Normal. Right. Like there's anything normal about hooking up with your packmate while your scent match watches from her nest.
Then again,nothingabout this situation is normal.
I take another step toward Plague, closing most of the distance between us. Up close, I can see the flecks of silver in his pale blue eyes, a scrape of stubble along his jaw that he must have missed while shaving this morning. His scent envelops me. Cold, stormy steel.
“Last chance to back out, Ice Prince,” I say.
“I never back out of anything,” he replies, voice low.
And I kiss him.
Chapter
Forty-Two
PLAGUE
The moment Whiskey's mouth crashes into mine, every carefully constructed wall I've spent years building crumbles like wet tissue paper.
His lips are softer than they have any right to be. Is he wearing that stupid overpriced lip balm he impulse-bought at a gas station because the packaging had a werewolf on it? That's such a Whiskey thing to do that I almost laugh into his mouth, but then his tongue slides against mine and my brain short-circuits completely.
Fuck.
I should pull back. Should maintain the distance that's kept me sane for years. Should do literally anything except grab the front of his red plaid flannel and drag him closer.
But that's exactly what I do.
My fingers twist in the worn cotton of his flannel—of course he's wearing clothes that make him look like a damn lumberjack—and I use it to anchor him against me. He makes this sound,half growl and half moan, that vibrates through my chest and straight to my cock.
"Shit," he breathes against my mouth when we break apart for air. "You kiss like you're trying to win something."
"Everything's a competition with you," I snap back, but my voice comes out rougher than intended. Betraying exactly how affected I am.
"Yeah?" His honey-brown eyes are almost black now, pupils blown wide. "Then let's see who breaks first."
I open my mouth to tell him exactly where he can shove his juvenile challenges only for him to kiss me again like he does everything else.
Withzerofinesse and maximum enthusiasm.
There's nothing tentative about it this time. His rough hands frame my face, thumbs brushing along my jaw as he angles my head exactly where he wants it. I can’t even manage to be pissed off at the way he’s manhandling me. Instead, with my lungs full of Ivy’s spiking honeysuckle scent mixing with Whiskey’s cinnamon as she watches us from her nest, I can feel the first warning signs of a sympathy rut building at the base of my spine. That restless, clawing need that usually takes days to build hitting me all at once.
Whiskey’s hands slide down to my shoulders, pushing down. "Loveseat," he rumbles against my mouth.
"Good call," I point out, suddenly nervous even though all the blood in my body has rushed south. "We shouldn't disturb her nest."
"Fuck yeah, that's sacred territory," he agrees, walking me backward toward the loveseat. "Besides, if we're doing this, we're doing it right."
"There's a right way?" I croak, but then the backs of my knees hit the loveseat and I'm falling backward with Whiskey following me down.
The loveseat creaks ominously under us. Definitely not built for two alphas, especially when one of them is built like a grizzly bear. Whiskey settles over me awkwardly, his thick thighs barely fitting in the limited space, and grins down at me like he's won something.
"Look at you," he says, voice dropping to that low rumble that absolutely doesnotmake my skin prickle with want. I swallow hard. "The great Plague, flat on his back. Never thought I'd see the day."
"Cherish it while it lasts," I tell him, trying to sound bored despite the fact that I'm harder than I've been in years. "This is a one-time necessity, nothing more."
"Sure it is." He leans down, his breath hot against my ear. "That's why you're practically vibrating under me."
I am not vibrating. I'm maintaining perfect stillness like the disciplined alpha I am. The fact that my hands have somehow found their way to his waist, fingers digging into the solid, bearlike bulk of him through his flannel, is purely coincidental.
