I couldn’t breathe. On the couch, Heath, Tony, and Gage were also staring at Knox like they didn’t recognize him.
Knox swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “If you’ll have me, it would be my honor to mate you, once we’ve both agreed to it while in our right minds. But not right away. I want you to think about it first.”
I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t have to think about it, but Knox shook his head, stopping me.
“And if you agree, I’d like it to happen during your next heat,” he finished.
I paused to make sure he was actually done this time.
“The answer is yes,” I told him.
His shoulders slumped in relief. “Oh. All right then.”
Tony was staring at us, looking so much like a live-action heart-eye emoji that it almost made me laugh past the burn of my unshed tears. Then Knox turned to him, and he froze.
“Tony,” Knox said. “I’m still figuring this out... but if everyone else is amenable, and, I mean, ifyou’reamenable,obviously—then I’d like permission to also court you. Romantically, that is. I can’t promise anything sexual, but I’m not ruling it out, either.” He cleared his throat, looking awkward. “As you can probably tell, I’m still figuring myself out at the age of thirty-two. Which is fairly embarrassing.”
Tony looked shocked, but he recovered way faster than I had. He lounged on Heath’s chest with an exaggerated look of thoughtfulness.
“Hmm. Would it involve you buying me more nice clothes and taking me to fancy restaurants?” he asked.
“Whatever you like,” Knox said.
“What about movie nights with popcorn and cuddling?” Tony leaned on his elbows and shot me a wink so fast I barely caught it.
Knox squirmed. “Yes, but I might be really bad at it.”
“You’re not bad at it,” I assured him, wriggling in a bit more snugly against his toned body.
“Congrats—you got the JezSeal of Cuddling Approval, boss,” Gage said, amusement clear in his voice. “Holy shit. We’re gonna be a proper pack? For real? This isfucking awesome.”
“Who would have guessed we’d end up here?” Heath added dryly... but I could feel how pleased he was through the bond.
“Who indeed?” Knox echoed wryly, his strong arms squeezing tighter around me.
After the growing stickiness finally drew me to the luxury six-jet shower in the nest’s attached bathroom, the others wandered off to get cleaned up and arrange for a meal to be delivered. Clean and sated, I lay on my back on one of the nest’s scattered beanbag chairs, staring at the twinkling fairy lights above me with unfocused eyes.
Was this real?
Idly, I slipped a hand inside my fuzzy robe and pressed my fingers to one of the matching sets of bruises on my hips. The imprint of Knox’s grip gave a low, achy throb in response—physical proof that the stoic pack leader had, in fact, been balls-deep in me less than an hour ago.
A light knock tapped at the door, followed by a muffled voice. “It’s Tony. Can I come in?”
I retied my robe and went to let him in. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He crossed to the couch and flopped down on it, staring at the ceiling much as I had been doing a minute ago. “So. Um. That was a thing that happened. Apparently.”
I went back to my beanbag, but this time I perched on it and hugged my knees to my chest as I contemplated the last few hours. “... Yeah.”
Tony ran a hand roughly through his damp hair before letting it fall. “Yeah. Except, this kind of stuffdoesn’thappen, Jez. Not to people like us.”
I knew exactly what he meant.People like us. The broken ones. Society’s discards.
“But what if it did?” I asked.
He threw his hands up in the air. “I mean—I don’t know? Are we supposed to just... what? Live happily ever after like a pair of really fucked-up fairytale princesses?”
We stared at each other for long moments.
