“I love you, Kane Moretti, so you better not take it for fucking granted.”
But he’s already fallen forward, crying out as he comes with his arms wrapped around me.
My eyes slowly close as I lick at his skin. It was obvious from the first moment I tasted him that we would end up here, but just one lick of lavender reminds me we belong together as much as we do to Ollie.
She shifts as she kisses her way down my neck. Ollie latches onto my collarbone, her lips running to the center of my chest, biting at my nipple with a smirk.
As quickly as it showed, the vulnerable, begging Kane slips away, but I’ve seen it now. He can’t hide it again, just like how I can’t hide my feelings anymore.
“I guess my next option is to fuck you, then, isn’t it?” He smirks, his voice still trembling as he licks his lips. “Or there’s always something else we can do,” he says as he leans forwardand bites at my throat. It’s hard enough to sting, but not deep enough to form a bond. My eyes widen, and shock pounds through me.
With my hand still buried in his hair, I shoot up, yanking him away from me on instinct. Fear tears through me as I meet his needy gaze.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I growl. This wasn’t like them sucking on my chest for fun.
“You know what I want, Timber,” he says softly, and the afterglow of coming with them quickly vanishes. “And what I want from Ollie as well.”
I started it when I bit him during Ollie’s heat, and he’s been biting and scraping his teeth all over me ever since. But even when we kept falling in and out of rut, he’s never done it that hard.
It feels different this time. Maybe because it’s the first time I feel like asking him to go further instead of tearing him away. And that freaks me the fuck out way more than wanting to bite Ollie.
“Kane knows I won’t bond with him until you’re there,” Ollie says as she rises, though she keeps clinging onto my pec like she can’t let me go. “I’ve already told you, you need to be with me, too, Timber. You’re my alpha as much as he is, and I won’t accept a bite from either of you alone.”
Just the word ‘bite’ makes my fear spike higher. Ollie kept begging for it when she was in heat, but that was just part of her need. Now, her hazel eyes are crystal clear, and Kane’s serious look as I squeeze his neck in a pincer hold made it even more real.
“Ollie…” I don’t know what to say to her.
“We won’t rush you, I promise,” she says. “You know Kane is going to push us here and there and act shitty until he gets his own way, but I’m not having it. This is Timber’s choice,” she saysas she glares at Kane, who grins back sheepishly. “I really want to be with you both, and not just because you’ve got cocks and chests for days. You’re my alphas, and that won’t change. So we can wait if we need to. I mean, no wonder you don’t trust us, considering everything we’ve done to you.”
“Did you suddenly forget he was watching you on his home security system when you were alone?” Kane jumps in, and we both narrow our eyes at him.
“Are you going to be like this about everything?” Ollie growls a warning, instantly turning us on.
Both of them move, taking a hand each and wrapping their fingers through mine.
We watch each other, the stillness around us settling as the question swells. And they’re both looking at me with hope as they wait for the answer.
Is it okay to stop them? What if I say no to a bite here, and they leave because I don’t give them what they want? Or they find a way to manipulate me and twist my mind so that I’ll bite them?
Looking at how tense they are and how much love has flowed between us in the past three days, do I really mind if they manipulate me into a bite? Isn’t this better than rejecting them because I’m scared of what hesitating might result in?
I want to be with them, and I know in my heart they’re my mates, but what if we become a pack and it all goes to shit? What if we break up years later? What if Ollie and Kane decide they don’t want me when I grow older? What if one of us gets hurt on the ice again, and Ollie has to live with that?
“Timber?” Ollie says, reaching up to sweep my creased forehead with her thumb like she did at the rink. “You look like you’re being crushed by your thoughts.” Her brow furrows, pulling me out of it. I don’t want my omega to worry because I’m mildly panicking, but the anxiety is tightening my chest and crushing my throat.
I don’t want to disappoint them, but what if I’m rushing the decision? What if I’ve fallen in love with them too quickly, and it’s my alpha side pushing me? Can I deal with it if I suddenly wake up one day and realize I didn’t want the bite?
I told Carys to hold back and make sure she knew that she really loved the person she matched with, but how far is too far? If I had kept holding back, I would have missed out on all of this. I wouldn’t have experienced what it was like to be trapped between the two most annoying people in my life, and showered with affection again.
Their smiles are still patient, all of us naked, curled up in Ollie’s nest. The scents of our love drench us so heavily that I forget I’ve even lost my sense of smell. My body aches, my fingertips dance with tingles from just touching my mates, and my heart feels free.
Isn’t this what it’s about? Isn’t it best to hold on to it all now, even if I might lose them in the future?
I can’t say if I’ll ever fully trust them, but I believe they love me. And I’m more scared of missing out on them than I am of being fucked with like my ex-wife did.
That realization swamps me, crowding through my mind.
I bunch my fingers in Kane’s hair, my gaze dancing between them as the tense fear in my heart suddenly unlocks. I don’t want to live my life without them, and I want to take this leap, even if it’s fucking terrifying.
