They stare at me as if they can’t believe I’m here. I stare back, confused why no one’s moving.
I clear my throat. “Was there anything?—”
“Shit.” Elias spins around to leave. He might have made it if Wyatt, Hunter, and Knox hadn’t all tried for the door at the same time.
I bite the inside of my cheek to contain my laugh when they get stuck in the doorway trying to leave at once. Once they’ve stopped glaring at each other and pushed themselves out of my room and into the hallway, Wyatt finds me smiling when he turns to shut the door.
The corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement. “Sorry about that. Promise we all have brains in our heads. Night, darlin’.”
“Night, Wyatt. And thanks.”
“Anytime.”
He shuts the door, and I take in the room again. I’m not sure what I did in my life to deserve all of this, but right now, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. In a clean, new environment, I smell the smoke on my clothes, and my face feels tight and itchy from crying.
“Shower and get ready for bed,” I whisper. “Then you have permission to cry under the sheets if you need to.”
I’m not sure if the tears will be in gratitude that I survived today, or that I landed on my feet courtesy of the four alphas who have done more for me than anyone ever has. Probably a combination of the two.
Chapter 8
Elias
Maisie is drowning in my shirt, and I’m fighting to keep my hands to myself.
I followed the soft tread of her footsteps from the staircase and into the living room. It feels wrong to be secretly watching her like this, but I can’t turn away. Something about her wearingmyclothes, rubbing againstherskin…
Yeah, walking away isn’t an option.
Is she even wearing anything under that shirt?
Last night, Wyatt brought her home in a sooty, dirty PJ set, her feet bare. Her huge blue eyes were red from tears and smoke; her voice was raspy. She looked so fucking sweet and sad. All I wanted to do was carry her up to bed, build her a nest, give her every single thing she could ever want. My thoughts had been about taking care of her. Pure. Comfort.Only.
Then I spent twenty minutes in my bed staring up at the ceiling, hard as a rock, listening to her in the shower. I wanted to touch her. Kiss her. I needed to know how it would feel to rub my hands over her slippery wet skin, then pin her against the shower wall and fuck her against it.
Omegas are…enticingto alphas.
Maisie Lucas is something else entirely. She’s not my scent match. Not that she’s Wyatt's, Hunter's, or Knox’s either, but some needs and wants speak to a part of your soul that you can’t ignore. I wanted her before I caught her scent; her scent just makes me crave her even more.
As she stands in the living room, peering curiously around, I can’t help but want her even more. In Nico’s Diner, I was in public. I had to keep my thoughts and urges in check.
Now she’s in our home, and we’re all alone.
I need to know what she’s wearing under my t-shirt.
I should be in the kitchen making breakfast for her. The guys have gone to work, but I took PTO to spend it watching over Maisie. As much as we all wanted to stay, we have jobs we can’t all take personal time off for, especially with the condo job ramping up to completion.
She picks up a black-framed photo of us from a side table, lifting it closer to her face to examine it as I continue to study her from the living room doorway.
Someone took the photo at a brewery in Texas. My mind is hazy about our night out to celebrate the completion of our first job together, a small housing development. We were beyond buzzed by that point, so I have no clue who took the picture. We’d eaten too many wings, downed too many shots, but even before that, we were having fun. None of us had a pack before or thought we’d ever be part of one, but we knew we wanted to keep working together.
Sunlight bounces off strands of gold, auburn, and copper. Her shoulder-length hair is a little curlier in the morning than it was last night, tempting me to plunge my hand into it. She’s so fucking pretty.
A tiny line forms between her dark blonde brows. When she gnaws at her bottom lip with small white teeth, I swallow a groan as I strangle the need to adjust myself in my pants.
“Hey,” I say softly before I can act out any of the five inappropriate thoughts involving her mouth and my cock.
With a gasp, the photo flies out of her hand.
