Page 53 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

He moves to her side. His cock is hard, has been hard throughout, painfully so, but he doesn't position himself between her thighs. Not yet. Instead, he lies beside her, his body pressed against hers, and his hand cups her face.

"I don't need to knot you to claim you," he says quietly. "Betas don't knot. But I can give you something else."

"What?" she whispers.

He kisses her. Deep. Slow. The kind of kiss that goes on and on, building heat, building intensity, until she's trembling again. His hand slides down her body, between her thighs, where my knot is still seated inside her, and finds her clit.

She gasps into his mouth.

"I can make you come," he murmurs against her lips. "Again, and again. While they're knotted inside you, I can make you come so hard you forget everything except how much we love you."

Love.

The word hangs in the air. Neither JD nor I have said it, too raw, too new, too terrifying. But Deklan, steady and precise, grumpy Deklan, says it like it's the most obvious fact in the world.

Willow cries. Her hand finds his, and she laces their fingers together and presses their joined hands against her heart.

"Yes," she whispers. "Please. Deklan. Please."

He strokes her. While my knot pulses inside her, while JD lies behind her with his hand on her hip, Deklan's fingers work her clit in slow, precise circles. She comes again, softer this time, a gentle wave rather than a tsunami, and the clenching of her body around my knot pulls another orgasm out of me.

I groan against her neck, JD growls softly behind her, and Deklan kisses her forehead.

And the bond completes.

Not with a dramatic snap or a blinding flash. With a settling. A quiet, profound shift, like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Four separate frequencies tuning to the same channel. Four hearts finding the same rhythm.

I feel them. All of them. JD's fierce protectiveness. Deklan's quiet devotion. Willow's desperate, hopeful love. And my own, wild, hungry, terrified, and certain.

We lie in the nest. Tangled. Connected. Complete.

Willow is between us, JD behind her, me in front, Deklan at her side. Our scents blend: pine, smoke, cedar, honey, vanilla, into something new. Something that smells like home.

"Stay," she whispers.

"Always," JD says.

"Forever," I add.

"Home," Deklan says.

Willow smiles. A real smile. Full and bright and certain. And in the guest suite down the hall, a toddler sleeps, dreaming of a big dog and a swing and a world that, for the first time, makes sense.

Because her family is complete.

Chapter nine

Willow

I wake up in a nest of warmth.

Not the warmth of blankets or heating vents or the weak morning sun filtering through penthouse windows. The warmth of bodies. Three of them, pressed against me from every side, their scents woven together so tightly I can't tell where one ends and another begins. Pine. Smoke. Cedar. And underneath it all, woven through it like a golden thread, my own honey and vanilla, no longer separate, no longer alone.

I'm home.

The thought settles into my chest like a key turning in a lock. Not the frantic, desperate hope from before, not the fragile belief that Serena's words had shattered. This is different. This is bone-deep. Certain. The kind of knowing that doesn't need proof because it is the proof.

I open my eyes.