Chapter 54
FIFTY-FOUR
Jez
OH, MY GOD—WHAT WAS wrong with me? It was bad enough when I was plotting Paolo’s demise for daring to use Knox’s given name in front of me.
I was supposed to hate Paolo. But in what world did I have the right to growl and snarl over some random basic bitch flashing her cleavage at the alpha that I’d actually tried to murder?
I rushed out of the building, seriously considering darting into the nearest alley and disappearing into the city. The phone in my pocket—a phone that Knox had bought me, for fuck’s sake—buzzed. I ignored it, but I couldn’t ignore the concern battering me from two directions inside the bond.
That concern dragged me to a stumbling halt. In the next instant, Knox’s longer stride brought him outside as well. He scanned the area, his dark eyes falling on me. His shoulders slumped in relief as he approached.
Maybe he’d suspected that I’d try to run rather than face the fallout from my feral outburst. I wanted to run.
.. it was agonizing standing here while he stared at me as though he’d never seen me before.
I looked away. Not showing my throat to him—never that.
But hiding my face, which I could tell was flushed beet-red with humiliation.
He stopped several paces away. It still wasn’t far enough to keep his cedar-campfire scent from tickling my nose. The deep alpha pheromones were twisted up with uncertainty and half a dozen conflicted emotions that I couldn’t read.
Belatedly, it occurred to me that if I tried to run, Heath would just track me down through the bond. I slumped in defeat, still not meeting Knox’s gaze.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, relying on alpha hearing to make out the words past the background noise of the city around us. “I didn’t... I don’t know why I...”
Great. I still couldn’t put a sentence together.
The phone in my pocket buzzed again.
Knox let me trail into silence before he spoke.
“That woman was being incredibly rude to you,” he said. “You were well within your rights to call her on it. There are plenty of other driving schools in Chicago—or I can just as easily hire someone to give you private lessons. Seriously, don’t give it another thought.”
The words were calm, but I could sense the underlying tension in him.
Could he tell what I was feeling by my scent?
Because if he could, that was bad, bad, bad.
Even now, half-panicked and with my face red from embarrassment, I was fighting an insane urge to run into Knox’s arms and climb him like a tree.
I wanted to rub my body all over his expensive suit until anyone with a nose would be able to tell that he belonged to me. I wanted to bite bloody marks into the skin of his throat, visibly claiming him as mine.
This time, my phone rang instead of buzzing; the notification of an incoming voice call rather than a text.
I took a step backward, and then another.
Knox eyed me nervously. “I’ll, um... I’ll just let Bud know to bring the car around.”
He drew out his phone and thumb-typed rapidly. The cell phone rang before he could put it away. Frowning, he lifted it to his ear.
“Gage,” he said. “No, she’s here. We’re fine. Just a... well, a misunderstanding, I guess you’d call it. Here, you can talk to her directly.”
He stepped forward and thrust the phone at me, looking more out of his depth than I’d ever seen him before. I took it gingerly, because refusing would only cause more of a scene.
“Hello?” I said in a tiny voice.
“Kitten!” Gage sounded almost frantic. “What happened? Why wouldn’t you answer your phone? Heath and I were worried that something happened to you!”
Something did, I thought, a bit hysterically.
“No, it’s—” Words tangled up in my throat again. “It was stupid. I’m being stupid. I just want to go home.” My voice broke on the final words.
There was a brief pause.
“Okay, hand me back to Knox, sweetheart. We’ll be waiting when you get here. I love you.”
I would not burst into tears on a busy sidewalk. I would not. I held the phone out to Knox. “He wants to talk to you again.”
“Okay.” Knox took it. “Here’s the car. Why don’t you get in, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The black limo rolled to a silent stop next to us.
Bud got out, striding around to our side and opening the door for me.
Defeated, I got in and scooted to the farthest corner of the leather-upholstered seat, curling against the window in a miserable slouch.
My pussy ached and throbbed accusingly, uncaring of how badly I’d humiliated myself.
Had Knox relayed a blow-by-blow account of my meltdown to Gage? If so, he’d been quick about it. His phone was once more hidden in a pocket when he sank into the back seat, the door closing behind him.
“We’ll be back at the house in about thirty-five minutes,” he said, as though nothing at all was wrong.
