Chapter 12 #3
After we’ve finished our pie, we gather the plates and head into the kitchen together, bumping shoulders and getting in each other’s way until Ethan finally throws a dish towel over one shoulder and shoos us toward the door.
“Out. All of you. I can’t wash dishes with the four of you hovering around my kitchen, making heart eyes at each other. Go be weird somewhere else.”
Still laughing, we drift back into the main room together, and a yawn catches me halfway across the floor.
Roman smiles first. “You’re exhausted.”
“A little bit.”
“Then come back with us,” Grayson says immediately. His hand settles low against my back, warm and possessive without pushing. “The fire’s going. We’ll throw on a movie, and you can steal all the blankets. Nobody’s making you do a damn thing except stay where we can keep looking at you.”
My heart melts. “That,” I admit with a helpless laugh, “is an incredibly tempting offer.”
Wolf’s dark eyes track every flicker across my face. “Then say yes.”
I glance between the three of them and have to smile, because every one of them wants the same thing and none of them is pretending otherwise.
“I’d fall asleep on one of you before the opening credits.”
Grayson’s grin widens. “I fail to see the downside.”
Roman chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve got two shoulders you’re welcome to borrow.”
“She’s not borrowing mine,” Wolf says, his voice low enough to send a shiver through me. “If she falls asleep on me, she’s staying there.”
Heat blooms across my cheeks.
“See?” I laugh. “I don’t even know how to do… this.” I gesture helplessly between the four of us. “One Alpha would’ve been enough to turn my life upside down. Three of you…” I shake my head, smiling despite myself. “I’m still trying to catch my breath.”
Grayson’s thumb traces one slow pass against the small of my cheek before he lets his hand fall away. “Nobody’s asking you to figure out forever tonight,” he says. “We’re just having a hard time letting you walk away.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Wolf mutters, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’ve been trying to convince myself not to carry you back to our cabin since dessert.”
Roman huffs a quiet laugh, nodding.
“Tomorrow,” I whisper, because if I stay another minute, I honestly don’t know whether I’ll leave them at all.
Wolf studies me for a long moment before giving the smallest nod. “Tomorrow,” he agrees. “But don’t make us wait too long.”
Roman is the first to move closer. He cups the back of my neck, his forehead resting against mine for the briefest second, his eyes searching my face. “Sleep,” he murmurs. “We’ll still be here in the morning.” Then he brushes a slow kiss across my lips.
Wolf steps in next, nudging him over, one rough finger tipping my chin up until I’m looking at him. And his mouth finds the corner of mine, close enough that my breath catches, the promise lingering far longer than the kiss itself.
Grayson’s there too as Wolf steps aside, his hand cradling my jaw while he presses a kiss against my cheekbone, fire igniting beneath my skin. “Sweet dreams, little bird,” he murmurs. “Try not to dream about us too much.”
“Impossible,” I whisper, mostly to myself, but by their grins, I know they heard me.
Then, somehow, all three of them step back, even though I crave them right down to my bones. They stroll out, and once they’re gone, I’m grinning like a crazy person because is this happening to me?
As I reach the stairs, Ethan pokes his head out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. He takes one look at my face and smiles. “Been a while since I’ve seen you grin like that.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks. “Is it that obvious?”
“To everybody.” He leans against the doorway. “Those idiots are good for you.”
My smile softens. “It feels like it, yet I keep waiting for something to go wrong.” I shrug helplessly.
Ethan frowns and exhales loudly. “Lucy, you already lost the impossible once.” He folds the towel over his shoulder. “Don’t punish yourself by losing this before it’s even had the chance to begin.”
I stand there quietly for a moment. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Get some sleep. Those boys aren’t going anywhere.”
I blow him a kiss and head upstairs.
Before long, I’m showered and burrowed beneath the huge quilt on my bed. I roll onto my side, smiling into the pillow, and the darkness slowly swallows the room as sleep takes me.
The next thing I know, I wake with a sharp gasp.
My arm is on fire. Pain tears out from the bite, racing up toward my shoulder. And I’m soaked between my thighs from arousal, which makes no sense. I cry out from the pain throbbing in my mark and clamp my hand over it. There’s heat pouring from my skin, and my stomach drops.
Something’s wrong with me.
It has to be the bond. We’ve left it incomplete for too long, and an open bond is vulnerable and can decay, exactly the way I’d been taught it could. Terror crashes through me because I did nothing about it and panicked about everything else.
I knew I shouldn’t have let myself hope. Please… don’t let this be the beginning of the end.