Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
EMILY
H eadlights brighten the meadow, turning my lids a bright pink.
With a sigh, I slowly open my eyes and pull my leg up until I can wrap my arms around my knees.
Beau slowly closes the door to his work truck and leans against it, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
It’s dark enough I can’t tell the details of his expression.
I don’t move from my perch on the guest house’s porch railing, my body still trembling even hours later.
I hadn’t bothered to turn on the porch light, so there’s only the mostly full moon illuminating this part of the meadow.
Whatever he can see of me has him running a hand through his hair and then pulling Penny from her carseat and into his arms. Her hair’s still in the ponytails, but someone’s put her in a set of footed pajamas.
He carries her into our house without looking back at me, her diaper bag slung over one shoulder.
Vanilla explodes around me, just like it has in intervals the last few hours, tinged with my fear and panic and embarrassment.
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the support post, trying to breathe through the tangled mess of emotions that are choking me.
I’d thought I’d dealt with all of them, had gone through the stages of grief when we’d first had Penny and I saw just how much she looks like him.
Apparently not.
Beau’s steps crunch on the gravel between the two houses.
I can’t help but tense. There’s no way I can lay in bed right now, no matter how much we both need to sleep.
The wood creaks under his boots, but his warm weight doesn’t follow.
After a minute, I drop my chin to see what he’s doing.
He’s sitting on the swing on the other side of the porch, his arm thrown across the back and his ankle resting on his other knee.
He carefully sets the baby monitor on the railing nearest him.
His face is soft despite exhaustion lining his mouth and darkening his under eyes.
“I won’t be able to sleep,” I say.
He nods. “I know.”
His voice is as warm as it is quiet, a comforting blanket cast over my shoulders.
Of course he would know. For some reason, the deep-rooted intimacy wrecks me just as much as watching Triston’s face fall as he saw Penny in the private barn.
I blink back tears as I drop my head to my knees, a wave of despair-drenched vanilla moving out from me.
“Emily, come here,” Beau whispers.
I just shake my head. If I move right now, I’m going to run. All those defenses he’s slowly worked his way inside are going to drop right back into place, and I’ll be running to Mom and Dad’s. I suck in a breath. Except that’s where he is, and that won’t be any safer.
The porch creaks, and then Beau’s arms are around me, pulling me into his chest without a word.
He walks us back to the swing and arranges me on his lap, running his hand through my hair and tracing small shapes on my thigh.
The tears are harder to fight back, but I manage to keep them from falling.
I breathe him in, the woody undertones of his shampoo and cologne mixed with the smells of the cattle barns and my own vanilla.
There’s a smattering of the other Alphas, too, light enough it’s just from being at dinner with them all.
None of them have any kind of edge. No anger, no shock, no warning signals that precede a fight.
Dinner must have gone just fine, then.
“We need to talk about it,” he says after a long while.
I shake my head.
Beau tightens his hold on my hair and kisses the top of my head. And then he proves he knows me too well.
“Yeah, that’s not going to work this time, firecracker.” He wraps my hair around his hand. “He’s here through the end of May.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “It’s temporary?”
“Yep,” Beau says. He pulls on my hair until I finally tip my head to see him. His frown is deep, his eyes as serious as Ethan always is.
Why is that more painful than him moving back permanently?
Maybe because it makes me feel even worse for wanting to plaster myself against him until that shattered, heartbroken look was entirely gone from his face.
“Talk to me,” he says, firm enough I know he won’t let me leave this porch until I spill the roiling mess inside me. “I can see all the thoughts swirling.”
“I…” My throat closes.
“You wanted to comfort him. You held yourself back. Why?”
I can’t admit it. I swallow to try and alleviate the lump in my throat. My hands tremble against my stomach.
“Firecracker,” he murmurs. He squeezes my knee and then supplies the words, just like always. He says it without dropping his gaze. “You still feel something for him.”
I nod and close my eyes. He presses his lips to mine for a heartbeat before dragging them along my jaw.
“A lot of something,” I admit.
I shouldn’t, though. Right? We’d never committed to anything more than a summer of fun, and we’d stuck to that even right up until the end.
And then Penny happened, and I couldn’t get in contact with him.
Beau and I built something together just the two of us.
I’m not an Omega, hardwired to desire more than one partner.
So why can I not shake the fact that I want Triston even after him being gone for nearly two years?
He runs a thumb around the shell of my ear, and I shiver.
When he pulls away, I manage to focus on him, all of my guilty thoughts still swirling.
“Me, too,” he whispers.
Something settles low in my belly, a heat that I haven’t felt since that summer. I try to stuff it down until I can’t feel it anymore along with my own attraction to Triston. None of us are who were were then.
“I don’t think I can do another no strings dynamic.”
Beau gives a small half-smile, just a twitch of his lips. “There’s no way for this to be no strings anymore. There is a very clear, very thick string attaching the three of us currently sleeping in her crib and cuddling her favorite dog plushie.”
My heart crowds my throat, and another pulse of my scent floods the air.
“He deserves to know her, firecracker, to have a relationship with her.” He’s so quiet, so unwavering, the same steady rock he’s been since I told him I was pregnant. “You don’t get to decide what that looks like for him. All you get to decide is the dynamic between the three of us.”
“All three of us?”
He runs his palm up my thigh, pushing up the sweatpants I’d changed into when I’d gotten home. “If you don’t want a trio, then we won’t be a trio.”
“Did you ask him?”
Beau shakes his head. “With our family listening to every damn word? When I sent you home to avoid another fight with your brother? Absolutely not.” He runs his thumb over my lips, his hold still tight in my hair.
“But you and I need to be on the same page before anything potentially happens in the next couple weeks.”
I breathe in his scent and try to think past the overwhelming urge to settle the agitation I’d seen Triston trying to hide.
