He’s another alpha, broad-shouldered and, of course,shirtless. Wearing nothing but low-slung fire-turnout pants and a smirk, he’s a vast, lean expanse of tanned skin—muscle sliding effortlessly under muscle as he rubs a towel over his neck.
Don’t look,I tell my eyes.Look at the ceiling. The floor. Anything else.
But my eyes are currently stage-managing a strike.
He has messy, tousled blond hair and beautiful dark green eyes, and there’s a faint smear of what looks like a chocolate stain along his jawline that my brain immediately suggests I should lick off.
Ma’am,I tell my inner omega.Get a grip.
The hottie stops and looks at me, his gaze locking onto mine, his nostrils flaring. I watch his pupils dilate, swallowing the green of his irises until they’re nothing but black.
“Well,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “Hello there, I’m Reed.”
Then a sharp scent of woodsmoke, thick and heavy with a damp, earthy musk hits me. My lungs draw it in before my brain can issue a veto. My chest goes tight, a hot, desperate pulse blooming behind my pubic bone.
Goodness divine, what is that?
My feet slide off the rung of the stool. I don’t remember deciding to stand, but suddenly the kitchen island is behind me. Bram is saying something, his voice a muffled drone that doesn’t register.
I take another step forward, then another as Reed just stands there with the towel draped over his shoulder, his chest rising and falling in shallow, jagged beats. His eyes are fixed on mine, tracking me as I close the distance.
“What’s going on down here?” comes another voice, dropping into the space with a low, familiar rasp.
I halt, my head swinging toward the stairs rising from the far corner of the living room, opposite the kitchen, just behind the plaid sofas.
Ash is halfway down the flight, one hand resting on the wooden banister. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a faded white T-shirt, his dark hair messy. He stops on the third stair from the bottom, his eyes widening as they land on me.
“Luna?” he whispers.
Before I can answer, his scent reaches me, cutting through the woodsmoke.
It’s the rich, dark warmth of chocolate and cedar. The scent reveals itself fully now, and even though I couldn’t catch it earlier, my omega instantly recognizes what it’s always been.
My core contracting on a sharp ache, my brain buffers.
Woodsmoke and musk. Chocolate and cedar.
Am I... able to smell the precise notes of their scents?
But that can’t be.Unless—
I don’t have time to finish the thought as, suddenly, my skin goes hot. Heat blooms behind my ribs, between my legs, at the back of my neck. I’m perfuming.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
Body. No. Body, this is not the moment.
A low, vibrating growl rumbles from the island behind me.
I turn. Bram is standing up, his fingers dug into the papers on the counter, his knuckles white. His head is tilted back, his nostrils flaring as he draws in the air. Under the kitchen lights, his pupils are blown, black pools swallowing the brown of his eyes.
He lets out a choked, rough breath, one hand rising to cover his mouth. His face is flushed, his ears stop-sign red. “I’m—I’m so sorry, I—my nose has had a night, and I think it’s broken, because I’m just smelling the best thing I ever thought I would, “
“Honey and gooseberries?” Reed asks. His voice is a low, raspy rumble right by my ear. He’s moved right in front of me. “If so, your nose is working just fine, big bro.”
I turn my head toward him, looming over me, his broad chest radiating heat, and before my brain can register the distance, my body leaps.
