Page 3 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

Deklan's jaw works. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't need to. The grief is written in every line of his body, in the hunch of his shoulders, the tightness of his fists, the way his eyes go distant for just a moment before snapping back.

"We all raised her," Knox says, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Mara was Deklan's blood, but she was family to all of us. We grew up in the system, foster care. No blood ties between the three of us, but Mara was the closest thing any of us had to a real sibling." His smile fades. "When she died, Lily came to us. None of us know what the hell we're doing."

"We need help," JD says, and the admission clearly costs him. An Alpha, admitting weakness, admitting need, is extremely rare. "Lily needs stability. Consistency. Someone who can be there during the day while we work, and someone who..." He pauses, his throat working. "Someone who can give her what we can't. Softness. Warmth."

An omega's touch. He doesn't say it, but I hear it. Lily lost her mother, and these three hard, broken men are trying to fill the gap with hired help. With me.

"I can do that," I say, and for the first time since the elevator doors opened, my voice doesn't shake. "I can be that for her."

JD nods slowly. "Then welcome to our penthouse, Willow." His dark eyes hold mine, and the heat in them makes my breath catch all over again. "Your room is down the hall. First door on the left. We'll discuss the terms of your contract in the morning."

He steps aside, finally giving me a path into the penthouse. As I move past him, my arm brushes his, and the contact sends a jolt of electricity through my entire body. My slick surges again, fresh and hot, and I hear him inhale sharply behind me.

"Fuck," he breathes, so quiet I almost miss it.

I keep walking.

Knox falls into step beside me, leaning close enough that his lips brush my ear. "You're going to be the death of us, little omega," he murmurs, and his voice is pure silk and sin. "But what a way to go."

I shiver and say nothing.

Deklan is already gone, disappeared down a hallway without a word. But as I pass a doorway, I catch sight of him standing in a dim room, looking down at a crib where a small shape sleeps. His hand rests on the railing, and his head bows. In the quiet, I hear him whisper something to the sleeping child, something soft and broken and full of love.

And despite the heat, despite the want, despite the slick soaking through my clothes and the three scents wrapping around me like chains, that's the moment that decides it for me.

I'm staying. Not because of the scent match. Not because of the impossible pull. But because there's a little girl in that room who needs an omega's warmth, and three men who have no idea how to give it to her.

I can do this.

I can be professional.

I can ignore the way my body screams for theirs.

I step into my assigned room and close the door behind me, leaning back against it. The sheets smell faintly of cedar, Deklan must have been the one to prepare it. My thighs are trembling, my core is aching, and every nerve ending is alight with a need I've never felt before.

You can do this, I tell myself again.

But as I press my thighs together and feel the evidence of my body's betrayal, I know the truth.

I'm in serious trouble.

Chapter two

JD

The second her door clicks shut, I lose it.

My control, iron-forged, thirty-four years in the making, the kind of discipline that built a billion-dollar empire from nothing, cracks down the center like a fault line. I press my palm flat against the hallway wall and lean forward, breathing through my teeth, trying to force my Alpha instincts back into the cage they've lived in my entire adult life.

And it doesn't fucking work.

Her scent is everywhere. Honey and vanilla, thick and sweet, layered with something darker now, something ripe and wet and ready. My cock is already rock-hard, straining against my zipper, and my knot, that base of swollen tissue that only inflates for a true match, starts to throb with a desperate, aching pressure that makes my vision blur.

She's in the next room. Right there. One door between us.

I could kick it open. One kick. I could pin her to that bed, bury my face between her thighs, and drink the slick that's pouring out of her. I could mount her, knot her, claim her, make her mine in every way biology intended.

Stop.