Page 149 of Final Drive

“You absolutely talked about this.”

His mouth finds the mark high on my shoulder. “You’re making decisions again.”

“Asshole.”

“Better.”

Zane gets my jeans open from behind without being asked and works them down over my hips, and I step out of them while Beckett is still busy with my mouth.

Zane laughs against my back, then follows them down, finding his own mark high on the inside of my thigh. The two bonds light at once. Beckett’s sharp, bright flicker goes gold at the edges while Zane’s rolls through me warmer and easier, and my arms give before I’m expecting them to.

Zane catches me around the waist. “Okay.”

Beckett lifts his head. “That’s not a word we’re using tonight.”

Movement catches at the edge of my vision. Cameron has left the window.

He crosses the room without saying anything and puts his hand at the small of my back, directly over the mark he left there four nights ago with his bike ticking as it cooled behind us. His bond opens like a door in a warm house, with no flicker, no rush, and no sense of something arriving. It’s the only one of the eight that has never felt like an event.

Beckett looks up. “Blake.”

“She was falling.”

“She was being caught. By him.” Beckett points at Zane without looking away from Cameron. “You are at the window.”

Cameron’s hand stays on me. “I don’t want to be at the window.”

“That’s the entire concept of the window.”

Zane leans close to my ear and stage-whispers loudly enough to reach the bathroom. “I don’t think we’re allowed to talk.”

“You are absolutely not allowed to talk.”

“He’s talking.”

“He’s overstepping. Different offense, different penalty.”

I’m laughing again, actually laughing this time, shaking against Zane’s chest with Beckett’s hand still at my jaw and Cameron’s palm warm against my back. For about a second and a half, Beckett’s whole performance disappears, and he looks at me. Not the marks or the bonds or either man touching me. Me.

“That,” he says quietly. “That’s the whole plan.”

Then the expression is gone, and he points at the bed. “Middle. Now.”

I go to the middle.

Beckett gets his own shirt off one-handed and knows exactly how it looks. Zane gets stuck in his and has to be extracted. Cameron undresses without any particular hurry and folds nothing, and three belts hit the carpet inside about four seconds.

Beckett runs it the way he runs a boat when Gray’s out, which is to say he never raises his voice and nobody ever has a question about who’s talking. He tells Zane where he wants him and Cameron, twice, to stay off my hips. He tells me almost nothing, which turns out to be the point.

Every time I reach for somebody, he catches me. The first time it’s Zane, because his mouth is moving down my stomach and I want my hands in his hair. Beckett catches my wrist before I get there and puts it back beside my head. The second time I try to turn toward Cameron when his hand slides over my ribs, and Beckett puts me flat again with one palm against my sternum. By the third time, I’m annoyed.

“Beckett.”

“No.”

His mouth is at my throat, just below Gray’s mark, careful not to touch it. Zane is between my thighs now, kissing the inside of one knee and working his way higher without any apparent hurry.

“Beckett.”