Tristan’s face lights up like I’ve just offered him the keys to the kingdom. “Really?”
“On the floor,” I emphasize before he gets any ideas. “As far from the bed as possible.”
“There’s bedding in the closet,” Rett says, already moving toward the adjoining door. “Extra pillows and blankets.”
Within minutes, they’ve transformed my temporary sanctuary into what looks like the world’s most expensive slumber party. Thick comforters spread across the floor, pillows, each of them claiming a section of space that somehow still manages to form a protective circle around the bed.
I watch this process with a mixture of fascination and mounting dread. They move like they’ve done this before, though I suppose they haven’t. None of us has any idea what we’re doing.
“There,” Diego says, settling onto his makeshift bed with a satisfied sigh. “Much better.”
“Better for who?” I mutter, pulling the covers up to my chin like they might protect me from the surreal reality of my life.
“All of us,” Tristan says from his spot near the window. “You can feel it too, can’t you? How wrong it felt when we tried to leave?”
He’s right, though I don’t want to admit it. The moment they’d started moving toward the door, something in my chest had clenched with panic. Like a part of me was being torn away.
“This is temporary, right?” I ask, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “This whole... inability to be apart thing?”
“Should be,” Rett says, though he doesn’t sound entirely certain. “The bond should settle within a few days. Maybe a week.”
“A week,” I repeat faintly.
“Could be longer,” Tristan adds helpfully. When my gaze snaps to his, he shrugs. “I’m just being honest.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper, pressing my forehead against the cool wood of the headboard. “Oh my God.”
I need to call Leah. I need to scream into a pillow. I need to crawl into a hole and never come out again.
Instead, I collapse back onto the bed, burying my face in my hands.
They know. They all know I had a sex dream about them. A dream so intense it made me climax in my sleep. And now I have to face them in the morning, over breakfast, like nothing happened. Assuming we ever make it out of this room.
I groan into my palms, torn between mortification and a persistent, inappropriate arousal that refuses to die down. The claiming marks on my neck still throb, and as a matter of fact, they feel like they’re pulsing now.
One thing’s for certain: there’s no way in hell I’m going back to sleep tonight. Not if it means risking another dream like that. Not with the four of them spread across my floor, ready to hear every sound I make.
I grab my phone from the nightstand, squinting at the bright screen. It’s 3:17 AM. Too early to call Leah, too late to escape to another room, and definitely too awkward to pretend any of this is normal.
I’m trapped in this room until morning, with nothing but myembarrassment and the lingering echoes of that dream to keep me company. And four very alert alphas.
I risk a peek over the edge of my fortress of blankets. They’ve all settled down, but none of them is asleep. Rett is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the door. Tristan is staring up at the ceiling, a thoughtful frown on his face. Diego is on his side, watching me with an expression of such gentle, unwavering care it makes my chest ache.
And Dane... Dane is sitting with his back against the foot of my bed, his head tilted back to rest against the mattress.
An hour passes in complete, charged silence. I’m just starting to think they might have actually drifted off when a low, quiet voice cuts through the darkness.
It’s Dane.
“You were calling for Rett,” he says, not to me, but to the ceiling. “In your dream.”
My blood turns to ice.
From across the room, I hear a sharp, indrawn breath. It’s Rett.
Dane doesn’t say another word. He doesn’t have to. The damage is done. The silence that follows is a thousand times louder and more intimate than the scream that started it all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
