Page 21 of Delivered to My Mate’s Best Friend

“Then maybe their grief just overwhelmed them. Or at least your father.”

“I think…” Cypress hesitated then went on. “Dad was the finance guy in the family. He was very gifted at it and handled all the money things. Father was a woodworker, and he is again now. He must have tried to handle everything. As Birch said, he made mistakes.”

“And cutting everyone off after he did that was another one,” I put in. “If you were lonely, imagine how they were. They’d lost a mate and their whole pack too.” Maybe there was something we could do about this in time. Help them reunite with their pack and understand they were still loved and missed.

The conversation died down, unspoken intentions hanging in the air.

I leaned over to kiss Cypress. It was a long, languid kiss, and a little for show. This was it. We were on the cusp of a decision that would change our lives forever. In a good way, I assured myself. I pulled back, and our eyes met.

I asked without words for permission to proceed.

“Go on, baby. I’m fine with it. I swear.” He kissed me again.

I turned to Birch. “If you are okay with this. With me. I’d like to kiss you.”

Birch looked at Cypress.

He nodded. The permission was already there.

“I’m very okay with this, female,” Birch said.

I approached my mate’s best friend and leaned down, capturing his lips with mine. His hands went to my hips, and my knees wobbled.

Need.

Want.

I pulled back, watching his reaction.

Wonder, softness. “That was amazing.”

I nodded and went into the house, hoping they would follow. But first, they would have to have a long talk.

This reverse harem just became real.

Chapter Twenty

Birch

“Is there room to shift here?” I asked after Zephyr returned, since we were at a point in the night where things were getting heavy. Maybe a pause to think over things would be good for all of us. Zephyr as a human, and Cypress and me as wolves.

My wolf had plenty of things to say about tonight and what had transpired.

Without him, there was no proceeding.

“There is room to shift out back.” Cypress stood and I could sense he was as ready as I was to work off some steam, and not in the way I had fantasized about in my head.

Zephyr pulled her hair up, wrapping it this way and that until it made a complicated nest on the top of her head. Blonde tendrils framed her face, and I didn’t think it possible, but the small change had made her even more beautiful.

But her smile turned downward, and she looked at the backyard as if it had offended her.

“The two of you? Shifting?”

Poor Zephyr. If I could be like a book or a movie, I would turn her so she could shift with us. Join us. Have the second part of the bond with…wait a minute. We hadn’t even mated, and I was longing for a bond.

This was why we needed time to think. To process.

“Is that okay?” Cypress whispered in her ear, but I heard his words just fine.