Chapter 9 #2
I am suddenly in my element.
I direct. I arrange. I place white roses in precise formations along the aisle, on the arch, at the altar.
The brothers follow my orders without question.
Ezra handles the heaviest arrangements. Julian arranges the reception flowers with an artist’s eye I didn’t know he had.
Cole hauls water buckets. August hands me stems before I ask for them.
We finish with twelve minutes to spare.
“Oh wow, it’s so pretty,” the bride says, crying when she sees the flower arrangements. Happy tears. She hugs me, her white dress rustling, her perfume mixing with the scent of the flowers, and I hug her back, feeling mostly relieved that we got this done on time.
I’m invited to stay.
I sit in the back row and watch the ceremony through tears I didn’t expect to shed. White roses everywhere. The light through the windows turning everything gold. The bride and groom exchanging vows I can’t quite hear through the thickness in my throat.
Ezra sits beside me. He’s so close, I can feel the heat of his thigh.
“What’s the matter?” he asks quietly.
“Nothing.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my glove. “I’m just... grateful. That’s all. Without you, this wedding would have been ruined. The bride would have had no flowers. I would have failed.”
“You would have figured it out,” Ezra says. His voice is low. Certain. “We just helped. That’s all.”
I look at him. Really look at him.
His gray eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them. The scar through his eyebrow catches the light. His jaw is relaxed. He looks like a different man than the one who pushed a folder across a bakery table and offered me seventy-five thousand dollars to walk away from my life.
“I still want to thank you.”
“About the shop,” he says. “You can keep it. If that’s what you want. Or you can take the money. Your choice. Either way.”
My heart stops. Then restarts, hard and wild, beating against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
“Keep it?” I whisper.
“Keep it,” he says, his face breaking into a smile. “The building is yours. The lease is yours. Marsh Florals stays open for as long as you want it open.”
I throw my arms around him.
It’s impulsive. Reckless. My body moves before my brain can catch up, and suddenly I’m pressed against Ezra Frostwood’s chest in a back pew at a stranger’s wedding, my arms around his neck, my face buried in the collar of his charcoal suit where he smells like bergamot and cold air and something deeper, warmer, that makes my pussy clench all over again.
He goes very still.
Then, slowly, his arms come around my waist. He holds me. Just holds me. His hand finds the back of my head, fingers threading through my straightened hair, and he holds me like I’m something precious.
“To hell with the money,” I whisper against his throat.
Ezra laughs. A real laugh, low and warm and surprised, and when I pull back to look at him, his gray eyes are lit from within, bright and alive in a way I’ve never seen, and the smile on his face is something I will think about for days.
“Yes, to hell with the money,” he agrees.
“Why don’t you and your brothers come to my place later so we can celebrate? It’s the least I can do to thank you,” I ask shyly, pulling back from the hug.
“We would love to be there.”
My apartment has never felt so full and also so small.
That night, four alphas, six-foot-plus each, broad shoulders, long legs, are all sitting around my tiny red dining table as we eat lo mein.
The radio plays low from the kitchen counter. Something old, something with a saxophone and a woman’s voice that sounds like she’s singing through smoke. The curtains billow in the evening breeze.
I’m still in the red dress, with my shoes off, toes curling against the cold hardwood.
Julian talks the most. He’s telling a story about Pepper and a business meeting that went catastrophically wrong because the parrot learned the word “bankruptcy” and shouted it at precisely the wrong moment.
August is laughing, his bright blue eyes crinkling behind his glasses, his honey scent warm and golden in the close air.
Cole eats in silence, methodical, his slate-blue eyes moving between his brothers and me with that watchful calm that makes my skin prickle.
Ezra doesn’t talk much. He eats. He listens. His eyes find mine across the table every thirty seconds, hold for two beats, then drop away.
Each look feels like a touch.
Each look makes my stomach flip, my pussy clench, slick gathering between my thighs, eager for something that’s right there but also out of reach.
I shouldn’t be feeling like this.
