Page 34 of Bonds and Beasts

Bello steps up, gently wrapping a hand around my waist. "We didn't want to assume, Beauty. This is your room. If you want to be alone or if you need—"

"Do you not want to sleep in the bed with me?" I ask, suddenly nervous. "I know it's not a very big bed. It's definitely not a pack bed." Maybe they'd been squished last night. Maybe one of them had fallen off and I hadn’t noticed in my post-heat spike haze.

Dean is instantly at my side. "No, Sweet Girl. Being in a pack bed with you and your scent is my wet fucking dream." He leans down around Bello and nuzzles directly into my neck, scent-marking me.

Easton is on my other side. "Alphas always sleep better next to their omega. It doesn't matter if it's in the softest pack bed or on a cave floor. That's statistically true." It's so like him to use statistics to say that he wants to sleep with me. I smile a little though. I like the way Easton looks at the world. It makes everything feel orderly and more manageable.

I tentatively look to Bello. My inner omega always wants to check in with his alpha. He's standing patiently, hands in his pockets as though waiting for something. When my eyes find his, it's clear that’s what he wanted.

"Show us to your bed, omega." His voice is low and smooths along every nerve that's been lighting up from my flare of touch deprivation. My eyes flutter closed before I nod.

Inside the bedroom, it's cold and dark. I turn on a side lamp and start to undress. I try to focus on myself. I can't stand layers in bed. My skirt and leggings go first, then my sweater, until I'm in nothing but my underwear and undershirt. I turn to find their eyes on me, hot and hungry.

Dean strips down like me, right to his boxers, and I drink him in. As an action hero movie star, I knew he had to keep in shape, but my imagination could not prepare me for the reality of him. Muscles on muscles. The V of his abdomen. The thick, hard forearms. I felt all of this when he'd held me before, but in my touch deprivation and heat spike haze, it hadn't registered the way it does now. Dean is practically godlike.

A cough snaps my eyes up to his. He's grinning at me and heat floods my cheeks as I realize I'd been staring.

"Like what you see, Sweet Girl?" He looks me up and down. "Because I like what I see."

I suddenly don't know what to do with my hands, my eyes, my mouth. So I shrug and try to act nonchalant. Easton, who has been next to the hearth this whole time, chuckles. Famous movie stars probably don't get shrugged at a lot.

Bello is in the corner. He's also stripped to his boxers. He's paler and leaner than Dean but no less defined. Where Dean has brown chest hair in a line trailing below his waistband, Bello is smooth.

Warmth seeps into the room as Easton stands, revealing the beginnings of the fire he built in the hearth. The manor has central heat and air, but with its sprawling rooms and high ceilings, the fireplaces still supplement what modernity can't quite cover.

Easton steps up to me until he's close enough that I can feel the heat of his skin and I'm surrounded by his scent. I don't know how, but he seems to always be aware when my touch deprivation is flaring up, even if it's only below the surface.

"Sweetheart," he says, and I can hear the gentle reprimand below the surface. "You have to tell us if we're not doing enough." This draws sharp focus from Dean and Bello.

I cross my arms and instantly feel like a petulant child. "I'm fine." I manage to grind out. It's not a lie. I'm doing so much better than before I met them.

Bello sits on the edge of the bed and draws me into his lap. His bare chest pressing against the skin of my arms is like a hot compress on my soul. I shudder with delight and he squeezes me closer. "Fine is not the goal," he says firmly.

Dean nods, taking a seat on the bed next to Bello and running a hand over my back.

"We don't want our mate to be fine," Bello goes on. "We want you to be completely free of any lingering touch starvation effects. We want you to be healthy and flourishing and thriving. We want you to feel safe and happy. We want you well fed and well loved. Understand?"

I meet Easton's eyes, then Dean's, then Bello's. They're all resolute. I nod.

Bello rests his forehead against mine before kissing my cheek and scent-marking down my neck. His warm skin has me shivering. Dean's hand never ceases its steady movement up and down my spine.

Part of me wants to stay up. To see where this might take us. To do more than just treat touch deprivation. But between the shoot and visiting with long-lost friends and our walk through town, this is the most stimulation I've had in a long time. I'm wiped.

Bello moves backward on the bed with me still firmly in his lap. Once he reaches the pillows, he lies back and his arm wraps around me, pulling me in.

I roll to my back so that Bello curls around one side. I expect Dean to take my other side, but instead slowly crawls onto the bed on his hands and knees, allowing me to see the bend and flex of every muscle along his back. He gently nudges my legs apart, spreading me, baring my underwear-covered center to him.

And then he softly lays his head on my abdomen, wrapping his arms around my waist and squeezing my ass, one cheek in each hand. He sighs. He's heavy like a weighted blanket, but enough of his body is off me that he's not suffocating. I string my fingers through his hair and he sighs again, pressing a kiss to my shirt above my belly button. Easton is the last to join. He's shed his clothes down to his boxers too, and his defined chest has me reaching out to touch. He steps closer and the tips of my fingers skim along the muscles above his waistband. His skin is warm and soft, but beneath it’s hard and flexed. He climbs in next to me, taking the opposite side from Bello.

Their purrs start up and I internally melt to goo. I feel boneless and completely relaxed, which is probably why I fall asleep almost instantly.

Adison

The following few days pass in the same manner. Waking together, eating Mrs. Portridge's delicious food, going to the shoot, and then usually taking a walk in town. Tom and Larry kept the majority of the fans away, and the more exposure people have to us, the less they feel the need to approach our pack. Sometimes Colt is at meals "helping" his grandmother, which usually entails spilling something and then chatting with me and the pack for the rest of the morning. But between getting used to leaving the manor and the pack’s heavy shooting schedules, we haven’t enjoyed a courting date.

Today, however, the guys got the second half of the day off, and we're going on our first official courting date. Cruising along the Lake Michigan shoreline is beautiful.

"I love the water," I say as we drive. The sun glints off the gently rolling waves like little gems.