“You want to tuck your fingertips under when you hold the carrot.” His other arm comes around me.
All I can smell is him, and all I can feel is the heat from his body. I’m instantly wet with slick. His fingers trail down the back of my hand as he steps back. I put all my thoughts into the carrots so I don’t have to think about the mortifying possibility of slick running down my legs.
Liam tears through peppers, onions, and lettuce by the time I have a tiny pile of carrot slices. Beckett stretches an arm out and steals one, popping it into his mouth.
“Hey! I’m working on those!” I swat his hand away.
He just grins and steals another, then his eyes shoot to the front of the house. A grin flashes across his face that he quickly hides.
“Pierce is home,” Liam says quietly, not looking up from his cutting board.
My knife stops mid-chop, and I forget how to breathe. I didn’t even hear the door, but there he is filling the doorframe.
Pierce is bigger than I remember, which is stupid. He was taller than Reed, he could easily reach the shelf above the fridge. He was towering when I was twelve. I’ve gotten bigger. I’m all grown up and he still seems huge. He unzips his puffy jacket and lets gravity pull it off his broad shoulders. His hair is shorter, the sides tight to the side of his head.
There are purple and black smudges under both of his eyes with a strip of white tape across the bridge of his nose. I blink rapidly to get rid of an image of the three of them, Reed, Pierce, and Liam, battered and bruised at the laundromat, trying to fold a fitted sheet. They were joking and cursing about a bar fight the night before. They sat me on the counter and handed me socks to match. That had always been my job. The scent of warm laundry, cozy and safe, was so thick I could taste it.
He freezes.
I grip the counter because the moment he steps into the kitchen my balance goes weird, like my feet forgot what they were doing. It’s a single, stupid lurch forward, before I yank myself back behind the island so fast my shoes squeak on the tile. The shock of it hits me hard. I haven’t seen Pierce since he was covered in Reed’s blood.
I take sips of air and hold on to the counter like it's the only thing keeping me from launching myself at him to… tear his clothes off.
No.
I blink rapidly and swallow hard. I remind myself that the last time I saw him he was covered in Reed’s blood. I might have had a little girl crush on him once. Now he’s so…Ash, don’t be that pathetic omega who’s pussy gets wet just because an alpha walks into the room. He. Killed. Reed.
Pierce’s gaze flicks down my body, quick and almost involuntary, like he feels the same wrong pull I do and doesn’t want to.
“Didn’t know we had company,” he says. His voice is rough as it ripples across my skin.
Beckett saddles up to him to pinch his chin to get a good look at the black eyes. Pierce doesn’t shift his gaze.
“This is Ash,” Beckett says as he throws an arm over Pierce’s shoulder. “Marilyn set us up.”
Liam hasn’t moved an inch, but he’s reading Pierce like an open book. He always knew Pierce’s moods, Reed’s too, with a single glance.
“I’m going to put the steaks on the grill,” Liam says, pulling the platter of butcher paper packages towards him.
“I’ll help!” I squeak, grabbing a set of tongs and practically throwing myself out the sliding glass door.
Chapter twenty-eight
PIERCE
“Whothefuckisthat?” I ask, and it’s chased by ‘why the fuck is my dick hard?’ in my head. I can’t take my eyes off the door.
Beckett stares in my direction. “Remember Marilyn had that whole thing about omegas and the team…”
“The thing we all agreed was bullshit?” I cut him off as I toss my coat over the back of a chair.
“Yeah, well…” Beckett shoves his hands deep in his pockets. Something in his voice has me snapping my head to him.
“You slept with her.” It’s a guess, but it’s confirmed when his cheeks flame red. “I thought you didn’t do puck bunnies.”
“She’s not a puck bunny.” Beckett is defensive. Fuck. He really likes her. “I doubt she even knows what a puck is.”
Okay. I need to calm down. My dick needs to calm down. She’s a pretty girl for sure, but the vivid images of taking her on the kitchen counter in front of my pack are way out of line.
