Page 41 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

I'm going to find every person who ever failed her and make them regret it.

But that's not what she needs right now. What she needs right now is not my anger. Not my protection. Not my legal team or my money or my power.

She needs me.

"Willow."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to kiss you now."

Her breath catches. Her eyes go wide. Her scent floods the space between us, honey and vanilla, thick and sweet and drenched in want.

"You said," she starts. "You said not until I ask."

"I know what I said." I lean closer. My mouth hovers over hers, close enough to taste her breath, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin. "I'm asking. Not taking. Asking."

Her lips part. Her chest rises. Her hands come up and fist in my shirt, pulling me closer.

"Ask, then," she whispers.

"May I kiss you, Willow?"

"Yes."

The word has barely left her mouth before I close the distance.

The kiss is not gentle.

I meant it to be. I meant it to be slow, careful, and controlled, the way I've been since the moment she walked in. But the moment my lips touch hers, every chain I've wrapped around my Alpha instincts snaps. Seventy-two hours of suppressed hunger, of cold showers, of listening to her breathe through walls, of smelling her arousal and her fear and her hope, all of it crashes through me in a single, devastating wave.

I kiss her like I'm drowning and she's air.

My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back. My mouth slants over hers, hard and desperate, and my tongue pushes past her lips. She tastes like honey. Like warmth. Like everything I didn't know I was starving for. She makes a sound against my mouth, a small, shocked moan, and her hands tighten in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I groan because the friction of her body against mine is unbearable and incredible and not enough.

Not enough. More. I need more.

My free hand finds her hip. The curve of it, the softness of the skin above her waistband. I pull her against me, and the contact, her belly against my cock, hard and aching and straining against my sweatpants, pulls a growl from my chest that vibrates through both of us.

"JD, " she gasps against my mouth.

"Tell me to stop." I'm kissing her jaw, her neck, the mark Deklan left. My tongue traces the bruise, and something dark and possessive surges through me. "Tell me to stop and I will."

"Don't stop." Her hands slide up my chest, over my shoulders, into my hair. "Don't you dare stop."

I pull back. Just enough to see her face. Her eyes are blown wide, lips swollen and pink, cheeks flushed. She looks wrecked. She looks perfect.

"Not here," I say. My voice is barely human. "Not in the nest. The nest is yours, yours to invite us into, yours to control. But Willow," I press my forehead to hers. "I need you. I need to be inside you. I need to knot you. I need…"

"Yes."

"…to claim you. Properly. All of us. Together."

She goes very still.

"Together?" she repeats.

"All three of us." I pull back enough to see her face. "Knox. Deklan. Me. That's what a triple match means, Willow. That's what we signed up for. That's what we've been dying for since the moment you walked through that elevator."