Her eyes stray to my mouth, and my belly tightens in response to the heat in her gaze.
Does she want me to kiss her?
“The others went to work, but we thought we could all meet at the diner for lunch. Hunter, Knox, and Wyatt are finishing work a little earlier so we can do this when it’s busiest in town,” I say, giving her a snippet of a much longer conversation that started after she went to bed last night and continued into this morning.
“Why?”
I hesitate.
Last night, Wyatt made it clear that she might not want to talk about this. She refused to talk about it with himandwith the sheriff.
“About the fire at your apartment?—”
“What about it?” She sits back in her seat and pulls her hands from mine.
Looks like Wyatt was right.
Giving her more space for a conversation she doesn’t want to have, I rise from my crouch and take a seat in the chair besideher. “We figured it was someone who hurt you, so we spent most of last night talking about how best we could protect you.”
Her jaw drops. “Protectme?”
I give her a firm nod. “If someone thinks you’re alone and without friends, we want to make it crystal clear they’re fighting a losing battle. They have four alphas standing in their way.”
She swallows. “Knox threatened to throw a guy out of the diner window for trying to touch me.”
“And he meant every word. We’d have all done the same. Eating lunch together in town, at the diner, in full view of everyone, would send out a clear message.”
“And that message is?”
I hold her gaze as I tell her, “You’re ours, and there is no way on this planet that we’re about to let anyone hurt you.”
She tilts her head. “So… pretend?”
This is absolutely not pretend. Maisie Lucas has felt like ours since we walked into the diner, and she froze us all on the spot.
Nico wasn't surprised to learn she was staying here with us after the fire rendered her apartment unlivable. Once Nico has finished dealing with the insurance company on behalf of his niece, who owns the apartment, it will still be a couple of months, if not longer, before anyone can live in it.
The whole town knows how we feel about Maisie because we’ve never tried to hide our interest in her from day one. The only one who doesn’t realize it is Maisie.
It’s time Maisie learned it too.
“It would not be pretend,” I tell her softly.
“Then what would it be?” she asks in the same quiet voice.
I don’t know if this is too soon, but my instincts say we’ve given her a month to get used to us. That we’re not going anywhere and we’d never hurt her. It’s time to let her know exactly how I feel about her.
I lean in closer, angling my head to press a soft kiss on her lips. “Something real.”
She stares at me, breathing hard. “Youlike me?”
“A little more than like, beautiful.”
If she’d seen the tent in my pants last night when I heard her in the shower, she’d know not to bother asking a question like that.
She startles at the endearment, cheeks flushing a soft pink, large faded blue eyes studying me with curiosity. She’s not pushing me away or running screaming from the house, so she’s definitely interested in prolonging this conversation.
I’m not eager to continue it, though not because I’m not interested in her. The second this conversation tipped toward sex, my pants started getting tight. I have no idea how dangerous it would be to stand at a hot stove with an erection poking the front of my sweatpants, but my instincts say very. But I’d rather deal with open flames too close to my dick than have Maisie see my erection and start worrying that I’ll push her into something she isn’t ready for yet.