“What if he doesn’t and…?”
There’s that fear that everyone will leave, rearing its ugly head after I thought I’d dealt with it.
“Not what I’m talking about,” he says. “If he doesn’t, then it’s a conversation we don’t have to navigate. I’m talking about if it’s something that might be a possibility, all right? You get to decide. If you don’t, then it’s not on the table. Even if he wants it. Even if I want it. Understand?”
Slowly, I nod. He loosens his grip on my hair, and I settle back against his chest. The crickets grow a bit louder around us. Eventually, I sigh.
“I don’t know what I want,” I admit.
Not entirely, at least.
“That’s all right.” He edges my shirt up and hooks a finger into the waistband of my sweatpants. “Now let me turn that brain of yours off so we can both sleep.”
Vanilla wraps around us, free of any fear or despair for the first time in hours.
Instead, it’s heavy with my own desire. Heat pulses low in my belly, and I arch into him in acceptance.
He wastes no time stripping me out of the pants.
He leaves my panties dangling around one ankle as he guides me to straddle his hips.
The night is just cold enough that goosebumps cover my skin, and I shiver.
Then I scrabble at Beau’s belt, trying to get it undone, need rising like an unending tide.
I want his skin against mine, to touch and taste and mark him.
The need cuts through me, stronger than it has in months.
He shakes his head and forces my hands to his neck.
“I need to mark you,” I admit. My hands curl, my nails cutting into his skin. He sucks in a breath as I draw blood on accident. It satisfies that primal part of me left raw from seeing Triston.
“I know.” He kisses me, long and slow, until I’m rocking my hips into his and my entire body aches with need. He’s breathless and flushed when he pulls away. “I’ll let you mark me in a bit.”
He grunts as he wedges his arms under my legs, forcing them wide as he pulls me off the swing and sets my knees on his shoulders.
“Right now, you’re up here,” Beau says.
I gasp as he licks me from my clit to my ass, one solid line that has me trembling.
“You always taste like a damn dream,” he mutters.
He does it a second time, and I whine. I bury my hands in his hair, trying to stay balanced. He looks up at me as he pulls my clit between his teeth.
“ Fuck ,” I moan. “That’s not fair.”
He chuckles and does it again, and I swear the entire world shakes as pleasure flashes through me.
His hands are warm where they cup my ass, keeping me pressed against him.
My knees shake, and one falls over the back of the swing, pitching my weight forward.
I suck in a breath and twist my hands deeper into his hair. He groans, the sound nearly mournful.
“Shit, sorry,” he says.
He kisses my thigh as he pulls me back from the edge both physically and metaphorically and rearranges us until he’s laid out on the porch swing and I’m kneeling above him.
He grips my hips, his thumb tracing a few of the stretch marks there now.
My heartbeat pulses in my clit, my entire body buzzing with electricity.
“Sit on my face, firecracker.”
I don’t argue, letting my weight fall on his shoulders.
Every single time, it’s like I’ve never had his tongue licking me, tasting me, exploring me.
I rock against him, letting myself fall into the pleasure, letting all the thoughts and fears slowly turn off.
Tension falls away from me even as my toes curl.
I shudder in a gasp as the ball of pleasure coils tighter, small bolts of sensation shooting down my legs as I hang just over the precipice.
Beau pulls me up just enough to keep me from falling over. Again. I can’t help but whine. I grab his hand, digging my nails deep enough to cut.
“My tongue or my dick tonight?”
“Your dick,” I gasp.
And then I’m crawling down his body and pulling at his belt. There’s no grace, no lithe movements. I don’t even bother to get any of the rest of our clothes off. There’s just raw need and an intimacy I’ve craved for years and was terrified I’d never manage to have.
When I finally have my hands around his dick, he grunts and pushes into me. I tighten my hold, and he smirks. His words are breathless, though.
“If you want my dick, firecracker, you can’t play with me tonight.”
Without a word, I rise above him and then take him in one hard, fast slide.
He groans, grabbing my hips hard enough I’ll have bruises in the morning.
I rock my hips against his, relishing the feel of him so deep inside me.
Without lifting my shirt, he slowly traces the stretch marks across my belly, his callouses catching on the soft skin.
He doesn’t miss a single one, each of them memorized by him over the last year.
I swallow the tenderness and safety the touch stirs before they can manifest as tears and let my head fall back.
The swing slowly moves as I pick up my pace, the sounds of our bodies meeting drowning out the crickets.
Beau’s hand slowly rises under my shirt, his fingers feathering up my sternum and then wrapping around the base of my throat.
He pulls me down into him while shoving up into me.
Hard. I moan into his mouth as he bites my lip, taking over the pace and depth of our love making.
The orgasm rushes over me, surprising us both.
Raw sensation rips through me, obliterating all the mixed-up, messy emotions of the day.
I cry out, not bothering to try and be quiet. His lips graze my ear and then my jaw.
“Mark me,” he whispers. “Let that need out.”
I pant, an aftershock pulsing through my limbs as he continues his hard, deep pace. “How much?”
“As much as you need.”
I clench around his dick again, and he grunts.
I bite into his collarbone, breaking the skin, and he curses.
He pulls my hips down, and then he freezes, his entire body taut as a bowstring underneath me.
I pull away from the bite and kiss up his neck, using just enough force to leave bruises in my wake.
“Fuck, firecracker,” Beau gasps. “You’re so fucking amazing.”
He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight to him as our breathing settles and the last of the aftershocks fade from my fingertips. A rustling sound comes through the monitor. We both freeze, but a second sound doesn’t follow, and I relax back into his broad chest. He kisses my temple.
“I love you,” I whisper.
His chuckle is warmer than the sun in July. “I love you, too.”