Charlotte is on her side, facing her son. I keep my steps soft and circle around to her side of the bed. She seems to be sleeping soundly, but nightmares can pop up at any time.
Or that’s what I tell myself.
It’s best if I watch over her for a while in a completelynon-creepyway.
I’m as careful as a giant can be when I climb onto the mattress, and it still bounces them around. We need to invest in better quality mattresses for the guest bedrooms. My bed hardly moves when I climb onto it.
Leaning against the headboard, I stretch out my legs. If I tried to lie flat, I’d hang off the mattress, but this is a good compromise. I cross my arms over my chest, breathing in Charlotte’s pheromones. They aren’t heavy or overly thick, but any contact with omega pheromones should help.
It’s some time later that Charlotte rolls over in her sleep. Her face collides with my side, and she grunts, tossing her arm over my middle.
I smile down at her like a besotted fool.
Christ.
I really need to talk to my brothers and Wilder. I no longer have any interest in fulfilling the marriage contract with Vanessa Chapman, and that’s a whole different can of worms. It goes against everything I promised my fathers before they died, but it’s for the best. When I sink my teeth into an omega, it’ll be for the first and last time. I won’t fuck around and break her heart. If I get married, it’ll be to someone I can see a real future with, and it won’t have anything to do with honoring some fecking contract that never should have existed in the first place.
Chapter Seventeen
Charlotte
I’m hot, but that tends to happen when I sleep with Lucky. He’s like a little furnace, and he doesn’t know how to stay on his side of the bed.
I grunt, stretching in my sleep.
“Shh, you’re okay. I’m right here. Nothing and no one can hurt ya.” The lightly melodic tone of Malachy’s accent almost makes me smile, but my eyes are still closed.
I don’t think I was having a nightmare this time, or if I was, I can’t remember it.
My eyes pop open, and my face rests on Malachy’s chest.
Wow.
Okay, we got up close and personal while I slept. He’s muscular, but his skin is soft and warm against my cheek.
Huh.
I guess it was Malachy who was making me sweat this time. It’s a little alarming, since he wasn’t here when I fell asleep, but I’m also starting to trust him.
“You’re safe. Lukas is on your other side,” he murmurs, keeping his voice low.
I tilt my face up toward his, fighting the urge to ask him what he’s doing here. That might scare him off or make him think I’m not happy to have him snuggled up with me.
“You’re really warm,” I whisper. “Did everything go okay tonight? Did Cormac make it home too?”
“He’s here,” Malachy says as his hand smooths down my side. “Everything went off without a hitch. Grim won his fight. You don’t need to worry about anything. We’ve got everything under control. Just rest, little one. I’ll watch over you.”
Dammit.
He’s so comforting that I almost don’t know what to do with myself.
I should press for more information—this is my life, after all—but he’s so sturdy that every fiber of my being wants to give in to the urge to relax.
It would be nice to know that if something horrible happened, he and his brothers would handle it. I’m so tired of always having to stay vigilant. To be on alert for threats at all times.
It goes against everything my designation is known for, but I’ve had to adapt a lot over the last three years.
I think it would be okay to trust his word for now. It’s not like there’s anything I can do in the middle of the night, anyway.
