Page 29 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

A surprised laugh escapes her, wet, shaky, but real. "You're doing fine."

"Am I?"

"Better than fine."

I stare at her. At this small-town omega who walked into a penthouse full of broken men and somehow, impossibly, started putting them back together. Who held a stranger's child as if she were her own. Who cried in the dark because a bitter woman told her she wasn't enough.

She's enough. She's more than enough.

My hand moves from her cheek to the back of her neck. My fingers curl into the soft hair at her nape, and I feel her shiver. The scent shifts, still tinged with sadness, but underneath, warming, the honey and vanilla reasserting themselves. The fear receding and want rising.

"Willow." My voice drops. I can't help it. "I need to show you. Not tell you. Show you. That you're not a placeholder."

Her breath catches. "Show me how?"

"Let me touch you."

The words hang in the air between us. I watch her process them, watch the way her pupils dilate, the way her lips part, the way her chest rises with a sharp inhale. Her scent spikes, honey and vanilla suddenly thick and sweet, and I feel the heat radiating off her skin.

"You don't have to," I say. "I'll hold you all night without touching you anywhere else if that's what you need. I'll sit in that rocking chair and watch you sleep. I'll…"

"Touch me," she whispers.

The words hit me like a detonation.

I don't move fast. I'm not Knox, I don't pounce. I move slowly, deliberately, giving her every chance to change her mind. My hand on her neck tightens slightly, tilting her head back. My other hand finds her hip, the same hip Knox touched this morning, I realize, and something possessive and unfamiliar rears up in me at the thought, and I pull her against me.

She's small against me. Not fragile - strong and resilient, a woman who survived a small town with nothing but stubbornness - but small. The top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. My hand spans the curve of her hip, fingers digging into the flesh there, and I feel her tremble.

"Not a placeholder," I murmur against her temple. "Not a function. Not a body."

My mouth traces a path down the side of her face, temple, cheekbone, the corner of her jaw. Not quite kisses. Not yet. Just contact. Just my lips learning the geography of her skin.

"You're Willow," I say against her jaw. "You're the woman who smells like home."

"Deklan…"

"You're the woman who holds Lily like she's precious." My mouth finds her neck. The mole. I press my lips to it, and she gasps. "You're the woman who makes JD lose control. Who makes Knox shut up for the first time in his life."

I trail lower. My lips find the pulse point below her ear, and I feel her heartbeat, rapid, pounding, and alive.

"You're the woman who made me feel again." I open my mouth against her throat and suck, gentle at first, then harder, leaving a mark that will bloom purple by morning. A claiming. Not a bond bite, not yet, maybe not ever, Betas don't bond-bite, but a mark. A statement. She's ours.

Willow moans. The sound is soft, breathy, and it goes straight to my cock. I'm hard, achingly, painfully hard, straining against my jeans in a way that's almost unbearable. But this isn't about me. This isn't about my release.

This is about her.

I walk her backward, slowly, until her shoulders hit the wall. The impact is soft, barely a thud, but she gasps anyway, and her hands fly to my shirt, gripping the fabric.

"I'm going to show you," I say, my voice low and rough in a way I don't recognize. "I'm going to put my mouth on you, and I'm going to take my time, and I'm going to make you feel so good that you forget every word Serena ever said."

"Deklan…" Her voice is shaking. "We can't, not here, Lily…"

"Lily's asleep." I glance at the crib. The toddler is dead to the world, curls matted to her forehead, tiny mouth open. "And I'll be quiet. Can you be quiet, Willow? Can you hold it in while I make you come?"

The dirty words coming out of my mouth surprise me. I don't talk like this. I'm the controlled one. The measured one. But Willow makes me want to be someone else, someone who says what he wants, takes what he wants, gives what he wants.

She nods. A jerky, desperate nod.