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“Don’t want to,” she snaps.

I shift beneath her, trying to sit up. The moment my body moves away from hers, she growls – a low, throaty sound that surprises even her.

“Easy,” I say, laughing a little. “I’m not going far. Just reaching for—”

“No.” She tightens her grip around me, clinging like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. “You’re not allowed to leave.”

“I’ll still be right here, Evie?—”

“I don’t care!” Her eyes flash, cheeks flushed with something more than heat. “Why is Xar wearing clothes?”

Across the room, Xar – very much clothed in jeans and a hoodie – pauses mid-step in the doorway. His brows shoot up. “Er. Because I have dignity and I’ve not been in the nest?”

“Take them off,” she demands. “You smell too good and it’s not fair. Want them for my nest. Want you. No clothes in the nest. Rule.”

Xar blinks. “I?—”

“She hasn’t eaten,” I explain, trying not to laugh again. “And she’s cranky about it.”

“Evie,” Xar says carefully, stepping closer to the nest. “You need food. Just a little bit. If you eat something, I’ll take a layer off.”

She narrows her eyes. “How much?”

“A slice of toast gets you my hoodie,” he bargains.

She eyes the tray, then back to him. “No deal. A quarter.”

He sighs and I smirk, knowing that he can’t deny her anything. “Fine. But you have to eat it first.”

The look she throws him could curdle milk and it transports me back to when she threatened us with the rolling pin. My dick instantly hardens.

Also, watching her tentatively nibble her way around the edges of a slice of toast shouldn’t be as erotic as it is, but maybe I too am lost to the haze of her heat.

I need a shower.

As soon as she’s done, minus the crusts which she eyes like they’ve personally offended her, Xar shrugs off his hoodie. She makes grabby hands and he tosses it to her. She catches it and sniffs it like a predator scenting prey, then slowly reaches for the next quarter of toast and takes a single, dramatic bite.

“More,” Xar says, working the button on his shirt. “Finish that piece and it gets you my shirt.”

I stay right where I am, watching with a stupid grin on my face as she chews slowly, reluctantly, and then takes another bite.

Shirt’s off and added to her nest like a magpie with a hoarding disorder.

“Better,” he praises. “You’re halfway there. Number three gets you my jeans, baby,” he says, teasing the button. She whines but reaches for the next slice, eyes locked on Xar.

I should go while she’s distracted but I kind of want to see how this plays out. Given that Evie’s always been the one to challenge me and give me shit, I expected resistance during her heat, but she was an absolute dream with me – a perfect omega – whereas Xar looks like he’s gettingrolling pinEvie.

She swallows, opens her mouth dramatically to show it’s empty – another pulse of my cock remembering how she swallowed me whole in her studio – and the jeans drop. He’s left in boxers. Sporting a sizable erection too.

“You know what to do, omega,” Xar says, voice thick, low and husky with need.

She gives him a heated look, then takes another bite. When she finishes the last piece of the slice, she sits back on her heels expectantly.

“You promised. Mine. Show.”

Xar sighs with theatrical flair, hooking his thumbs into his waistband and shimmying out of his boxers like he’s on stage. Evie purrs – actually purrs – and reaches for the second slice of toast. I don’t even think she realises what she’s doing.

“Eat that too and I’ll dance,” he jokes.