My scent blockers have been fading every hour.
The rose scent of me fills the apartment, mixing with their scents of bergamot, lemon, black tea, and honey until the air feels heavy with it, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks.
I am less lonely than I have been in three years. The realization hits me in the middle of Julian’s story, and I have to look down at my noodles so no one sees the sudden wetness in my eyes.
Julian raises his glass.
“To Marsh Florals,” he says. His dimple is deep, his hazel eyes warm on mine. “To Liana. To building something beautiful out of nothing and keeping it against all odds. For her not taking the money.”
“To not taking the money,” August echoes, smiling.
“To the shop,” Cole says simply.
Ezra raises his glass last. His gray eyes hold mine across the table, steady and certain.
“To you,” he says. Quiet. Just that. To you.
The stress is gone. And it feels good. The weight I’ve been carrying since that cream-colored envelope arrived, the dread of losing everything, the constant calculation of how many days I had left. Gone. Replaced by something warmer, lighter, buzzing under my skin like champagne.
My pussy throbs. Hard. Slick soaks through my underwear, warm and wet against the red fabric of my dress where I’m sitting. I shift in my chair. Press my thighs together.
Oh my god, they can probably smell me right now.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me as I clench my thighs tighter as they talk.
The pain starts as a twinge.
Low in my belly. Just below my navel. A dull ache I’ve never felt…
Oh.
Oh no.
It comes again. Stronger this time. A cramp that rolls through my lower abdomen and settles deep, low, in the place where my womb sits. Heat. I’ve been around alphas before but never felt like this. It could have been caused by their scents and how attracted I feel towards these brothers.
I set my fork down. My hand is shaking.
“Liana?” August’s voice. Concerned. His honey scent sharpens.
“I’m just...” I smile, but the smile feels brittle on my face. “It’s been a really long day, and I’m a little tired. The wedding…and everything. I should probably call it a night.”
They don’t push for an explanation.
Julian immediately starts gathering containers. Cole rinses plates in my tiny sink without being asked. August wipes down the table with a dish towel, his movements careful, his eyes on my face like he’s reading something there.
Ezra is the last to leave. He stands in my doorway, one hand on the frame, his tall body blocking the light from the hallway. His gray eyes search my face.
“I’ll give you my number,” he says. “In case you need us. For anything.”
Oh no, I don’t want this to get serious at all.
I can’t be around alphas again and put myself in danger ever again. But I’m already pulling out my phone, my inner omega wolf compelled to obey the alpha before me.
I save his number and give him mine.
“Thank you for helping me today,” I say, meaning it.
“Goodnight, Lia,” says Julian, kissing my hand and making me blush.
“Night,” I say, my stomach doing somersaults from the dark look he’s giving me. They all leave my apartment one by one, and I let out a long sigh after they’re all gone.
The cramps in my belly intensify as I lock the door and slowly lean against it.
My hand presses flat against my lower abdomen, feeling the heat building there, the ache deepening. Slick is running down my inner thighs. My pussy is pulsing, clenching on nothing, hungry and empty and starting to burn.
I make it to the bathroom. Dig through the cabinet for the pain meds I keep for exactly this purpose.
Swallow two dry, leaning against the sink, watching my reflection in the mirror.
My cheeks are flushed. My eyes are too bright.
My straightened hair is coming undone at the temples, dark auburn waves fighting their way back.
I strip the red dress off and let it fall to the floor. As I stand in my underwear, barefoot on the cold tile, I could feel the heat building under my skin like a fever.
My bed. I need my bed.
I crawl under the covers in my underwear.
The sheets are cool against my overheated skin.
The pain meds haven’t kicked in yet. The cramp rolls through me again, deeper this time, and I bite my lip and press my hand between my legs, not to touch, just to feel the heat there, the slick soaking through my cotton underwear, the hungry, empty ache of a body that knows exactly what it wants and can’t have it.
I close my eyes, hoping that by tomorrow morning the pain will pass.