“And if she asks for help?” Cole presses.
Malik meets his eyes steadily. “Then we give it to her. But only if she asks. We don’t offer, we don’t push, we wait for her to decide what she needs.”
It’s a good plan. Reasonable. Respectful.
It’s also going to be torture.
Because I know what’s going to happen. One of us is going to check on her, smell her heat, hear her struggling, and our alpha instincts are going to scream at us to help. To offer. To give her what her biology is demanding.
And if she says yes, everything changes.
Everything I’ve been carefully managing. All of it becomes irrelevant.
Because there’s no staying distant after you’ve knotted someone. No pretending you don’t feel things after you’ve been inside them, felt them come apart around you, heard them cry your name.
The thought terrifies me.
But it also sends a thrill through me that I can’t deny anymore.
Because maybe, just maybe, this is my chance. My chance to show her how I feel without having to say the words. My chance to be what she needs.
Even if it’s just for a week. Even if it doesn’t mean to her what it means to me.
I’ll take it.
Dax meets my eyes, and I wonder if he can see the shift in me. The decision I’ve just made.
“One step at a time,” I say quietly.
But we both know the truth.
The first step is already behind us.
The next one is just a matter of time.
And when it comes, when Sierra finally asks for help or when one of us can’t take it anymore and offers...
I’ll be ready.
Ready to give her everything she needs.
Ready to show her everything I’ve been hiding.
Ready to risk it all.
Because the only thing worse than her knowing how I feel and rejecting me would be letting her suffer when I could help.
And I won’t do that.
I can’t.
Not to her.
Never to her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sierra
