Page 62 of Wolf It Down, Knot Me Up

And because they all expect me to blush and refuse, I twist in my seat and lift my chin. Two can play at this game. So I lean over and drag my tongue up that solid chest, the sweetness of the syrup and the faint salt of his skin hitting my tongue at once, and it’s genuinely, stupidly addictive.

Wolf hisses. “Fuck, do it again.” And he tips more syrup onto himself on purpose.

“You think I won’t?” And then I’m resting the flat of my hand on his side, where his skin is on fire, my mouth dragging over the dripping syrup, lapping it up. I can’t deny that it’s damn sexy. Then I pull back, laughing, and next thing I know, Grayson’s shirt is off and he’s pouring syrup down his own chest, approaching me.

“My turn,” he demands.

I giggle, both of them right there, chests carved and immaculate, actual gods, honestly, and I say, “Well. It’s only fair.” I lick Grayson’s chest clean too, taking my time around his nipple, which has him moaning. I’m buzzing all over.

“Okay, why did nobody wake me if we’re doing chest-licking?” Roman is crossing the room in jeans he’s clearly just dragged on, hair a mess, and damn, he’s beautiful. I spin in my stool back to my plate, suddenly starving.

The three of them crowd around the counter too, all of them pawing at the food, and the entire time, they keep touching me, a hand at my back, a knee against mine as they sit down, fingers grazing my arm. I can’t pretend I don’t love every second of the attention.

Grayson hasn’t said one word about me trying to leave this morning, about the crying, the panic, and I love him a little for that.

“So,” Grayson says around a mouthful of food. “Our little bird here mentioned she might consider us all moving in together.”

I choke on my tea. “I never said that.”

“We talked about it. That’s basically you saying it.”

“That’s not how words work,” I tease. “You said it, and then I very deliberately didn’t answer.”

“It makes sense to move in together,” Roman says, putting it out there. “We’re bound now. We’ll start calling to each other, and when your heat comes, we’ll need to be close.”

“Whoa. Okay, hold your horses. Let’s all calm down. There’s no heat conversation happening, as that’s not for ages. Geez. What’s next, pregnancy?” I roll my eyes and drain my mug.

“Funny you say that,” Wolf begins, “because we were going to raise breeding…”

I burst out laughing, except none of them are laughing with me. “You three need to calm all the way down. I’m barely surviving this situation as it is and still need to come to terms with it. Plus, there’s no rush.”

They nod, then just sit there staring at me with these soft, hungry puppy-dog eyes. They’re going to ruin me. And it’s not just the looks. It’s that I feel them, all three, their desires and their patience pressing in around me through the air, crowding close, and I’m working so hard to ignore it, to keep my head above it, and it’s like trying not to feel the sun.

Grayson leans over and runs his thumb along my cheek, then puts it in his mouth, and I realize I had syrup there. “You’re concentrating too hard,” he adds. “Just breathe.”

And I really do try, sitting here in a cozy kitchen with three Alphas.

But under it is the memory of Jerry turning his back and walking into the trees in my dream, and the three black wolves ringed around me with their pale yellow eyes. I can’t shake the sensation that, no matter how good this is, the dream wasn’t only a dream.

That it was a warning not to get my hopes up.

15

LUCY

“I’ve got news,” Ethan calls out from the guest room doorway.

I’m fighting with a fitted sheet, wrestling the corner loose. “Does your news come with a help to make the beds?”

He huffs a breath that’s nearly a laugh as he crosses to the other side of the mattress. He grabs the far corners and together we take the whole set off and toss it toward the door.

“Always happy to help.” He shakes out a clean sheet and throws it across the bed, and we start to make the bed with fresh linens. “I received a call this morning with terrible news,” he says. “My dad had a stroke.”

My hands go slack on the sheet, and I jolt upright. “Ethan. God. Is he all right?”

“Better than they expected, considering his condition.” He squares his corner with far more attention than a bedsheet needs. “But he’s stable and talking fine. He’ll need somebody with him while he gets his feet back under him, and my sister’s uprooting her whole family to be closer, which doesn’t happen overnight. So until she’s settled in, that somebody is me.”

I round the foot of the bed and grip his forearm. “Family first. That’s not even a conversation. Go.”