Page 17 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

He's dressed in suit pants, white dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His dark hair is damp from a shower, and his expression is the careful mask of a man who has spent the night fighting his own biology and is determined to pretend he won.

He takes one look at the kitchen, at Willow in her oversized shirt, at me in my sweatpants with my cock visibly straining against the fabric, at the thick cloud of pheromones hanging in the air, and his jaw tightens.

"Morning," he says. His voice is level. Controlled. But his nostrils flare, and I see his hands flex at his sides.

"Morning," Willow and I say simultaneously. She sounds guilty. I don't.

JD crosses to the coffee maker, his movement precise and deliberate, the walk of a man who is aware of every muscle in his body and is keeping them on a very short leash. He pours a cup, black, no sugar, and leans against the far counter.

Willow is between us. She seems to realize this at the same moment I do, because her scent spikes, sharp, sweet, overwhelmed, and she takes a quick step sideways, putting distance between herself and both of us.

"I should…" She gestures vaguely toward the hallway. "Lily. I should get ready for Lily."

"She doesn't wake up for another twenty minutes," JD says. His dark eyes track her movement. "But you're right. You should get dressed."

The subtext is clear: Put some clothes on, because I can smell you, and I'm barely holding on.

Willow nods quickly. "Right. Yes. Dressed. Clothes." She sets her coffee cup down and practically flees the kitchen, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood. I watch her go, the sway of her hips, the flash of bare thigh, the way the shirt rides up as she moves, and I don't pretend not to.

The moment she's out of earshot, JD turns on me. "Knox."

"Don't start." I hold up a hand. "I didn't touch her."

"You were two inches away from burying your face between her legs."

"I was talking to her. There's a difference."

"Not when you talk like that." JD sets his coffee cup down with a click. "She's overwhelmed. She's scared. She's in a house with three men she's biologically wired to surrender to, and she's trying to hold herself together with nothing but stubbornness and a thrift-store wardrobe. The last thing she needs is you whispering pornographic filth in her ear before she's had her coffee."

"You're right," I say.

JD blinks. He wasn't expecting that. "I'm right?" he repeats.

"You're right. She is overwhelmed. She is scared. And I did push too hard, too fast." I take a sip of coffee. "But JD, she's aching. Not just physically. Emotionally. She needs to know this is real. She needs to know we're not going to pretend the match doesn't exist, because pretending would be crueler than acknowledging it."

JD is quiet for a moment. "Did she ask?"

"No." I pause. "But she asked me to touch her. Just her hip. Just contact. She said, 'just this, for now.' And I did. And then I backed off."

Something shifts in JD's expression. The hard line of his jaw softens by a fraction. "She asked you to touch her."

"She put my hand on her hip herself. Lifted it, placed it there." I meet his eyes. "She's not running, JD. She's reaching. She just doesn't know how to reach for all of us yet."

The silence stretches. JD stares into his coffee cup like it holds the answers to the universe.

"Twenty minutes," he says finally. "She has twenty minutes to get dressed before Lily wakes up. I'll make breakfast. You, " He points at me. "Put on some goddamn underwear. Your knot is showing."

I glance down. He's not wrong. The base of my cock is visibly swollen beneath the gray fabric, a thick ridge that's impossible to miss.

"It's not a knot," I say. "Not yet. Just... swelling."

"Same thing. Underwear. Now."

I salute him with my coffee cup and head toward my room. But at the hallway entrance, I pause.

"JD." He looks up. "She's not the other one," I say. "The omega we had before. The transactional one. She's not that."

His jaw tightens. "I know."