legs kicking. “It’s time to go, princess. Aunt Chloe needs to put her feet up, and Uncle Kyle will be at the docks soon to pick us up.”
“Thank Emily for hosting us,” Holden says, dropping his mug in the sink.
“Thank you, Ms. Emily,” Quinn parrots.
“It’s always a pleasure,” I say as I collect glasses from the coffee table.
My living room is a disaster, with cushions upended, game pieces scattered under the couch, and a half-eaten plate of cookies balanced on the arm of the reading chair.
Chloe waddles toward me, one hand braced on her lower back, the other clutching her phone. Her pink hair is a mess, and her quartz-colored eyes are bright with the exhaustion of a woman three weeks from delivery.
“Thank you, Em.” She pulls me into a hug, or as close as she can get with her belly between us.
The baby shifts, a hard ridge rolling beneath the fabric of her sweater, and I jerk back.
“Sorry.” She pats her stomach. “Baby thinks it’s exercise time.”
Nathaniel brings her coat from the hook by the door. “Good food. Good company. See you next week.”
“Count on it.”
Dominic slips past him, carrying Sprinkles’s leash. “Time to go, buddy.”
The Newfoundland trots over and sits in front of Dominic, holding still while he clips on the leash.
Holden stops in the doorway, his golden-brown curls catching the last of the afternoon light. “The sourdough starter’s in your fridge. Feed it weekly, and it will give you the best loaves.”
He had brought over a container of the one he uses at the Homestead that is far more sour than the one I already have.
“I know how to feed a starter, Holden.”
“Do you, though?”
I throw a dish towel at him. He catches it, laughing, and disappears after the others.
The front door closes, and car doors thump outside. Quinn chatters, and Blake’s rumbled reply carries back to us. Sprinkles barks once, and then the engine of Blake’s SUV turns over.
I turn to find Leif standing by the couch, his jacket draped over one arm, his periwinkle eyes fixed on the front yard beyond the window.
“You good?” I ask.
As he turns, the late afternoon light catches his profile, softening the lines around his eyes. “Yeah. Just… taking a minute.”
The space between us narrows as he moves toward me.
His pheromones reach me before he does, fresh linen and sun-warmed cedar curling around me to show his interest. His hand finds my elbow, fingers warm through my sleeve, and he leans in. His lips brush my cheek, just below the corner of my mouth, and linger there.
My pulse trips, and the scent of him blooms fuller, pulling low in my belly.
“Thank you for hosting us,” he says, pitched for my ears alone. “It meant a lot.”
As he steps back, his hand slides from my elbow, fingertips dragging across my wrist, and he turns toward the door.
He takes one step.
Two.
My fingers catch the back of his shirt before my brain catches up, two fingers hooking into the fabric between his shoulder blades.
He stops.
“The guest room’s made up,” I say, my voice husky. “Jared can run you down to the docks in the morning.”
When Leif turns, the look in his eyes undoes me. Relief comes first, then heat. Hunger. Before he reins it in with visible effort.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation.
I let him go, and he shoots off a text to those in the waiting SUV outside without moving away.
A moment later, Holden’s car pulls out of the driveway, gravel crunching under tires. The sound fades, and the cottage settles around us, full of the comfortable wreckage of a good afternoon and the quiet that comes after the people you love have left.
Slowly, Leif hangs his jacket on the hook he’d claimed months ago as his own, before he gestures to the disaster left by the gathering. “Let’s get this picked up, and then we can put on a movie?”
I clear my throat. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll make the popcorn,” Jared announces from right behind me.
I startle a little, so caught up in my Omega that I didn’t notice my Alpha joining us.
Both men chuckle before Jared pads away into the kitchen. A rustle of plastic sounds, then the microwave hums to life. Soon, kernels start popping in staccato bursts. Jared whistles off-key, the cheerful tune carrying back to us.
And still, neither Leif nor I have moved to pick up the mess.
Instead, he inches closer, the space between us shrinking one small step at a time. “May I kiss you?”
I lick suddenly dry lips. “Yes.”
His hands come up to cradle my jaw, his thumbs at my cheekbones, his breath unsteady.
Then his mouth claims mine, and he kisses me with the fervor of someone who’s been holding it back for months, one hand sliding into my hair and tightening there, the other holding my jaw steady as if afraid I’ll pull back.
A purr tears loose from my chest, the vibration carrying into his mouth. His breath hitches. Then my mouth opens, and his tongue sweeps in deep, his fingers tightening along my jaw as if the sound of me undid the last of his restraint.
An involuntary sound escapes before he pulls back, and his forehead drops to mine, both of us breathing hard.
“I don’t hear the popcorn popping anymore,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “We should probably at least put the couch back together.”
“Yeah…”
With a growl, I grab his collar and pull him back in.
This kiss swallows me whole. His mouth is slick and urgent, tasting of the coffee he drank after dinner and, beneath it, a flavor unique to my Omega. My stomach drops, and when I lean into him, he whines with need, nothing like the man who asked permission only moments ago.
The bond flutters behind my sternum, reaching for him the way it always does, and I let it, our racing pulses falling into alignment. His pheromones thicken, cedar warming as his hands find my hips and haul me onto my toes.
“Popcorn’s ready,” Jared calls. “Who picked the movie?”
Leif and I break apart, both of us breathing hard. Pink flushes his cheeks, moisture glistens on his lips, and the look he gives me could melt steel.
“You can pick,” I call back, my throat thick with desire.
“Load the one with the spaceships.”
Leif laughs and steps back to pick up the first of the cushions. I follow, and we quickly have the couch set back to rights.
Jared leans in the kitchen doorway, watching us move around with a smirk. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you guys weren’t cleaning up out here.”
I cast him a dirty look while Leif blushes harder.
We settle on the couch the way we used to, before everything fell apart, with Jared on my left, his long frame taking up more than his share of cushion, his arm draping over my shoulders. His fingers find the collar of my flannel and toy with the top button, idle and affectionate.
Leif sits on my right, his thigh resting alongside mine from knee to hip, warm through the material of our pants. He takes my right hand between both of his, palm up, and his thumb traces slow circles over my knuckles.
The popcorn bowl balances on my knee, made the way I like it. Not too greasy, with plenty of kernels left unpopped at the bottom for me to crunch through.
Jared hits play on the movie, and I have no idea what happens in the first twenty minutes.
Something about a spaceship. A planet. A crew arguing.
The screen flickers blue and orange across the dark living room, and Jared’s breathing evens out beside me, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm I know by heart.
Leif’s thumb continues to rub slow circles over my knuckles, over and over. Our shoulders touch, and every few minutes he shifts, his body adjusting to find a more comfortable angle that somehow always ends up with us closer than before.
My pulse refuses to settle. It thrums in my wrists, in my throat, behind my ribs where the bond reaches for both of them. Jared’s salt air and driftwood pheromones mingle with Leif’s cedar and linen, the combination messing with my nervous system.