Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Eli
I wait until the porch light flickers on and the front door clicks shut behind her. Only then do I shift my car into gear.
My hands grip the steering wheel, but my mind is still back in that parking lot. The way she felt, the sounds she made. Fucking her had been... transcendental.
I’ve thought about knotting her plenty of times in the last few weeks—usually when I’m alone in my bed or staring at the ceiling while Fallon snores in the next room—but nothing could have compared to the reality.
The heat of her, the way she surrendered to it. The sheer power of that final moment when my body locked with hers. I’d never felt anything like it.
The orgasms I wrung out of her after the knot took hold were intense, her inner muscles clenching around me so tight it sawed the air right out of my lungs.
My cock gives a interested twitch in my pants, reminding me that recovery time for Alphas is short, but I ignore it. I smile into the darkness of the car. I feel light. Weightless.
The drive to the warehouse is short. The snow is picking up again, swirling in the headlights, but I barely feel the cold.
When I unlock the heavy steel door and step inside, the space is quiet. The living area is dimly lit by the floor lamps Fallon insists on leaving on.
He’s sprawled on the sofa, one arm thrown over his face, the other dangling off the edge. He’s out cold, his chest rising and falling in a deep, even rhythm.
Knox is at the kitchen island, sitting on a stool with a plate of leftovers. He’s eating methodically, a forkful of cold pasta in one hand, a book in the other.
“You’re late,” he says without looking up. He turns a page.
“I was making sure she got home safe,” I say, locking the door behind me. “Her brother is... protective.”
Knox nods, finally glancing at me over the rim of his glasses. “It’s good. You’re courting her properly.” He takes a bite of pasta, chewing slowly. “I had the weirdest encounter at the gym earlier.”
I walk over to the sink to wash my hands. The water is cold, shocking my skin back to reality after the heat of the car. “Oh?”
“I was walking out to the car. It was already dark.” Knox sets his fork down. “I saw a woman near the edge of the lot. For a second, I thought it was Amber.”
I freeze, my hands under the water. “Amber? She was at work.”
“I know. That’s why I did a double take. Same height. Same hair.” He shakes his head, frowning. “But it wasn’t her. This woman... she looked terrified. She was asking me where the bus stop was.”
I grab a dish towel and dry my hands, turning to lean against the counter. “Did she look like a local?”
“No. She looked like she was running from something.” Knox picks up his fork again. “She didn’t have a coat. Just a thin sweater. She was shivering. I gave her some cash for a cab instead.”
“That was nice of you.”
“She needed it.” He shrugs. “It was strange, though. The resemblance. For a moment, my heart stopped. I thought something had happened to Amber.”
I open the fridge and grab a bottle of apple juice, twisting the cap. “Did you know her? Had you seen her around town?”
“Non. Never before.” Knox pushes his plate away. “Maybe she was just passing through. Like that woman Fallon brought home last week.”
“Fallon brings home a lot of women,” I say, taking a long drink of the juice. It’s tart and cold.
“And he sleeps through them all,” a voice groans from the sofa.
Fallon shifts, rolling onto his back. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, blinking up at the ceiling.
“Why are you guys being so loud? Some of us are trying to recover from a very emotionally taxing day.”
“Va te coucher,” Knox snaps at him. “Go to bed, Fallon. You snore like a chainsaw.”
Fallon sits up, scrubbing a hand through his messy hair. He looks groggy, but his eyes are sharp as they land on me. Then he looks at Knox.
“You asked him yet?” Fallon asks.
Knox throws his hands up. “Putain! You always jump the gun. I haven’t asked him anything. We just sat down.”
“Asked me what?” I walk over to the island, leaning my hip against it.
Fallon swings his legs off the sofa, planting his feet on the floor. He looks between us. “About tonight. About Amber.”
“We need to talk,” Knox admits, his voice dropping an octave. “About what we told her the other night. Has she brought it up again?”
“I think we scared her,” I say, setting the juice bottle down. “In the office. We unloaded all this heavy stuff about the pack and the rule, and then we just told her to go to sleep.”
“It was a lot,” Fallon agrees. “She looked shell-shocked.”
“So, what are we thinking?” I ask.
“Dinner,” Fallon says immediately. “Invite her here. For dinner.”
“Here?” I glance around the warehouse. It’s home, but it’s big and industrial. “You think she’ll come?”
“It’s better than the kitchen,” Fallon points out. “In the restaurant, she’s an employee. The dynamic is too rigid. Knox is the boss, she’s the staff. We can’t really talk there.”
“I agree,” Knox says. He stands up, taking his plate to the sink. “The kitchen isn’t the best environment for a conversation about feelings. They just get in the way of the mise en place.”
“Here is neutral ground,” Fallon says. “We can cook for her, pour her some wine, and actually sit down like adults and figure this out.”
“Do you think she’s ready?” I ask, thinking about her face in the car, the way she hesitated before asking if I was jealous. She’s fragile, in a way. Strong, but carrying heavy baggage. “We just dropped the ‘we all like you’ bomb on her.”
“Which is exactly why we need to do this,” Fallon insists. “We like her, Eli. We’ve told her that. Now we need to see what she’s thinking. Is she interested? Is she terrified? Does she want to bolt?”
I nod slowly. It makes sense. “I think that’s a good idea. Just... take it slow. Don’t overwhelm her.”
“We’re Alphas,” Knox says, drying his hands on a towel with aggressive precision. “We’re capable of controlling ourselves. Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Fallon echoes with a smirk.
“So, we do it,” I say. The thought settles in my chest, warm and right. “We have her over.”
“When?” Fallon asks.
“Tomorrow night,” Knox decides. “Sunday is usually quiet at the restaurant. We can close early.”
“What will we eat?” Fallon asks, perking up. “If I’m cooking, we’re doing steak.”
“I will cook,” Knox says, his voice leaving no room for argument. “If we’re doing this, we do it properly. I will make a roast. With root vegetables and a red wine reduction.”
“Classic Knox,” Fallon laughs. “Meat and potatoes.”
“It works,” Knox says. “You two handle the invite. Make sure she knows she doesn’t have to come. No pressure.”
“I’ll text her,” I say. “Let her know we want to talk.”
“Good.” Knox glances at the clock on the wall. “Now, if we’re done analyzing my cooking, I’m going to bed. I have a menu to finalize in the morning.”
“I just love annoying you,” Fallon tells Knox.
Knox walks past him, cuffing him lightly on the back of the head. “Sois pas le con. Go to sleep.”
“Goodnight, Mom,” Fallon grumbles.
Knox ignores him, heading up the stairs to his room. The warehouse settles back into silence.
I look at Fallon. He’s watching me, a knowing look in his eyes.
“You smell like her,” he says quietly.
I flush. “Yeah.”
“And like sex.” He stretches his arms over his head, his joints cracking. “Must have been a good talk in the car.”
“It was,” I admit.
“Good.” He stands up and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Get some sleep, brother. Tomorrow we start figuring out how not to screw this up.”
“Right.”
I watch him head to his room, closing the door behind him. I stand alone in the middle of the living area for a moment, listening to the hum of the refrigerator.
A dinner. Just the four of us. It sounds simple, but I know it’s not.
It’s a crossroads. We’re inviting her into our sanctuary, into the heart of the pack. If she says yes, if she walks through that door tomorrow night, everything changes.
I turn off the floor lamps, plunging the room into darkness, and head for my own bed. My body is tired, but my mind is wide awake, replaying the feeling of her skin under my hands, the sound of her saying my name.
We’re in trouble. The best kind of trouble.