It was the longest thirty-five minutes of my life—and with my history, that was really saying something. My pheromones swirled together with Knox’s in the enclosed space, a cocktail of conflicting emotions that included, but wasn’t limited to, guilt, worry, frustration, and unfiltered lust.
The entire time, my instincts screamed that the way to fix this situation was to fling myself across the seat and wrap my arms and legs around Knox like an emotionally stunted barnacle.
I was getting increasingly freaked out by how difficult it was to ignore that impulse in favor of my higher brain functions.
Knox didn’t speak a word. Neither did I. Instead, we sat on opposite sides of the car, not looking at each other and trying not to breathe in each other’s scents. Or maybe that was just me. I wasn’t about to look at him to find out.
When the car pulled up to the gigantic fucking mansion that I’d unthinkingly called home—after only staying there for a little more than a day—I bolted from the car, not waiting for Bud to open the door for me. Heath was waiting outside the main door, his presence in my mind twitchy and on-edge.
I rushed past him, not meeting his eyes, either.
“Jez—”
My name chased after me as I ran into the house and charged downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. My nest was a dark sanctuary at the end of the hall. I rushed inside and closed the door, leaning my weight against it and shaking.
Gage and Heath were worried shadows hovering on the edges of my awareness.
As my adrenaline gradually wore off, I realized how badly I wanted them to be here with me.
But if they were here, I’d have to talk about why I was battling the urge to thrust my hand into my jeans and frig myself to orgasm while imagining Knox slamming into me from behind.
With a frustrated groan, I crossed to the piles of pillows and blankets on the sofa, where Gage, Heath, Tony, and I had piled together to sleep. I faceplanted onto the soft, upholstered surface, breathing in.
It didn’t smell like Knox.
Another groan tore free from my throat, this one sounding more like a growl.
I lay face-down, trying to remember what sanity felt like.
Here I was—a broken and discarded gutter rat living in a fairytale castle with two amazing mates—and I was hiding away in the dark, plotting how to steal dirty laundry from the guy I’d tried to kill so I could use it to line my nest.
Fuck my life.
A hesitant knock sounded at the door. I lifted my head far enough to gently beat my forehead against the couch cushion. Which was, of course, completely ineffective, because it was so soft.
I knew without having to call out that Gage and Heath were on the other side of the door. And, in the end, trying to put this off any longer was pointless. Dragging myself upright, I crossed the room to open it.
“Can we come in, kitten?” Gage asked from his wheelchair.
I’d been wrong; it wasn’t just him and Heath. They’d brought Tony, too.
“Okay,” I said in a whisper, and stood back to let them in.
“Do you want me here?” Tony said, uncertainty lacing the words.
I hesitated, and then nodded. I’d told Heath the absolute truth when I’d said I needed Tony in the pack as a buffer against my own fuck-ups. And now, here we were.
Heath wheeled Gage inside, following Tony to the sofa where I’d been trying to suffocate myself a minute ago. Tony and I sat down facing Gage, while Heath hovered nearby.
“So...” Tony began. “Do you, um, want to talk about it?” He looked as out of his element as I felt.
“No,” I said. “But you all need to know what happened, assuming Knox didn’t already tell you over the phone.” I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and looked up at Heath. “You know how I told you that I fantasized about clawing Paolo’s eyeballs out when he called Knox ‘Matthew’ to my face?”
Silence settled over the room.
“To be fair,” Tony said. “I kind of fantasized about ripping his throat out, just because he’s generally an asshole.”
“Omega instincts, kitten,” Gage said, although there was a speculative light in his eye. “Knox is your scent match, too. No surprise that you’ve got some feelings around that.”
I covered my face with one hand. “Some beta bitch at the driving school tried to come onto him while I was sitting right there,” I muttered. “And I might’ve... um... lost it, a bit. In public. In front of him.”
“Oh,” Gage said. “Shit. What’d he say afterward?”
I sighed and let my hand drop. “You know. A bunch of Knox stuff. ‘She was rude, don’t give it another thought, I’ll get you private driving lessons, blah, blah, blah.
’ I nearly swan-dived into a manhole and disappeared into the sewers to get away, so I could go and live with the rest of the city’s trash. ”
Gage scoffed. “Then I would’ve had to send Heath into the sewers after you, and he’d get all irritated when his nice shoes got dirty.”
