I’m about to just physically drag him out when the door clicks again.
We both pause.
Kai slips through the gap, easing the door shut behind him with the same careful silence. He turns around, takes two steps into the room, and stops dead when he sees both of us standing there like guilty teenagers.
His eyebrows shoot up. He glances at me, then at Carter, and lastly at June sleeping peacefully in bed.
Then a slow, shit-eating grin spreads across his face.
He doesn’t bother with silent communication. Just strolls right past us, bare feet silent on the carpet, and stops at the foot of the bed to gaze down at June. When he sees her hugging his pillow, his grin widens.
He turns back to us. Points at June, then at the pillow, and taps his own chest. Then gives us both a double thumbs-up, eyebrows waggling.
Carter throws up his hands in exasperation. I’m pretty sure my eye is twitching.
Kai points at the pillow again, then at himself, then makes some kind of gesture I can’t interpret—cradling his arms like he’s rocking something, then pressing his hands to his cheek like he’s sleeping, and then pointing at June again.
I have absolutely no idea what that means. Neither does Carter, based on the look on his face.
Kai tries again. Points at pillow. Points at himself. Makes a heart shape with his hands.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I grab his arm and jerk my head toward the bathroom door in June’s room, as it’s right there. Carter is already moving in that direction, and the three of us crowd into the small space, shutting the door as quietly as possible before retreating to the far corner near the shower.
“What the fuck are you two doing here?” I hiss.
“What areyoudoing here?” Carter fires back, keeping his voice to a barely audible whisper.
“I asked first.”
“I was awake before you,” Carter says.
“Bullshit. I’ve been standing in here for at least twenty minutes.”
Kai snorts. “That’s not the flex you think it is.”
“Shut up. And why are you here?”
“Same reason you are, probably.” Kai leans against the tile wall, arms crossed. In the dim light filtering under the door, the tension in his shoulders flex with the restless energy he’s barely containing. “Can’t sleep. Can’t think. Can’t do anything except think about her.”
“That’s two can’ts about thinking,” Carter points out.
“Grammar police at one a.m. Wonderful.”
“I’m just saying?—”
“Both of you, shut up.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We can’t all stand around watching her sleep. That’s serial killer behavior.”
“And yet here we all are,” Kai adds cheerfully.
“Because we’re losing our minds.” Carter runs a hand through his hair. “I marked her, and instead of making it better, it’s made it worse. The bond is… it’s like a constant pull. I feel her even when she’s not in the room. And when she is in the room…”
“You want to climb inside her and never leave,” Kai finishes. “Yeah. Feels like we’re the ones going into heat for her.”
I don’t say anything, but they both stare at me.
“I get such hard-ons right in my room that it’s actually painful,” Kai admits without an ounce of shame. “I just need to be close to her. Touch her. Something. I’m going insane.”
