Chapter 11 #2
Tears are creeping out of the corners of my eyes, and I quickly wipe them away, adjusting my glasses.
“And you found a storage room with champagne crates,” Corey adds, glancing around. “Which shows excellent judgment under pressure.”
I laugh properly this time, even though it comes out wet and uneven.
“There she is,” Corey murmurs, but there’s no triumph in it. Only relief.
The room is still too small. My face is on fire, and my heartbeat hasn’t fully settled. But I’m standing between three Alphas who followed me not to demand an explanation or tell me I was overreacting, but simply because they noticed I was gone.
For the first time since Louis approached me, I breathe all the way in.
They remain close, and their warmth presses through the thin fabric of my dress, their scents tangling around me, and the last of the panic begins to loosen from my ribs.
“How are you all so amazing?” I ask, my voice muffled, wiping away a stray tear from my cheek.
“Excellent genetics,” Corey says immediately. “Years of training. A strict diet of protein and emotional intelligence.”
A laugh shakes out of me. Their arms soften, but none of them move away. When I lift my face, Brody has shifted to stand in front of me, Jakob to my side.
Too close.
Or perhaps exactly close enough.
His gaze travels over me slowly, taking in the wetness beneath my eyes, the flush in my cheeks, the smile I’m still trying to hold on to. He reaches up and brushes his thumb under one lens of my glasses, catching the tear I missed.
“We’ve had practice,” he reminds me quietly.
“At handling weddings?”
“At knowing when someone needs people around her who aren’t going anywhere.”
My breath catches.
The humor fades from the room, leaving something softer and far more dangerous behind. Corey and Jakob are still at my sides. Brody’s thumb lingers against my cheek, and my pulse races.
I want them here.
Brody searches my face as if he’s waiting for me to retreat, but I don’t. I’m still smiling when I lift my chin, and then he’s kissing me.
The first touch of his mouth steals the breath I only just managed to recover.
He kisses me slowly at first, one hand cupping my cheek, but the restraint lasts only seconds before the pressure deepens.
His mouth moves over mine with a heat that makes my knees soften and my fingers clutch the front of his jacket.
Everything inside me turns bright and liquid, the storage room, the wedding, and Louis dissolving until there is only Brody’s mouth and the sharp rush of being wanted.
Then I feel Corey and Jakob closer. The awareness of them sends another wave of heat through me.
Brody eases back just far enough for me to breathe. His eyes are dark, his own breath uneven, and for one suspended second, I think he might kiss me again.
Instead, Corey’s fingers curl lightly beneath my chin, turning my attention toward him. “My turn?” he asks, his grin softer than usual.
I should say something sensible.
I don’t.
Corey leans in, and his kiss is different.
Brody’s is fire held under control. Corey kisses as though he’s been waiting for permission and has no intention of wasting it.
His mouth curves against mine before the kiss deepens, playful for one heartbeat, then hungry enough to make my fingers slide to his shoulders.
A deep, guttural growl emanates from him when I press closer, and the heat in my body turns into something restless and aching.
When he draws back, his smile is unsteady. “Well,” he murmurs, “something else I can’t do without now.”
A breathless laugh escapes me, and then Jakob is there.
He doesn’t ask with words. He simply studies me, giving me every chance to turn away.
Then his hand closes gently around the side of my neck, and when his mouth meets mine, all that control becomes something devastating.
His kiss is heavy without being hurried, confident without taking more than I give, and the steadiness of it melts me faster than either of the others did.
His tongue sweeps into my mouth, claiming more of me, and I soften against him.
Heat spreads between my thighs, fiercely, the same betrayal my body offered the other night with Brody, only worse now because there are three of them and I want each one.
Jakob’s thumb strokes once beneath my ear before he lifts his mouth from mine.
No one speaks for a moment.
I’m standing in the middle of them, breathless, flushed, and holding on to Jakob’s jacket while Brody watches my mouth and Corey smiles, far too pleased with himself.
“Never kissed three men at once,” I murmur, blushing, while the three of them stare at me hungrily.
They’re all smiling at me with a kind of stunned admiration that has the room tilting beneath my feet. No one has ever stared at me as though I’ve just ruined every kiss that came before mine, as though they can’t quite believe what I did to them.
Maybe I’m imagining it.
Maybe the heat roaring through me has finally burned away whatever common sense I had left.
My back presses harder into the wall, my pulse pounding everywhere, while all three of them stay close enough that the air between us feels alive. I can barely breathe or think, and the worst part is how desperately I crave their attention. My thighs are clenching so tightly together.
Brody’s mouth brushes the corner of mine, each kiss deliberately missing my lips until I’m laughing breathlessly and turning my face to chase him.
Corey’s fingers catch the strap of my dress and ease it down my shoulder, his mouth following the path he reveals, warm lips pressing against skin that already feels too sensitive. The touch tears a gasp from me.
Then Jakob’s hand slips through the slit in my skirt, and higher.
His palm glides slowly along my bare thigh, and every muscle in my body locks before melting beneath him.
I arch away from the wall and straight into the three of them, caught between mouths and hands and the overwhelming pull of their scents.
Brody’s lips finally close over mine, Corey’s teeth graze my shoulder, and Jakob’s fingers tighten against my inner thigh as though he feels the exact second my knees begin to fail.
There’s nowhere left in my mind for Louis, the reception, or the fact that we’re hiding in a storage room.
Only extraordinary heat. The rough sound of their breathing.
My broken gasp as they press closer and turn me into something reckless and hungry and completely unlike the woman who came in here shaking.
I clutch Brody’s jacket with one hand and Corey’s arm with the other, while Jakob’s touch moves higher, and my entire body strains toward it.
Then the door flies open.
Light slashes across the room.
All four of us freeze, then turn our attention to the doorway.
Louis is standing there. His champagne glass hangs halfway to his mouth, his face stripped of every trace of smugness as his gaze takes in the scene one devastating detail at a time.
Behind him, a wedding guest lifts her phone.
The flash explodes.
Click.
Oh, shit.