When he doesn’t respond, I assume he must be silently laughing at me. I’d think he was sneaking away, but the mattress hasn’t bounced from him getting up.
“Why is that a problem, baby?”
I glance over at him. “I stopped taking heat suppressants.”
All the biological urges I’d been muting for years are growing stronger, but I don’t know when my heat will hit. Days or weeks from now. I keep wanting to nest, to rub up against soft things, and now hard things, and those hard things are the four alphas in this house.
“Wyatt mentioned it. You say needy like it’s a bad thing.”
“Because it is,” I snap, frustrated and embarrassed. “Guys don’t like needy. I’m like a feral cat rubbing up against everything, and it’s only going to get worse, and I don’t want—” My mouth shuts before I can reveal the reason I didn’t want to look under that sheet and why ignorance is bliss.
“What don’t you want?” he asks in a quiet, serious tone that slices through the heat of a thousand different thoughts and feelings I’m struggling to contain.
“I don’t want to make a fool of myself,” I whisper, avoiding his gaze.
You might decide you don’t want me anymore.
“I love you.”
I snap my head toward him, stunned. “What?”
He meets my gaze steadily, and if there are a thousand feelings I’m fighting to contain inside me, there’s one overwhelming emotion pouring out of him.
“I love you, Maisie Lucas. The last two weeks have been happier than any of us have had. I love walking into the kitchen knowing I’ll find you singing along to the radio as you make those addictive pies, and when you don’t know the words to the songs, you just make them up. When you snuggle on the couch with me and fall asleep on my chest, I get a crick in my neck because I don’t want to move in case I wake you. And I never want you to move. I fight to keep my hands to myself when you lean against me and hold a forkful of pie to my mouth, asking me if it tastes right. You have a deputy half in love with you because he’s there to watch the house and you keep bringing him food, drinks, a fan, and a book to read, taking better care of him than his ex-girlfriend did.” He brushes a strand of my hair from my face. “I love that you like to snuggle with me on the couch and then scream at the TV when you play that stupid zombie game with Elias. This house is a home because of you, and you’re the only person who doesn’t realize the magic you brought into our lives.”
With tears in my eyes and my heart full to bursting, I sniff. “You have to tell me when you get a crick in your neck next time, Knox. I’ll move, but I won’t get up, okay?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement. “No one in this house is going to think less of you for showing how you feel. You think I’m not in here fighting with myself night after night to stop thinking about you so that I can sleep? That I wasn’t crazy jealous when Wyatt and Elias both had you and not me. You think I haven’t been imagining how your lips would taste the first time I saw you bite down on them?” His hand shakes with barely controlled emotion, but the pads of his fingers are whisper-soft when they brush my lips. “Every day I need you, and that need is not wrong. Neither is yours.”
I stop worrying about him thinking I’m needy, and I kiss him instead.
He groans, framing my face with both hands when I straddle him.
Smiling when I feel something I was not expecting, I break the kiss to peer down at him. “You’re wearing shorts.”
“I didn’t bring you to my room for sex, Maisie. Bumping into my erection in the middle of the night wasn’t a surprise I wanted you to have.”
“But you said sleeping in clothes makes you uncomfortable.”
“Your comfort comes first.”
I frown. “It shouldn’t.” When I see that I’m not changing his mind, I climb off him and tug the sheets completely off him, pushing them to the bottom of the bed. Then I stop pretending that I don’t find his chest hot and get on my hands and knees beside him to kiss his pecs.
“Maisie?” Knox asks, a hitch in his voice. “What are you doing?”
I stop kissing and peer up at him. “Putting your comfort first.”
He combs his fingers through my hair. “You don’t have to do that.”
I walk my fingers down his washboard abs. “Can’t help it. I’m a chest girl.”
The corners of his eyes wrinkle in a smile. It disappears the second I lower my head and kiss his nipples.
His breathing grows louder as I angle downward. “I love the way you taste… and feel,” I whisper. “You’re so hard and hot everywhere.”
My fingers skim the front of his shorts, and his breath catches. His belly tightens, and the hand in my hair tenses.
I cup him lightly through the thin cotton, and he feels so hard and hot that I can’t believe he was lying so calm and casual beside me like this. I never would have known he was this turned on.
