Chapter 21 Maisie #2
He grins. “That’s why I’m not wearing a shirt. Not to seduce you in case you think I brought you here for sex. I feel trapped in clothes, and I thought I could do it with you sleeping beside me, but I had to take them off.”
“Completely naked?”
I peek down to where the sheets conceal the bottom half of his body.
The tips of my fingers literally itch with the need to strip it away and find out if he’s telling the truth.
Knox says he didn’t bring me here for sex.
I believe him, but if he’s truly naked under there, I don’t envision a future where I get out of this bed and walk away.
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
“Yup.”
My eyes snap up, and I feel my face heat at how long I might have been staring.
Not wanting to take him at his word—or to peel back those sheets—I lean over him so I can peer down at the floor. His t-shirt is barely visible, and I don’t see his shorts.
“What are you doing?” he asks, amused.
“Looking for your shorts. I don’t believe you.” I yelp when I overbalance, nearly falling headfirst to the floor.
He catches me, his hands warm through my shirt as he returns me to my side of the bed. “Careful.”
“Thanks.”
“You know, there are easier ways of finding out than by toppling off my bed,” he says, his voice soft with amusement.
“I know.” I smooth my t-shirt down over my thighs for something to do that will hide my red face from him.
“So?”
Finished smoothing invisible wrinkles from my—or rather Wyatt’s—t-shirt that I wore to bed last night, I stare up at the ceiling. Nico brought me a box of clothes I can sleep in. Yet night after night, I find myself sleeping in one of my alpha’s t-shirts instead.
“Looking under that sheet is not a good idea.”
“Because?” he asks, all his teasing amusement vanishing at my quiet tone. Things just got serious, and he knows it.
“I’m becoming needy,” I whisper, ashamed.
When he doesn’t respond, I assume he must be silently laughing at me. I’d think he was sneaking away, but the mattress hasn’t bounced from him getting up.
“Why is that a problem, baby?”
I glance over at him. “I stopped taking heat suppressants.”
All the biological urges I’d been muting for years are growing stronger, but I don’t know when my heat will hit. Days or weeks from now. I keep wanting to nest, to rub up against soft things, and now hard things, and those hard things are the four alphas in this house.
“Wyatt mentioned it. You say needy like it’s a bad thing.”
“Because it is,” I snap, frustrated and embarrassed. “Guys don’t like needy. I’m like a feral cat rubbing up against everything, and it’s only going to get worse, and I don’t want—” My mouth shuts before I can reveal the reason I didn’t want to look under that sheet and why ignorance is bliss.
“What don’t you want?” he asks in a quiet, serious tone that slices through the heat of a thousand different thoughts and feelings I’m struggling to contain.
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself,” I whisper, avoiding his gaze.
You might decide you don’t want me anymore.
“I love you.”
I snap my head toward him, stunned. “What?”
He meets my gaze steadily, and if there are a thousand feelings I’m fighting to contain inside me, there’s one overwhelming emotion pouring out of him.
“I love you, Maisie Lucas. The last two weeks have been happier than any of us have had. I love walking into the kitchen knowing I’ll find you singing along to the radio as you make those addictive pies, and when you don’t know the words to the songs, you just make them up.
When you snuggle on the couch with me and fall asleep on my chest, I get a crick in my neck because I don’t want to move in case I wake you.
And I never want you to move. I fight to keep my hands to myself when you lean against me and hold a forkful of pie to my mouth, asking me if it tastes right.
You have a deputy half in love with you because he’s there to watch the house and you keep bringing him food, drinks, a fan, and a book to read, taking better care of him than his ex-girlfriend did.
” He brushes a strand of my hair from my face.
“I love that you like to snuggle with me on the couch and then scream at the TV when you play that stupid zombie game with Elias. This house is a home because of you, and you’re the only person who doesn’t realize the magic you brought into our lives. ”
With tears in my eyes and my heart full to bursting, I sniff. “You have to tell me when you get a crick in your neck next time, Knox. I’ll move, but I won’t get up, okay?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement.
“No one in this house is going to think less of you for showing how you feel. You think I’m not in here fighting with myself night after night to stop thinking about you so that I can sleep?
That I wasn’t crazy jealous when Wyatt and Elias both had you and not me.
You think I haven’t been imagining how your lips would taste the first time I saw you bite down on them?