“Gage, I wanted to hurl myself at him in the back of the limo,” I said, with more than a little desperation. “I already tried to kill him! Am I supposed to add sexual assault to the rap sheet now?”
Tony looked deeply uncomfortable, but he cleared his throat and asked, “How sure are you that it would have been assault?”
“Isn’t that an interesting question,” Gage said.
“He told me ages ago that he couldn’t mate me after what I did to him,” I replied miserably. “And, I mean... no kidding. You don’t mate your attempted murderer.”
Heath had been uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange. Now, he shifted uncomfortably in place.
“You don’t mate your prisoner either,” he said. “And yet, here we are. I want to talk to him about this, if you’ll let me. Let’s just say that I’ve got a bit of a different perspective on things, these days.”
I ought to protest. Tell him that if anyone should be talking to Knox about this, it should be me. Letting Heath fight my battles just because I was an omega was a coward’s way out.
“Okay,” I said weakly, crashing head-first into my coward era.
“Good,” Gage said. “Now, let Heath hold you for a bit. You look like you’re about to collapse. I’d do it myself, but...” He gestured one-handed at his cast and sling.
I got up, zombie-walked into Heath’s arms, hiding my face against his chest. His long arms closed around me, his scent enveloping me as I breathed in deeply.
I hated myself just a little for the fact that my pussy still throbbed with need.
The rest of me only wanted to turn everything off for a bit, though.
“Help me onto the couch, Tony,” Gage said. “Sleeping together like that was really good yesterday, so let’s do it again.”
“It’s, like, three-thirty in the afternoon,” Tony protested.
“And?” Gage asked. “I’m an invalid. The docs said to get lots of rest. And Jez is tired. Look at her.”
“And you had a concussion,” Heath said pointedly, the words rumbling against my cheek.
“Fine,” Tony said, not sounding too upset about it. “I swear, the things I do for this pack.”
“That’s why we love you,” Gage said. “Right, Jez?”
Wait—Gage was sweet-talking Tony now? I lifted my head so I could meet his eyes as Tony helped him slide out of the wheelchair and onto the couch. Had he asked Tony about the two of them having a relationship? My eyes slid to Tony, whose burning cheeks and shy gaze said that he had.
“Are you two together now?” I blurted, since apparently my brain-to-mouth filter was still missing in action. “Oh my god—that’s fantastic.”
Tony’s blush deepened. “He and Heath said you were okay with it?”
“Tony, you’re my best friend! Of course I’m okay with it,” I told him, breaking free of Heath’s embrace to hug him instead.
“I’ll make a point of not flashing my cleavage at Knox anytime soon,” Tony joked weakly, wrapping an arm around me in return.
I smacked Tony lightly in the kidney for that, and Gage let out a bark of laughter—the bastard. Instant karma hit him immediately afterward, when he winced and lifted a hand to his busted ribs.
“Ow.”
“Serves you right,” I mumbled, and let Tony go.
“Everyone get down here with me,” Gage said. “We’re napping until dinnertime. No arguments.”
I had no desire to argue. I gently shoved Tony onto the couch with Gage, then plopped down in the mass of pillows on the floor and held out a hand to Heath, drawing him down with me. The door to the nest was still partway open, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it.
I was safe here; I didn’t need a locked door between me and the rest of the world. Not while I was in this house, surrounded by these men. Smiling, I curled into Heath’s body and tried not to think too much about the nagging thrum of leftover sexual desire still singing along my nerves.
It didn’t take long for sleep to pull me under.
In my dreams, at least, no one could judge me for what happened inside my subconscious mind.
Soft hands caressed my body, the smell of smoke and evergreen needles joining whiskey and orange peel, with a hint of Tony’s beta musk woven into the tapestry.
Bodies moved, pale skin twining with tanned gold and tawny brown.
Moans pierced the silence, growing sharper and more desperate before being deliciously muffled.
I writhed against the warm body cradling me, rubbing my cheek against a broad chest to scent-mark it, and receiving a rumbling purr in return.
Thick fingers stroked through my hair, my awareness surfacing by degrees. The muffled moans continued in the background as I blinked my eyes open in the dim light.
“Jez?” Heath asked. “You said something about wanting to see Gage and Tony together. Wake up, because I don’t think you’ll want to miss this.”