I tilt my chin up, staring into those mocha eyes of this crazy-handsome man, and the tightness in my chest eases by a degree. “Missed you more.”
“Not possible.” His thumb traces the curve of my hip through my jacket. “And you don’t need to be jealous, gorgeous. She has nothing on you. We belong to you. All of us,” he whispers.
“You can do what you want,” I murmur, and I hear the brittle edge in my own voice and wince.
He laughs, leaning closer to my ear. “The only thing I want to do is get you alone again. And I’m certain that if either of us got too close to her, you’d go full feral, and I’m here for every second of it.” His mouth brushes my ear. “My possessive little lioness.”
“That’s not me.”
He’s nodding. “It drives me insane in the best way that you care so much.”
I try to hold the pout but the grin wins, and he catches my mouth with his, his hand cupping my jaw, kissing me slowly in the morning sun with a hundred people around us and the taste of him flooding my senses. My toes are curling in my boots.
“In public. Really?” Brody’s voice arrives at my other ear.
We break apart. Corey opens his mouth to respond, but Brody’s already turning my face toward his, a hand cradling my jaw, and his mouth captures mine. His tongue sweeps past my lips, his thumb tracing the line of my chin, and I’m swooning.
“You fucking hypocrite,” Corey states.
Brody releases me, grinning. “Just showing you how it’s done. Look at her approving smile.”
“She’s just being polite.”
“Nah, I’m better at this than you, and it’s killing you.”
I press a hand to each of their chests. “I’m sitting right here. And half the crowd is watching.”
“Good,” they say in unison, then catch each other’s eye with the specific male satisfaction of two Alphas who’ve marked their territory in public and are pleased about it.
On the field, Jakob seizes a pass at full sprint, cuts inside, and a defender catches him high across the throat. His feet leave the ground. He hits the turf hard, and the sound of the impact carries across the field and into my sternum.
I’m standing, gasping.
But Jakob is up in a second, shaking the hit off, and the calm is gone. His face is pure fury. He spins on the referee, arms wide, voice carrying sharp and clipped across the grass, and the referee shakes his head and signals to play on.
Jakob takes two steps toward the man. A teammate grabs the back of his jersey and hauls him back.
“Oh, here we go,” Corey says, settling in.
Jakob’s on the field in front of the referee, hands raised and then lowered back down aggressively.
Brody drops his chin. “I’m sorry, ref, did the ball go out, or did my thighs distract you?”
I blink. “What?”
Corey leans in. “Your thighs are not part of the official review process.”
On the field, Jakob gestures toward the ball.
Brody matches the movement perfectly. “Then why are you gawking at them so closely?”
Oh my God. They’re dubbing them, and I’m choking on a laugh.
The referee steps closer. Jakob tilts his head.
Corey fans himself with an imaginary card. “Sir, I’m going to need you to stop standing there like that. This is a family sport.”
Brody’s mouth curves. “Then tell my shorts to stop clinging.”
