“Come in,” I say, stepping aside.
Damien wriggles free the second they’re through the door, drops to the hardwood, and strides toward the living room with the proprietary air of a creature who has already decided which cushion is his.
Brody sets the duffel down in the hallway. “Gave Trudy my room. She needs a few days, as her Alpha destroyed her. He isolated her, stripped her of everything. She’s been sleeping rough. She has nobody.”
“So you’re here because…”
“Because I’m not spending the night under a different roof from you.” He says it flatly. “Told the guys the same. Corey wanted to come too, but someone needed to be there with Trudy. Jakob volunteered also, since it’s unfair for one of us to be lumped with her alone. But don’t be surprised if they turn up randomly, as they’re extremely jealous of me right now.”
“Right.” I fold my arms across my chest, gripping my own elbows. “Of course you’re taking care of her. You’re good men. It’s what you do.”
“Claire.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re holding yourself together with your fingernails, and I can smell the stress coming off you from here. You’re not fine.”
“Okay, I’m not fine, but I’m handling it.”
He crosses the hallway in two strides to reach me at the corner leading into the living room, where Damien’s on the couch, settling his huge white body onto a cushion as a perfect loaf.
Brody’s hand finds the back of my neck, and the other grips my hip. Then he presses me against the wall, his body flush with mine, his scent engulfing me and sinking into every crack the jealousy carved open.
“Youare our Omega.” His mouth hovers inches from mine, his voice stripped to gravel. “We told Trudy the second she stepped inside. We were clear and direct, with no room for misinterpretation. She knows that she is not coming back to us.”
“Yet she was yours first?—”
“Trudy was a woman we loved but who abandoned us when we thought she loved us too. She destroyed us when she returned to the Alpha who’d marked her, and we grieved her loss, but that was two years ago, and we’re way past her. She was never our scent match either. That’s the whole story. There’s no unfinished chapter, no secret longing. She’s broken, and we’re helping because that’s who we are, but she is not you.” His thumb presses against the pulse point on my neck, feeling my heartbeat, and his jaw tightens. “Your heart is going insane right now.”
“Obviously.”
He leans closer, his lips brushing my ear, and the sensation spirals down my spine and pools low in my belly. “I came over because I thought of you being alone over here, believing you don’t matter to us, and I was close to tearing down every wall between our houses otherwise.”
My hands find his chest, where the cotton is warm beneath my fingers, his heartbeat strong and fast against my palms. His body against mine is solid and everything my instincts have been screaming for since I closed my front door.
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” I whisper, and my voice breaks because the admission costs me more than anything Louis ever took. “Not in the same universe, and it terrifies me because I’m in so deep that losing you would?—”
“You’re not losing me.”
“You can’t promise?—”
“Claire.” His forehead drops to mine, and his breath is warm against my mouth. “Shut up and let me kiss you.”
His mouth finds mine, and the jealousy doesn’t disappear, but it quiets. His lips are firm and deliberate, the kiss of a man who isn’t rushing because he’s not going anywhere, and my fingers curl into his shirt as I drag him closer. I crave the pressure, the weight, the physical proof that he chose my doorstep over his own bed.
His hand slides from my hip to my lower back, pressing me against him, and the other cups my jaw, tilting my face, deepening the kiss until my toes curl against the cold floor. His tongue traces my lower lip, and I open for him. The taste of him floods through me, and I’m purring, the sound of an Omega who’s been separated from her Alpha for less than an hour and nearly lost her mind.
He breaks the kiss but doesn’t go far. His lips brush my cheekbone, my temple, the corner of my eye where I can feel the tears threatening.
“So which bedroom am I in?” he murmurs against my skin.
“The spare room is perfectly?—”
“Wrong answer.”
“—adequate for someone who?—”
“Still wrong,” he teases.
