Who???
He stared straight ahead, telling himself not to panic, then immediately changing his mind and telling himself to definitely panic, because no one should be in bed with him except Jack, and Jack?—
Oh.
An image flashed up. No, it was more than an image, it was a physical, visceral memory, of looking into Jack’s warm black eyes, inches from Arden’s own, as Arden writhed on?—
NotJack.
Oh, gods.
On thefootman.
Not just any footman. On Beckett, Jack’s lover. His beloved. The alpha Arden had been spying on for the better part of a week, fascinated by the man who’d captured Jack’s heart, and whose future Arden had ruined by marrying Jack.
Arden grabbed the arm around his waist and tried to pull it away, digging in his fingers in a desperate scrabble. He got exactly nowhere. The arm tightened at once and Beckett gently bit the back of his neck.
Arden wailed in panic.
The body behind him jolted—what washesurprised about, Arden thought hysterically—and then—oh thank the gods, thank the gods—Jack was there.
“Jack!” Arden said, loathing the way his voice came out in a feeble warble.
“Shh, shh.” Jack was in his shirtsleeves and breeches and he climbed onto the bed with Arden, who was doing his best to arch away from the man behind him. “No, Arden. Hold still. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Arden panted. No, he wouldn’t, why would Jack—oh, fuck. “Ahhhhh,” Arden shrieked when searing pain flared in his arse.
Beckett growled, the teeth in the back of his neck gripped him tighter, and he was shoved facedown in a pillow. He didn’t complain about it. He was too relieved that the pain had stopped, thanks to Beckett squashing him flat and locking them together as closely as possible.
Locking…
Good gods. He was knotted.
He might not have known enough about heats and his own stupid body to have prevented this from happening, but even Arden knew about knotting.
At least, he’d heard about it, once, when a couple of maids were dusting the library at Dalbryn, and they hadn’t realised that he was tucked up on the window seat behind one of the curtains, listening in horror.
Arden twisted his head, spluttering to get strands of hair out of his face. Jack reached out to brush it away for him.
Beckett got there first.
Arden stared at the large hand that smoothed the hair from his eyes, from his mouth.
“You’re all right,” Beckett said. “You’re all right.”
Arden clenched his fists either side of his head and to his absolute mortification, at the sound of Beckett’s deep baritone, at the sensation of it vibrating against his back and rolling through him like a warm tide of honey, he hollowed his spine to push up into Beckett’s groin, and whined.
Jack slid over the sheets and pressed himself alongside Arden.
Arden’s breath caught when the large hand which had tenderly stroked his hair—and done other things to Arden, things that Arden was trying very hardnotto think about rightnow—flashed across Arden’s line of sight and gripped Jack’s shoulder, halting him.
Jack’s eyes tracked up to Beckett. He smiled, turning his head slowly, and pressed a kiss to the tense wrist.
Arden’s heart broke a little at that.
He…he knew that Jack cared about him, too. That he loved him. He didn’t love Arden the same way he loved Beckett, of course. Arden and Jack had been friends for as long as Arden could remember, and then…then, when Arden had needed him most, Jack had shown up, snatched him from under Lassit’s nose, and married him.
Even though Jack was a man who liked other alphas, and this alpha in particular, he’d married Arden.