” His hand shakes with barely controlled emotion, but the pads of his fingers are whisper-soft when they brush my lips.
“Every day I need you, and that need is not wrong. Neither is yours.”
I stop worrying about him thinking I’m needy, and I kiss him instead.
He groans, framing my face with both hands when I straddle him.
Smiling when I feel something I was not expecting, I break the kiss to peer down at him. “You’re wearing shorts.”
“I didn’t bring you to my room for sex, Maisie. Bumping into my erection in the middle of the night wasn’t a surprise I wanted you to have.”
“But you said sleeping in clothes makes you uncomfortable.”
“Your comfort comes first.”
I frown. “It shouldn’t.” When I see that I’m not changing his mind, I climb off him and tug the sheets completely off him, pushing them to the bottom of the bed. Then I stop pretending that I don’t find his chest hot and get on my hands and knees beside him to kiss his pecs.
“Maisie?” Knox asks, a hitch in his voice. “What are you doing?”
I stop kissing and peer up at him. “Putting your comfort first.”
He combs his fingers through my hair. “You don’t have to do that.”
I walk my fingers down his washboard abs. “Can’t help it. I’m a chest girl.”
The corners of his eyes wrinkle in a smile. It disappears the second I lower my head and kiss his nipples.
His breathing grows louder as I angle downward. “I love the way you taste… and feel,” I whisper. “You’re so hard and hot everywhere.”
My fingers skim the front of his shorts, and his breath catches. His belly tightens, and the hand in my hair tenses.
I cup him lightly through the thin cotton, and he feels so hard and hot that I can’t believe he was lying so calm and casual beside me like this. I never would have known he was this turned on.
“Wondering what to do with it?” A teasing note creeps into Knox’s voice.
“No. I was thinking.”
He lifts his brow. “About?”
I take my hand off his cock and stand up.
“Changed your mind?”
He does a good job of hiding his disappointment, but not good enough. He wants my hand on his cock. Maybe even my mouth on him. He wants it too much to hide his need from me.
“Nope.” Gripping the hem of my shirt, I pull it over my head and drop it on the floor.
All amusement slides off his face. It’s almost funny.
He’s in a struggle with himself, his eyes darting from my bare breasts to the tiny lace panties the boutique owner gave me.
When I bite my lip, he groans and starts to adjust himself through his pants, but stops short and puts his hand back on the bed.
When I grip the waistband of my panties and shimmy out of them, I’m positive he’s not breathing.
“What are you doing?” he whispers, voice rough.
“Seeing to your comfort. No need to move,” I say as I step over him, pausing a second longer than necessary, aware that he’s staring between my thighs.
I would never have been brave enough to expose myself like this to anyone but the four men under this roof. Only they make me feel safe and beautiful in a way no one else ever has.
I continue to the bottom of the bed, smiling at his soft moan when I turn to expose my ass to him.
When I’ve reached my destination, I slide his shorts off and drop them to the floor with our shirts, and push his legs apart.
I kneel in the gap I created, facing him with my palms on my thighs and my head slightly lowered, peering at him under my lashes.
Omegas have always been submissive, more so to alphas than betas. Kneeling in front of Knox, being submissive like this, is making his cock swell and his muscles tense.
He’s no longer holding his breath. His chest is rising and falling, his fingers are gripping the sheets on the bed, and he seems to be having serious difficulties working out where he wants to focus his attention: my face, my bare breasts, or my pussy when I spread my legs a little as I kneeled in front of him.
“Are you comfortable?” I ask.
He shakes his head, dazed. “Huh?”
I grin. “Are you comfortable with me spreading your legs this wide? I can move them closer together if you want?”
“This is good,” he whispers hoarsely.
“Good.” I rest my palms on his thighs and bend over him to kiss the tip of his cock. He groans softly in response. “If there’s anything else I can do to see to your comfort, just let me know.”
“Your hair,” he says, his voice rough. “Put it up. I want to see everything.”
I don’t have a tie, so I gather my hair in a topknot on the top of my head, conscious that it’s pushing my breasts up.
Knox wets his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue as if he’s imagining kissing me there.
Then I return to my task. Hunter and Elias taught me how to enjoy playing, and so I play with Knox’s cock, kissing, licking, and using the edge of my teeth on him.
He watches me, barely blinking, and groans when I do something he likes.
I grip the base of his cock and stroke him from base to tip.