They had eyes, after all.
Trip and Marc stared at one another.“We should wait for Ryan,” Trip remarked uneasily, but Marc was shaking his head.
“Band-Aid moment.Let’s rip it off and figure out what the fuck’s happening here, Trip.”
“Having Ryan here could stabilize her!”
Shawn growled, exasperation filling him as they went back and forth, neither saying anything or doing it.“What the fuck’s going on here?”
Marc’s nostrils flared at his challenging tone, but the reaction didn’t prompt a flight or fight response in Shawn.
It was then, as slow as it undoubtedly made him, that he realized he wasn’t afraid of the men who shared El with him.
Not that fear was an appropriate way to describe it.
They were on the same level, he realized.
They were Alphas of their world, but it was a part of their nature, first and foremost.Shawn shared that trait.
Marc could flare his nostrils all he wanted, could roar at him even, and Shawn wouldn’t flinch.
Well, not in this form.
If Marc shifted, even Alphas had protective instincts when it came down to being face to face with a pissed-off Lion.
“You know what’s happening between us is rare, right?”Trip asked, diffusing the tension by asking a stupid question.
Shawn blinked at it, turned his head to face the other man.“What?Four guys to one chick?Yeah, I’d call that pretty unusual.”
Trip rolled his eyes.“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then get to the specifics, Trip, because there’s a lot fucking going on that’s batshit nuts to me.Most of this whole other world El and I have fallen into baffles me.
“And don’t think it doesn’t baffle El even, though her place is more concrete.She’s as lost as I am.”
Marc frowned at that, but Trip held up a hand.“How many times have we to tell you?Your place is concrete.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Shawn said with a huff, surprised to realize he meant it.
At first, he’d felt like the fourth wheel.
Now?
He had a place.It wasn’t as rock solid as he’d have liked, not like in a regular relationship where he’d have known El was his whole universe and he was hers.
But just because it was different, didn’t mean it wasn’t pure and beautiful in its own way.
Now they were sleeping together, that helped, he’d admit ruefully.
It changed shit.
And having her underneath him as had been the case last night, above him, or in front of him… whichever way she’d have him, helped ease any of the surface tensions that came to light at having to share her.
Yeah, he didn’t like hearing her with the other guys, but he was moving rooms to change that.
At the moment, that was his only beef.
Hearing her with them didn’t inspire the goofy grins it did in the others, it made him want to kill.
