Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Heath
“That’s right. She needs you. You’re her Daddy.” Wyatt’s eyes burn with an emotion I can’t quite identify and don’t expect because we’ve talked about this.
It’s a punch to the gut, as is the way he wraps his arms around her. Protectively, the way I should be holding her. Holding both of them.
“It’s more complicated than just saying that.” They’re both too pure to understand.
They don’t know how hard it is to give people your heart after a lifetime of guarding it like a fierce dog.
“Tell us, then.” Emily lifts her pretty little chin, jutting it at me. A challenge. “Unless you think we couldn’t possibly understand.”
Fuck.
She growls when I don’t answer. “That’s it, isn’t it? You think we couldn’t possibly get it. We’re too young, too—”
“Damn it, Emily, I love that about you,” I bark out. “I don’t want you to understand. I want you and Wyatt to have a perfect life together. Do you know what a gift it is to find your mate the first time?”
“Yes, I do. I’m deeply aware of how wonderful it is—and how hard it is at the same time when one of them refuses to admit what is right in front of him.” She elbows Wyatt. “Baby, tell him.”
I grin despite myself. Bossy little girl.
He catches her arm and lifts her hand to his mouth. His gaze locks on my face as he kisses her clenched fist. “I don’t think he’s ready to hear it, sweetheart.”
My throat goes dry. “Hear what?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Emily growls at him.
He just keeps kissing her hand, his lips soft on each of her white knuckles.
My pulse jacks up. “You think you know me better than I know myself?”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “Yeah, Heath. I know you.”
Fucking punk. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know you want to have your mouth on her right now. You’re fucking mad as hell that I get to kiss this little fireball right now and you can’t, aren’t you?”
Even though he’s got a lock on my attention now, I can still see Emily’s eyes go wide. “Wyatt,” she breathes. “That’s not—”
“Nice?” He shakes his head. “Heath doesn’t need nice right now. He needs to be shown that we’ll be just fine without him. That maybe you don’t need him to be your Daddy.”
I surge forward, stopping just a foot away from them.
Between us, Emily takes a shuddering breath. I can see her little body straining toward me, but Wyatt is holding her tight. No more hesitation, no more big puppy energy. He’s all man now, confident and strong for his little one.
Everything I knew he could be.
But it’s wrong.
“You just said she needs me. Now you’re saying she doesn’t?”
He shrugs. “Isn’t that what you said you wanted? And then, sure, you walked it back, but not enough. Not all the way, because you have to keep one foot in a safety zone.”
I ball my hands into fists to stop myself from grabbing him and shoving him against the wall. Taking Emily from him and wrapping myself around her. “Maybe what I want is too fucking complicated.”
“Is it, though?” His mouth is moving up her forearm now. He guides her hand to his neck, encouraging her to hold on to him—and to present her tight little body to me at the same time. She’s stretched taut, her nipples pointing straight at me through the thin fabric of her T-shirt.
His other hand moves against her waist, tugging the hem of her shirt up, revealing a slice of her skin at her belly. “Nothing about this feels complicated to us.”
My cock thickens despite my resolve to let them go.
“We need you,” he rasps out. “We both need you. She needs you. I need you. We’re not complete without you as our third. It’s not about her being mine, and her also wanting you.”
“Do you hear him?” Emily breaks free of him and leaps at me. I catch her easily, holding her close as she cups my face in her hands. “You told me I had to be in charge the first time.”
“That was sex.”
“I’m taking that lesson and applying it to our first fight too. If you think you know me so well, despite us never exchanging more than a few words before this weekend? That we have some special connection? Then accept that I can see you too. And I can see him.”
“She has you there, man.” Wyatt shrugs roughly. “What? It’s true. And of course she’s upset. She loves you.”
“And you,” she throws back over her shoulder.
Then her eyes go wide. “I love you,” she breathes.
“Both of you. I can’t believe in love at first sight, because I must have looked through you so many times over the last few months, and I hate that.
I should have seen you both. I hate how one-sided it was.
But on another level, I felt your presence. I felt safe and protected—”
I frown, cutting her off. “From what?”
“What?”
“Safe and protected… Did you not feel safe before we started working there?”
She waves her hand. “There’s this guy—”
“He’s as good as gone,” Wyatt barks.
“I think you already scared him off, to be honest. He bugs me in labs now, but that’s it.”
“The little shit weasel. He won’t be bugging you at all after we have words.”
“You can’t—”
I cut her off with a kiss. “Yes, he can. We can. We’ll find a way.”
“On one condition.” She gives me the stern, baby-is-in-charge look again. “Listen to what Wyatt was saying. I don’t want to gloss over that part. He needs you. You’re his too.”
My arms shake as her words sink into my thick skull. I pin her to me, wanting her closer than is humanly possible. I lift my gaze to meet Wyatt’s piercing eyes. There’s no fear there. No hesitation.
But he’s not going to come to me the way she did. I need to go to him.
Lifting her with ease, I cross the gap between us and pull Wyatt into my arms, too. There’s room for them both, Emily snug between us.
“I love you,” I say roughly, pressing my forehead against his. “I love you because you love her, and because you see me, and because you’re so fucking pure.”
“God, this is so hot,” she whispers between us.
He grins. “Want to show her how much you love me on your knees?”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, if you want.” He licks his lips, his gaze bright. “I love you too. I told myself it was because you’re a mentor and a friend and an older fucking brother, but it’s deeper than any of those.”
I grip the back of his neck. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Together,” Emily whispers.
Wyatt nods. “Forever.”
I squeeze them together. “All of us, no matter what.”
“Wyatt?” Emily squirms between us, turning around, then climbing up him like a tree, until her ass is nestled against my cock and her tits are pressed against his chest. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He kisses her, deeply, and I tangle my hand in his hair, my heart moving outside my body to exist in that embrace with them. Mine.
I nudge her hair out of the way, then drop my mouth to the back of her neck. Mine.
And then they turn, Emily kissing me, Wyatt’s arms holding us firm. Theirs.
The rest will sort itself out. Our love is all that matters.