I line myself up with her tight ass, knowing Eli is doing the same at her front. We hold each other’s gaze as we push in together.
Her tight heat grips me, perfect on its own, but paired with the slide of Eli through the thin wall between us, it becomes disorienting in the best way. I breathe through my nose, the forced silence sharpening everything. Touch. Scent. The rush of blood in my ears. With nowhere to release it vocally, sensation floods every other sense.
I’ve never felt so much at once.
Winnie lets out a soft grunt as we move slower, deeper, taking turns filling her. I lift my hand to her mouth. Instead of covering it, I hook my thumb inside, pressing gently into the warmth there.
Her breath stutters, hot against my skin. Her lips close around my thumb, slow and needy, her tongue circling with careful intent.
Eli’s gaze locks on my thumb in her mouth, dark and focused.
The room seems to hold its breath. Nothing but skin sliding against skin, the quiet cadence of our bodies moving together. Even our breathing stays low, controlled.
Eli brings her wrist to his mouth and looks to me. I take her other wrist. We bite at the same time.
The pull is immediate.
Her face tightens, her mouth falling open. My thumb still draws her cheek outward as she breaks in silence. Her tight ass pulses around me, clenching and fluttering. Eli’s free thumb finds her other cheek, rubbing slow and grounding as she bites down hard on both of our thumbs.
Her bond surges, opening, dragging me straight into her.
She's warmth and comfort while being hot as a flame. She's everything.
And beneath that, Eli is thunder across the lake while I am wrapped in front of a warm fire. Intense. Steady. Deeply comforting.
It’s perfect.
Winnie
The bonds at my center hum, and I've never felt so whole in my life. The loneliness in Zeke’s bond ran so deep that I didn’t realize how bad it had become until the others joined it, layering warmth and presence over the ache. When we were done bonding, I made the leap and fully moved into the pack house.
Summer is in full swing on Main Street. June has brought tourists back in droves, and the guys have been working nonstop. Downtown, a new black-and-white sign reads Blackline Tattoos. The storefront is covered in the guys’ different tattoo designs. Even the windows are etched with their art. It stands out on Main Street, impossible to miss. Inside, the shop is all sleek lines and chrome. It feels like what would happen if a motorcycle became a room. They’ve been working on it for a couple of months now.
Before she'd moved, I'd taken Stella a small card, signed by the rest of the shop owners in town. I'd had to goad and bribe most of them into it, but Stella's shop had been a fixture in town for more than thirty years. Whether anyone personally liked her or not, I thought she deserved at least a little respect. Stella had taken the card and tossed it aside without looking at it. I again wished her the best of luck and then watched her climb into a rented car and leave. Never to be heard from again.
I approached my pack the week after we bonded and explained an idea I'd been considering. They insisted I didn’t have to get a tattoo, that it wasn’t some prerequisite of being their bonded mate. I knew that, of course. But the thought of carrying their art on my skin was something I couldn’t let go of. We talked it through, and they explained the process. Each of them started with a line drawing, bold lines and vivid color chosen to stand out against my skin. It hurt at first, a sharp sting, but then the sensation softened and blurred, melting into something strangely intimate.
We let it heal for a few weeks. In the meantime, we had another dinner with my family, who were thrilled to see the Blackline Pack and me officially bonded. I expanded my stock for the tourist season, met with the girls for book club and just for fun, and settled into the rhythm of this new life.
We sat for another session last week, and now it’s time for the final details.
The tattoo shop doesn’t officially open until tomorrow, but I’m reclined in a comfortable black tattoo chair. The leather is soft beneath me, warm where my body presses into it. I lean back slightly, my shirt open to expose my chest. Just above my heart sits a lilac. Hovering around it are six hummingbirds, one in each alpha’s style.
Corbin’s work is realism, and the hummingbird he creates looks alive, as if it might lift off my skin at any second. I watch them work through the mirror, the movement of their hands steady and focused, the sight completely mesmerizing. The last hummingbird comes from Nick’s notebook, and Rafe finishes it in Nick’s signature blacklight style.
“Done,” he breathes.
He’s poured every ounce of concentration into making the art true to Nick’s vision. I think he focused harder on this than he did onhis own bird. The skin is puffy and red, tender beneath the wrap. The after-hurt is sharp as they place the bandage, careful and precise, making sure it heals cleanly.
I already know that when it does, it will be perfect.
It’s my alphas on my skin and in our bond.
Epilogue
I’m sitting on the beach at the end of Main Street with the girls, having Book Club while the alphas barbecue, throw balls, and chat. All twenty-one of them. Not counting Finian, of course.
“I didn’t realize it was a buddy comedy. That’s something that should really be advertised better. After all that started, it was way better,” Sunny says, plucking an Oreo off the tray of sweets we made.
