“Bat’s bones!” Zane’s cackle shattered the silence. “She just called—”
Koa moved faster than I’d ever seen. His palm smacked over Zane’s mouth with a crack that echoed off the ceiling. Momentum carried them backward, Zane’s heel catching the edge of an abandoned breakfast tray, and they hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and flying crockery.
The pup leapt up and mingled with the rain of playing cards, barking like he’d just discovered the meaning of life, mistaking violence for play. Although, for a dire wolf, I supposed it was one in the same.
“Are they okay?” Seri lifted her head, voice thick with sleep and confusion.
I didn’t bother glancing at the wreckage.
They’ddisturbedher.
How dare they.
My hands found her waist, lifting her across my lap before common sense could protest. She came willingly, pliant as sun-warmed clay.
“What did you call me?”
“Simmy.” Her nose scrunched adorably as her eyelashes fanned down. “Mmm. You smell so nice.”
“Ido? Like what?” I didn’t wear any scents other than the shampoo Koa kept stocked.
“Moonflowers.” Her cheek settled against my sternum.
Accessing memory bank. Search results negative.
“I don’t know how that smells,” I admitted with a scowl. Why did I not know how that smelled?
“Clean and alluring. Strong and beautiful. Like you, Simmy.”
On the floor, Zane’s amused wheezes filtered through Koa’s chokehold. The pup circled their wrestling match, his tail whacking a lamp so that it swung around in precarious arcs.
Chaos. Utter, undignified chaos.
Andher, warm in my arms, melting closer, her breath gusting against my clavicle. Dangerous, how natural this felt. The weight of her, the rhythm of shared breath, as if we’d fit together this way a thousand times before.
“Your heartbeat’s so fast.” Her fingers crept up to fiddle with the third button on my shirt.
“Cardio’s important,” I mumbled without thinking as the tops of my ears burned.
Zane’s head popped up over the edge of the bed like some kind of wild animal emerging from a burrow, crimson hair sticking out in twelve directions and a smear of raspberry jam decorating his left earlobe.
“Okay, hold up.” He stared at how I cradled our half-asleep girl. “What doIsmell like?”
Her sleepy hum vibrated against me, and Z’s gaze dipped to where my thumb stroked absent circles above her hip bone. Ko’s hand grabbed the back of his shirt, but he kicked free and hauled himself onto the bed, crawling toward Seri with all the grace of a drunk raccoon. A stray playing card fluttered to the floor, the pup bounding after it with a quietwoof.
“C’mon, precious,” whined Zane, attention whore that he was. “Wake up and hit me with a floral roast, too.”
Seri’s lashes lifted halfway. Leaving my button, her fingers brushed the hollow of my throat. The motion tugged my shirt collar crooked.
I didn’t straighten it.
“Night phlox,” she mumbled.
“The hell’s that?” Zane froze mid-crawl, knees denting the duvet. “Some kind of STD?”
“Shut up, firecrotch!” I hissed. “She probably doesn’t even know what that is!”
“Almonds and vanilla,” she ignored us both to murmur. “Butbig. Heavy.” She paused to yawn. “Almost too much.”
