Fifteen minutes later Maverick and I were sitting side-by-side on the end of the bed while Dallas, Brooks, and Zeke stood in front of us like parents scolding their wayward children.
Maverick had finished telling them the gist of our activities the night before and Zeke had just finished a lecture that would have made my mother proud.
“You went on and on about professionalism over the past two weeks and then you go and do this,” Zeke said, gesturing to the fresh bond mark on my shoulder. “It’s pretty fucking hypocritical, Mav, and you know it.”
“You’ve said that already, Zeke. About twenty times,” Maverick shot back and I could feel his burgeoning irritation down the bond.
It was a trip to be able to see the calm, cool and collected alpha on the outside, just like always, but to feel the almost hurricane-like swell of emotions underneath. It was like I had VIP access to Maverick Onassis and it made me feel special.
“And you,” Zeke turned to me for the first time. “Showing up in a nightgown on a hotel floor where anyone can see you is risky as fuck, Lennon, what on earth were you thinking.”
I shifted uncomfortably, glancing over at the silky nightgown in question that was in shreds in the corner. Maverick had given me one of the big fluffy bathrobes that the hotel had so that I wasn’t completely naked, but it was oversized and hard to keep from slipping off of my shoulder where the bondmark was.
“I wasn’t really thinking at all,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. I’d been running on pure instinct, letting my inner omega do all of the driving after the sheer terror of the afternoon.
My instincts wanted safety and security. They had known that Maverick would provide those things and boy had he.
Zeke pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So what’s the game plan? The two of you just ride off into the sunset together? The president has explicitly warned us that we’re supposed to maintain boundaries with you.”
I looked up at him and then at Dallas and Brooks who wouldn’t meet my eyes. Their feelings almost looked…hurt.
Zeke I understood. That kiss in the SUV had pushed us over the line to where I felt like I needed to really explain myself, but there was still a wall between myself and the twin alphas.
Brooks was sweet, but distant at times and I couldn’t get a read on Dallas if my life depended on it.
The day of the shooting in the Kennedy garden he’d almost seemed jealous when he’d been interrogating me about my relationship with Prince Henry… but things had taken such a sharp turn that I hadn’t been able to follow up on it afterward.
I was also a coward, truth be told.
Despite being a grown ass woman, I had wanted them to take the lead. To court and woo me and do all of the work, but I’d realized at some point last night when I was staring at myself in the mirror and trying to psych myself up to go and walk down the hall to Maverick’s room that the dynamics just didn’t work like that with us.
Unless I was honest with them they would never be able to make the first move because of who I was.
Which sucked.
“I don’t want to just ride off into the sunset with Maverick because, I think…” I took a deep breath, gathering all of the courage I had in my body and I felt a warm hand slide into mine. Maverick gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, probably feeling the anxiety rippling down our shared bond. “I think—no, Iknowthat you guys are my biological scent matches and I would like you all to form a pack with me.”
There. It was all out in the open.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I wait, but the room is dead silent.
Finally Brooks spoke, and I was relieved to not hear any anger in the alpha’s voice. “So the suppressants don’t work for you either then?”
I open my eyes and find his expression softer than it had been before.
“No,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Can you smell any of the other agents?” Dallas asked, his voice hard. Unlike his twin, his expression had not changed from the hurt, angry one he’d been wearing since they had come into the hotel room to discover me and Maverick together.
“No,” I told him, shaking my head again. “Just you four.”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Is it varying levels between us or what you would normally smell from a medicated alpha?”
His voice was so clinical that it chafed against my nerves which were already raw from basically confessing my feelings for them.
“Dallas…” I started but he cut me off.
