Page 32 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

Asher’s hand stays at her jaw.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, low. “Back there. But you did.”

“Someone had to.”

“It didn’t have to be you.”

“I know.” Her voice has dropped to match his. “I wanted it to be.”

Something shifts in his face. He leans in, and I think: here it is. And I should look away, or say something, or be anywhere but six inches to her left watching this happen.

I don’t look away.

His mouth finds hers. Soft at first, a question, the way Asher does everything, patient and certain. And Harper— Harper tips toward him and kisses him back and the hand that had been resting on the table between us slides instead to my thigh and her nails press into the fabric and I feel it everywhere.

My hand covers hers on my leg. I don’t move it. I just hold it there and feel her fingers curl under mine.

Asher pulls back slowly. His eyes open. He looks at her like a man who has just confirmed something he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel again.

Her chest is rising and falling. Her hand is still on my thigh.

She turns her head and looks at me.

I reach up and take her face in both hands and I kiss her, and I don’t start soft. I drink deep because I’ve been sitting next to her all evening with my hand in her hair and her shoulder warm against my arm and I’m done being patient about it.

She makes a sound against my mouth, low and wanting, and her fingers tighten on my thigh and Asher’s hand finds the back of her hair and the three of us exist in the quiet, charged dark of a nearly empty restaurant at the edge of something that is going to change everything.

I pull back just enough to breathe.

Her lips are parted. Her eyes are dark.

Asher’s forehead is resting against the side of her hair.

I haven’t shared in a long fucking time, but the idea of sharing this woman with Asher doesn’t upset me at all.

12

HARPER

The walk back to my suite is a blur of warm hands and whispered words and the kind of anticipation that makes my pulse thrum under my skin.

Asher’s fingers lace through mine, his grip firm, grounding. Maddox walks on my other side, close enough that his arm brushes mine with every step, the heat of him seeping through my dress. Neither of them speaks, but the silence isn’t empty—it’s thick, charged, like the air before a storm.

I don’t think about Sophia.

I don’t think about consequences.

I don’t think about anything except the way Asher’s thumb strokes the inside of my wrist and the way Maddox’s gaze burns against the side of my neck.

The suite door clicks shut behind us.

Maddox turns me to face him, his hands settling on my hips, fingers pressing just hard enough to make me feel the shape of them. His eyes are dark, unreadable, but his voice is rough when he speaks.

“You sure about this, sweetheart?”

I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Asher steps up behind me, his chest warm against my back, his breath brushing my ear. “Tell us what you want.”