“Wrong question,” Daniel said. “Did you really think you were just not going to tell us?”
She reached into the large pocket at the front of her sweater, fidgeting with something there. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You could have gone with, ‘Hey, you know how I lied to you about getting my period? Well, guess what, I’m actually pregnant,’” Daniel said, voice rough.
She winced, her shoulders curling in. “I was going to tell you, but then you seemed like you’d changed your minds.”
“What?” Trent asked.
“After the warehouse. You agreed I should go to Marshall’s, then you didn’t come see me.”
“You didn’t ask us to visit,” Kyle pointed out.
“I thought you realized it was all just some game, that maybe I was stupid because I’d never been in love before.” Her bottom lip quivered the tiniest bit, and still she played with what was in her pocket.
Stupid woman.
Trent came up and rested his hip against the bed. “We backed off because you always said you were done after the case. I didn’t want to push you, to make you feel trapped. I thought maybe a little time on your own would let you realize you actually liked us. I guess I underestimated how stubborn you are.”
She didn’t even smile, though she did lift her face to his.
I miss her collar…
“I’m afraid,” she admitted. “What if you change your mind?”
He looked down at her, waiting until she met his gaze, until those stunning green eyes of hers were locked on him. “I’ve been alone for the last eight years, pet. I never figured I’d have a place again, that I’d ever find one worth wanting. You? You’re home.”
“My father was selling me off to the dead man in that office. I realized right then that I didn’t want to go back to my old life. It made me finally able to see the difference between what I was afraid of and what I wanted.”
“Oh yeah, and what did you decide you wanted?”
She reached out and cupped his face, pulling him in to whisper against his lips, “you,” before she kissed him.
And that was the best thing Trent had ever heard.
Kyle couldn’t quite take his gaze from Alison’s stomach.
Pregnant?
How could he be a father? How had everything changed in the last few minutes?
Still, when she looked his way, he offered her a smile he knew he always would, his way of reassuring her, of telling her something his words were no good at. “Got to say, I missed you.”
“You’re sure about this? Because I’m not trying to force you into anything.”
He laughed, taking Trent’s spot when he moved. “You couldn’t force me into anything. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the one who gets tied up, not me. And, sugar? There’s no one I want to spend the rest of my life tying up more than you.” He set a hand on her stomach, gentler than he needed to be, before leaning in and setting a kiss there.
Without jobs, Kyle and Daniel had taken it easy for the past two weeks. He had no idea of their direction, but something had felt better when they had moved into Trent’s place. They’d been missing Alison, of course, but the fracture that had run through him since the falling-out with Trent finally felt healed. He couldn’t imagine going back to being separated, no matter how their lives fell into place together.
Kyle had never wanted anything, content to take things as they came. Nothing had ever mattered to him enough to care. Then he’d met her, the feisty woman who had been more trouble than any female ought to be, and for the first time he’d not only wanted but needed something.
He had a family, one he cared about more than anything, one that he’d damn well do anything to keep, and it was all thanks to the omega who had broken his nose.
Daniel waved Kyle off, taking the spot. He slid his fingers into Alison’s hair and tightened his grip. “I don’t like that you lied to me.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Liar. You just want to punish me for it.”
Her humor made him laugh, and he leaned in to take a kiss that was far rougher than what Trent had given her. Then again, Daniel wasn’t a gentle person. It was something he’d accepted about himself, but something no one else had ever been able to.
