Page 136 of Lyric & the Heartbeats

Her eyes watered, and she dashed the tears away with a groan from deep within her chest. A frown tugged his lips down, but she lifted them right back up as she launched herself at his chest.

He caught her with an oof and wrapped his arms around her back to hold her up.

“You can’t say stuff like that,” she grumbled into his shoulder, where her head was buried.

He couldn’t help the twitch of his lips, the laugh that threatened to break free. “Why not?”

“You make it too easy to keep breaking my rule.”

“Yeah, man, give the rest of us a chance. How are we supposed to follow that speech, huh?” Emerson asked with a grumble.

Adra let his laugh break free, and Lyric popped her head up to stare at him, arms wrapped around his neck. “I can’t say I’m sorry. If you thought we were sweet on you before, just wait until you spend the next two weeks so pampered you can’t see straight.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You can’t bribe me.”

He laughed again, chest shaking with humor. “Not bribing. Courting. Or something like that, yeah?” he questioned, glancing to the one most likely to know—Henry.

The alpha shrugged. “Yeah, I’d call it courting. We won’t exactly have time to take her on off-site dates, but we can make it work.”

“That’s fine,” Nohen agreed. “I don’t peg Lyric as the type to desire fancy dates. I think we have all we need right here.”

“Speaking of ‘right here,’ me. Present,” Lyric drawled, settling her elbow on his shoulder and pointing at herself. “In the room.”

Adra chuckled again and turned to Nohen, shifting Lyric with him as if she weighed nothing. “What do you think? You’re the only one she lets buy things for her.”

Nohen grinned at that, pride gleaming out of his eyes. “Yeah, I think we can come up with something to make her happy.”

“Sex makes her happy,” Emerson stated proudly. “I can do sex.”

“I am right here!” Lyric groaned before nuzzling back into his neck. “You’re all insufferable.”

“You enjoy it,” he murmured just for her.

“That’s not the point,” she responded. She nibbled on her bottom lip, her gaze turning to the only alpha that remained silent. “What about you Javier?”

Adra’s glance slid to the last alpha, whose eyes widened at Lyric’s question.

His cheeks flushed, and Adra couldn’t help but smile as the alpha floundered for an answer.

“Ahh… I can cook? Pajarita…” Javier’s question made Lyric giggle at first, but then she saw the emotion on his face. Lyric crossed the room to wrap her arms around him.

“Did you think I was going to leave you out?” she questioned.

Javier murmured something only she could hear, and wrapped his arms around her.

Adra’s lips twitched as he glanced around at their… pack. They were like an unfinished painting, one that Lyric kept adding to as she found new colors that caught her attention. As odd of a pack as they appeared to be, they were still a pack, regardless of how they came together

Yeah. This was a pack, and for the first time in years, the thought didn’t make his chest hurt. After his last pack had rejected him, Adra never thought he’d find himself allowing someone else to have that power over him. And yet, here was Lyric, building herself a pack whether she knew that was what she was doing or not, and including him.

Maybe by the end of it, Lyric might even agree to keep them around.

That was what he allowed himself to hope for, because truth be told, no matter what he said to alleviate her worries, if she left them at the end, Adra didn’t think he’d recover.

“So you’ve had quite a chaotic week, yes?” the interviewer asked her.

Lyric laughed softly, stalling her response as sleepy morning kisses and the memory of a messy hand job played through her mind.

“Yeah, you could definitely say that. We had a tire blow a few days ago, and unfortunately we were forced to miss one of our shows.”