The way her scent spikes just enough to let me know she’s thinking about something she shouldn’t.
“You’re quiet today,” she says eventually, voice low. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it.
“You, ah… You heard, huh?”
She moves in front of me, fingers still ghosting over my chest, slower now.
“It wasn’t meant to happen so fast,” she says softly. “With Beau.”
Her lips are a little swollen, and I can see it: the faint edges of his claim mark tucked just beneath the collar of her shirt.
“You smell like both of them,” I say quietly.
She swallows thickly.
“I know.”
“You… didn’t mean to trigger him,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t. But... maybe I didn’tnotwant it either.”
The statement is painfully honest.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Emery’s hands rest lightly against my chest, though her eyes don’t quite meet mine, fixed somewhere near my collarbone instead, like she’s afraid of what she might see if she looks up.
“It makes sense,” I say finally, my voice steadier than I feel. “He was already on edge. Injured and pushing himself. Add… everything else, and—”
“And I’m an omega in close quarters with a pack of alphas,” she finishes quietly. “Yeah. I know.”
There’s no defensiveness in it. It’s reality, laid bare.
She lets out a long breath, and then her fingers move again, professional instincts kicking back in as she continues to check my range of motion, gentle but thorough. I follow her lead, lifting my arm and rolling my shoulder carefully, watching her expression tighten when I wince.
“Still tender,” she murmurs.
“I’ll live,” I say. “I always do.”
She gives me a look at that—one that says she knows that answer, and doesn’t love it.
There’s something blooming here. It’s not the sharp pull I feel when Beau’s in the room, or the reckless heat Connor carries like a second skin. This is…different. It’s the kind of closeness that sneaks up on you, and for half a second, I wonder what it would be like to lean in.
To close the small, charged space between us.
To see if that softness would sharpen into something else.
The door slams open, and my eyes widen.
“—Shit. Sorry.”
Connor barrels in like he always does; momentum first, apology second. He stops short when he clocks the scene: me on the table, Emery mid-assessment, the air thick with things unsaid.
“Am I… interrupting something?”
His tone might be light, but his eyes are anything but.
