Page 46 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

"I know," she says.

She steps into the room and the air shifts.

Willow moves to the nest first. She kneels on the bed, her hands smoothing the fabric, adjusting, and arranging. The nesting instinct is visible in every movement, careful, deliberate, and primal. She adds a shirt that Knox left on the chair, tucking it into the circle. She fluffs a pillow and places it at the center. She breathes in, and her eyes close, and a soft, satisfied sound escapes her.

"It's ready," she says. Her voice is quiet. Certain.

Knox moves first. He crosses to the bed and kneels at the edge of the nest, not entering, waiting. "May I?"

Willow looks at him, reaches out, takes his hand, and pulls him in.

He settles beside her, his hand finding her hip, and the contact makes them both inhale sharply. The scent-match surges, pine, smoke, honey, and vanilla, blending and thickening until the air is saturated.

Deklan moves to the other side. He doesn't ask; he knows Willow already wants him there. He lies at the edge of the nest, his head propped on one hand, his dark eyes watching her face with quiet intensity.

I stand at the foot of the bed.

Willow looks at me and holds out her hand.

"JD."

I take her hand, climb into the nest, and the moment I'm inside, surrounded by our scents, by the warmth of the fabric, by the bodies of my brothers on either side of her, something clicks into place.

Home.

Not the penthouse. Not the building. Not the empire I built from nothing.

This. This nest. This woman. These men.

Home.

Are you sure?" I ask. One last time. One last chance to stop.

Willow looks at me. Then at Knox. Then at Deklan. Three faces. Three scents. Three men who knelt on a wet sidewalk and begged her to stay.

"I'm sure," she says. "I've never been more sure of anything."

She reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head.

Chapter eight

Knox

Her shirt comes off, and the world stops.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. The world actually stops, the city sounds beyond the window fade to nothing, the hum of the penthouse's climate system goes silent, even my own heartbeat seems to pause, because Willow is sitting in the center of the nest, bare from the waist up, and every single thought in my brain evaporates like mist in sunlight.

She's beautiful.

Not the polished, artificial beauty of the women I've known, the omega hires, the socialites, the boardroom arm candy who spend fortunes maintaining an image. Willow is beautiful, the way a sunrise is. The way the first warm day of spring is beautiful. Natural. Unconscious. Devastating.

Her skin is flush with warmth, a delicate pink spreading from her cheeks down her neck and across her collarbones. Her breasts are full, heavy, soft, the perfect size to fill my hands, and her nipples are already hard, tightened to stiff peaks by the cool air and the weight of four gazes on her body. Her stomach is soft, slightly rounded, and I want to press my mouth to it. I want to trace the line of her ribs with my tongue. I want to map every inch of her with my lips and commit it to memory.

And she's looking at me. At us. With those wide, gold-flecked eyes, nervous and brave and wanting.

"Willow," I say, and my voice comes out wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. I clear my throat. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

She makes a sound, half-laugh, half-sob, and her arms start to cross over her chest, instinctive, protective.