Chapter 18
Eighteen
JULIAN
I’m standing in the middle of Liana’s flower shop with my arms crossed over my chest, watching four men in black tactical gear systematically dismantle and rebuild the security system of the only place Liana has ever called home, and I’m trying not to think about how much she’s going to hate me for this.
The front window catches the late afternoon light.
One of Cole’s guys is up on a ladder, installing a camera so small you’d have to know exactly where to look to spot it.
The lens is the size of a pencil eraser, matte black, angled to cover the door and the sidewalk.
Another man is at the back door with a drill, swapping out the deadbolt for a biometric lock that will read Liana’s palm and all four of ours.
A third is sweeping the shop with a handheld device that beeps softly every thirty seconds, and I don’t ask what he’s looking for.
“Full system live by sundown,” the team lead says beside me, clipboard in hand. He’s Cole’s oldest friend from his military days.
“Good,” I say. “Before she reopens, I want this place to be a fortress by then.”
He nods once and goes back to his clipboard. No wasted words. I appreciate that. They’re here strictly for one job without wasting a lot of time.
Leaving them to it, I leave the store and cross the street to my car.
The brick storefront sits quiet behind me, the chalkboard sign pulled in, the whiskey barrels of dahlias catching the last of the sun. I slide behind the wheel and sit there for a minute with my hand on the ignition.
I rub my jaw. The stubble there is rough under my palm.
Liana is going to be furious. The look on her face this morning at breakfast when Ezra laid out the security plan was the look of a woman who refused to be told what to do ever again.
I get it. I fucking get it.
But Silus Thornton bought a croissant from her best friend’s bakery this morning.
That is a man who knows exactly where she is and exactly how to find her, and the thought of him standing on that quiet tree-lined block with his cold eyes and his patient smile makes something in my chest go very still and very cold.
I pull my phone out.
My thumb hovers over Liana’s contact. I want to hear her voice and tell her that the shop is safe. I put the phone down. She’s in heat and exhausted. I can tell her after her heat is over.
The elevator to the penthouse is too slow. I jangle my keys in my pocket. Tap my foot. The doors finally open onto the great room, and the first thing I hear is Pepper.
“Goddamn it,” the bird says in August’s voice, clear as a bell, from his perch by the kitchen window. “Where the fuck is my pen?”
I snort. Pepper is picking sunflower seeds out of a small ceramic bowl, his yellow head bobbing, his emerald body puffed to twice its normal size. He spots me and tilts his head exactly ninety degrees.
“Hi gorgeous,” he says, in my voice. My own fucking pickup line, thrown back at me by a parrot.
Ezra is at the island. Charcoal sweater, laptop open, phone to his ear. His jaw is tight. The scar through his eyebrow stands out pale against his skin.
He glances up when I walk in. Nods once. Goes back to his call.
I drop my keys on the counter and pour myself two fingers of whiskey. Don’t bother with ice. Pepper watches me with one suspicious yellow eye. I lean against the counter and wait for Ezra to finish his call.
He does, finally. Sets the phone down and rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
“How’s the shop?” he asks, without looking up.
“Secure. Or it will be by tonight. Cole’s guys are good. Very thorough. Very quiet.”
He nods. His eyes are on the screen. Something about the set of his shoulders tells me the legal situation is complicated.
“Where is she?” I ask. Ezra does not look up from his laptop. His fingers keep moving over the keyboard, steady and measured.
“Library,” he says. Dry. Flat. The single word carries approximately eight tons of unspoken context.
“What?”
Ezra glances up. The look on his face is somewhere between amusement and resignation. “According to my camera footage, August has been in there with her for an hour and forty minutes.”
“Oh,” I say, setting my whiskey down. “An hour?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re…?”
“Yes.”
I finish the whiskey in one swallow. Set the glass in the sink. Hmm, I imagine her naked and wrapped tightly around August, who probably wouldn’t know what to do with a fully luscious omega with big breasts in his arms. My cock hardens as I think about joining and helping him knot her.
Ezra is watching me with that faint, knowing half-smile that makes me want to throw something at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“You’re looking at me like you know exactly what I’m about to do.”
“I do know exactly what you’re about to do,” Ezra says, and goes back to his laptop. “Try not to wake them. She needs the rest.”
I walk down the hallway and stop at the doorway of the library, slowly cracking the door open.
On the rug, in a tangle of bare limbs and slanting sunlight, is August on his back and Liana collapsed on top of him.
