He’d known that an apology was more than in order. He hadn’t once thought about getting on his knees for it, though.
Beckett could do a lot of interesting things to Arden from his knees.
He filed that away for future consideration.
Arden walked a few paces ahead of them. Jack had taken his hand in the garden, and for most of the ten minutes it had taken them to cross the fields and reach the lane, Arden had held on. Then, just as he’d slipped free from Beckett, he’d pulled away from Jack.
Jack had reeled him back in, making Arden laugh. They had an ease between them, a familiarity, that Arden and Beckett didn’t. Jack knew Arden in a way that Beckett didn’t.
‘Course, Beckett thought smugly, remembering the clutch of Arden’s body, the squeeze of his lovely thighs against Beckett’s sides, the pulse of him beneath Beckett, he knew Arden in a way that Jack didn’t.
It would all equalise soon enough. Right now, he could admit that he felt a twinge of jealousy at their ease. That Jack could haul Arden in like that, move him around physically, and Arden wasn’t afraid of it.
He enjoyed it.
Jack let go and Arden rushed off, shooting Beckett a shy glance as he did.
“He’s giving us some time together,” Jack said, knocking his shoulder into Beckett’s.
“I got that,” Beckett said.
“So.” Jack kept his eyes forward and on Arden as the omega all but sprinted down the lane. “What brought you from Avendene to Sevennis to Greylag?”
“You know well enough what brought me,” Beckett said.
“You missed me desperately.”
He said it in a teasing tone. Instead of scoffing and making a fuss about it, Beckett simply said, “Yeah.” He lifted his brows at Jack’s startled expression. “What? You think I don’t miss you when we’re apart?”
“I know you do. You miss me as much as I miss you. I thought you’d rather die than admit it.”
Beckett shrugged. Things had changed. “Sorry for barging in on the pair of you. I wasn’t going to let the duch know I was here. I wanted to see you.” Needed it.
“And?” Jack prompted.
“And I decided it’s time to start fixing this nonsense with Arden, so we can all stop agonising about it and apologising to each other. We’re ending up together anyway.”
At the look on Jack’s handsome face, you’d think Beckett had dropped onto his knees again, only this time to lift up a ring and solemnly ask Jack to marry him. Jack gripped Beckett’s upper arm, swung him around and hauled him in for a harsh, claiming kiss. He ran his hand up the back of Beckett’s neck, fisted his hair briefly as he rested their foreheads together, then let go.
Arden glanced back and they both started walking again, as if nothing had happened.
“Marl reckoned on flowers and poetry,” Beckett offered, to break the tension that was throbbing between them. Gods, he wanted a fuck. What were the odds of him getting one today? Not good, most like. “To go wooing the duch.”
“While I think Arden would be thrilled to get either, you don’t need to woo him, Beckett. He’s already ours.” They both watchedArden stop at the end of the lane and, inexplicably, start hopping on one foot as he wrestled a boot off. “I suspect he knows it, deep down.”
“What’s he doing?” Beckett asked. Arden had one boot off and in his hand. He disappeared around the side of the honeysuckle-draped hedgerow, which was low enough to show his russet head going up and down as he presumably hopped about and took the other boot off.
“He loves the beach. We came down yesterday when it was cold and had only just stopped raining, and he still took his boots and stockings off to go barefoot on the sand.”
They turned the corner around the hedgerow themselves, and there it was; the beach, flung out wide in a dark-gold arc of sand, and a silken, gently rolling sea.
And Arden, in a flat-out sprint down to the waves.
He’d left his boots and coat up in the low dunes where the grass stopped and the beach began. He ran all the way up to the lacy edge of the water, screeched loudly when it curled around his ankles and splashed up his calves, and skipped out of its reach.
Beckett eyed Jack.
Jack shook his head. “He loves it.”
