“Cooking?”
“You know what I mean.” I brace one hand on the island beside her without touching her. “Acting like nothing’s happening between us.”
Color moves up her throat as she turns to face me. “That’s?—”
“True,” I say. “And you know it.” I take her wrist lightly. “What are you actually afraid of?”
She glances at where my fingers are on her wrist. Her pulse is racing under my touch.
“I think my heat is coming,” she says quietly.
Everything in me goes still. “How close?”
“I don’t know. It’s never regular.” Her breath catches. “But everything feels too sharp in my head and my body around you three.”
I step in, close enough that she has to tip her face up to keep looking at me. “Then you’re not sleeping in that shack tonight.”
Her fingers tighten at her sides. “But?—”
“No.” My hand closes around her wrist, firm and certain. “You’re done doing this alone.”
A flush climbs higher over her cheeks. Her scent is already changing, richer now, warmer, pulling at every Alpha instinct I’ve got. “What if I’m not ready for a pack?”
I drag my thumb over her pulse on her wrist once. “Are you scared of me? Of us?”
Her lips part. “No.”
“Then stop borrowing trouble.” I slide my hand up, cup her jaw, make her hold my gaze. “Nothing is going wrong. You’re standing here shaking because your body wants what it was built to crave, and I’m standing here trying not to put my mouth on you until you ask properly.”
Her breath leaves her in a soft, wrecked moan. She grips my wrist this time. “I keep waiting for what’s happening between us to fall apart.”
My heart shatters at her fear. “It won’t. And if anything tries, I’ll deal with it.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I say it because I know what it’s like to spend your life bracing for the bag thing before it’s even happened.”
Her attention perks up, her sights focused on me.
I release a slow breath. “I grew up where I mostly blamed my parents for not having time for me, and they were at fault, but that was the easy version I told everyone. The real one was that they were too busy running their side business, selling stolen goods, and moving things they didn’t want to be grilled about. I was just the kid in the way, and seriously, I suspect I was a mistake they never wanted.” I sigh, hating to share about my past, but I want Adeladie to know the real me. “I could disappear for two days and neither of them would notice. Like the one time I got arrested and they sent my neighbor to bail me out.”
“Shit,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry, Ace.”
I shrug. “So, I found people who noticed me,” I say. “Wrong people who took advantage of my weakness, who praised me if I ran errands, told me I was useful, handed me cash and made me feel as if I mattered. Didn’t matter to me that I was delivering illegal shit. I was just a kid around ten years old whenI started. All that attention felt like love when you don’t know the difference.”
She presses in closer to me, listening, watching me.
“It gets into you,” I whisper the words. “That kind of hunger, the fear you’ll lose what you have. You start chasing the reward because it feels better than being invisible.” After a pause between us, I say, “Anyway, I’m just saying, I understand how you feel, but don’t let it control you.”
I grin, which gets her smiling, and after a long pause, she pulls me down and just kisses me.
Oh, thank God.
I sweep both arms around her and lift her fully off her feet because I’ve been waiting too long and I really dislike talking about my past and the person I used to be when I want to focus on who I am today.
She kisses me passionately. I tilt her head and take over the kiss, pressing closer.
I walk us out of the kitchen and backward until her shoulders meet the wall of the living room. She’s flushed, her lips swollen.