Her auburn hair is spread across his chest and shoulders.
One of August’s arms is wrapped loosely around her waist. Her bare back rises and falls with the slow, steady rhythm of someone who has been thoroughly fucked and is finally, blessedly resting.
But she’s not fully asleep.
Her eyes are half-open. Drowsy. Watching the unlit fireplace across the room with a soft, distant focus. She hasn’t heard me come in.
My eyes track down the line of her body.
Her thighs are spread wide on either side of his hips, her knees pressing against the rug.
I can see the swollen base of August’s cock where it disappears between her thighs.
I can see, where her thighs are parted and her ass is on display, the slow, steady drip of August’s cum and her slick where it has started to escape around the knot.
Long streaks of his cum and her slick run down her inner thighs, pooling on the rug beneath them.
She is glistening with it. Filthy with it. Used, leaking, and utterly beautiful. My cock hardens as I grip the door frame, my knuckles turning white. I push the door fully open. The hinge creaks, and her head turns.
She sees me.
Her eyes go wide. Green with gold flecks, pupils dilated, and I watch the moment she registers the position she’s in—spread open on my brother’s cock, cum leaking out of her around his knot, her ass on display for anyone walking past the cracked door.
She holds my eyes from across the room, and a slow flush spreads up her chest. She’s so adorable. I walk into the library and shut the door behind me quietly.
I cross to the rug. Kneel behind her on the antique red wool.
From this angle I can see everything. Her parted thighs. The swollen pink ring of her pussy stretched tight around August’s knot. The splash of cum spilled all over her perineum, over the puckered tight ring of her asshole.
I swallow. My throat clicks.
I am going to lose my fucking mind.
“What are you doing here?” she hisses even though I can hear the arousal in her voice.
“You’re in heat, and your ass needs a knot too,” I growl, spreading her ass cheeks with both hands.
She gasps, and I hear the wet sound of her pussy where she’s still locked to August. Fresh cum runs down from her pussy. Her asshole is pink, tight, untouched, glistening with the overflow of my brother’s release.
“I don’t need a knot right now,” she says angrily, trying to wiggle away, but it only opens her asshole more as I steadily grip her cheeks.
“Don’t be mad at me. Be mad at Ezra,” I say, kissing her ass cheeks.
“Oh fuck,” she says in surrender when she feels my lips against her skin.
“Your ass will be mine today,” I whisper against her ass cheek, kissing her right in the middle. I run the flat of my tongue from the bottom of her crack to the top. One long, slow, filthy pass.
She whimpers, and the sound makes me even harder. “Julian, I’m full of slick there.”
I lick her again. And again.
Cleaning her with my mouth, gathering the mess around her anus, lapping up the slick that has painted her skin. She tastes like roses and salt, and I cannot get enough.
“You have the prettiest ass,” I tell her against her skin. My lips are pressed to the curve of her ass. “You are covered in slick, and I need to taste every drop. You understand me, hun?”
She nods frantically against August’s shoulder. Her fingers are curled into the rug.
I keep her cheeks spread wide and lick deeper. Working my tongue between them, dragging it down to the tight ring of her asshole. She gasps and tries to pull away by instinct or embarrassment. But I grip her ass cheeks to hold her in place. My thumbs dig into the soft flesh of her wiggling ass.
“It’s so intense, oh my god,” she moans as I flick my tongue against her asshole.
“Intense in a good way?” I growl, watching her little asshole blink slowly for me.
“Yes.”
I lick her asshole slower this time. Working her open with my mouth. Her asshole is tight, resistant at first, and then it starts to soften under my tongue. I flatten it against the ring and press harder, sucking gently, and she trembles beneath me.
The tight pink ring yields. Gives. Opens for me while she’s trapped on August’s knot.
I push the tip of my tongue inside her.
She yelps, and her body clenches around nothing, her asshole gripping my tongue, and I growl against her skin.
“You are going to take me here,” I tell her, my voice rough, lips pressed to the curve of her ass. “You are wearing my brother’s knot in your cunt, and you are going to wear my knot in your ass at the same time. You are going to be filled by two of your alphas at once. Do you understand me?”
She nods. Fast. Eager. Her whole body is trembling with want.
I work her open with my mouth for a long time. Patient now. Slow. I use my thumb to spread slick around her tight little hole, working it in, easing one finger inside her experimentally.
She tightens around me and gasps.