“Oh, I haven’t been to the gym in years, so I might die.” I laugh. “And you don’t have to?—”
“I want to. And you’ll be with me, so nobody’s getting close. I guarantee it. Besides, we need some alone time.”
“Is that so?” I say, feeling incredibly safe in their presence, which is insane considering how we came together in the first place.
He gives me that melt-my-panties smirk where I stand no chance, and I laugh. “Fine, deal.”
Brody struts toward the kitchen. “We’re up. Might as well eat. I’m making grilled cheese for everyone.”
“Thank fuck,” Corey mutters, following.
“I’m starving,” Jakob adds, going to join them in the open kitchen. I turn to face them, the island counter with Damien stretched across it between me and them.
Every muscle in my body unclenches by a fraction, but the relief twists into an inferno. My instincts are trapped in a room with three compatible Alpha scents, and the effect is brutal. Explosive. Wrong in the wake of fear, but so undeniable that it steals the air from my lungs.
My body doesn’t care that Louis broke into my house. It doesn’t care that I should be shaken, trembling, thinking clearly.
It only knows Brody’s heat, Jakob’s solid presence at my side, Corey’s restless, lethal energy too close to ignore.
It knows safety and hunger.
And it screams for me to press myself into the dark, overwhelming circle of them until their scents are on my skin, in my hair, buried so deep in my lungs there’s no room left for fear. Just the terrifying, primal ache for these three Alphas.
Brody pulls out a cast-iron skillet, butter, thick-cut bread, and three types of cheese. He moves through his kitchen the way he moves through his videos, confident and completely in his element. Corey opens a tin of tuna and forks a portion into a clean dish for Damien. The cat abandons lazing about without a backward glance and buries his face in the bowl.
Jakob is leaning against the counter beside me now, arms folded, and his shoulder brushes mine whenever one of us shifts. Every point of contact sends a current through my skin that I’m trying to ignore and failing. It doesn’t help that my mind keeps dragging me back to his mouth on me, to the way I let him draw pleasure from me like he owned the right to it, to the wild, breathless tangle of us when we turned greedy together in a way I’ve never done with anyone before.
Heat buzzes under my skin just thinking about it, and Jakob knows by his sideways glances, every slow drag of his eyes over my face, my throat, my mouth. It’s as if the only thing stopping him from lifting me onto this counter and devouring me all over again in front of his friends is the thin, fraying thread of his self-control.
How is this my life?
Three half-dressed Alphas in one kitchen, and the room feels less like a safe place and more like it’s about to catch on fire. I should be thinking about Louis, afraid, shaken, planning mynext move. Instead, my anxiety has gone terrifyingly quiet in the middle of them.
It’s said that compatible Alphas can calm an Omega’s energy.
This isn’t calm.
It’s insanity dressed up as safety. This is my body mistaking protection for permission, turning every glance, every scent, every careless flex of muscle into something slick and shamefully needy between my thighs.
“See something you fancy?” Brody asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“The grilled cheese. Obviously,” I joke.
“Obviously.” He winks, and I’m melting. I have no idea how I’m meant to survive them, especially when my cheeks keep lighting up and showing them exactly the impact they are having on me.
The cheese sizzles in the pan, and my stomach grumbles for food while Corey and Jakob bicker about whether hot sauce belongs on a grilled cheese. The normalcy of it, the domestic ease, wraps around me and squeezes.
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. “I still don’t understand how none of you are already hooked up with an Omega.”
The bickering dies, and they stare my way. Strange…
I glance between them, my smile faltering. “What? Am I missing something? Are you all serial killers and none of your past Omegas survived or something?” I giggle.
No one answers fast enough, and my laugh flatlines. My stomach drops. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “Please don’t tell me you’re serial killers.”
Brody blinks first, then lets out a short, rough laugh. “No. Sorry. We were stuck on the Omega part.”
“Because you had one?” I ask, the words rushing out of my mouth.
