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FIFTY-FIVE
Luca
AN UNACCUSTOMED FEELINGbuzzed beneath my skin as I mounted the stairs to Emiel’s attic bedroom. I didn’t understand what switch had been unexpectedly flipped inside my brain. But as I’d sat on the couch, pulling on my pants and shirt after discarding the used condom hanging limply off my dick, I’d realized that I wanted to be knotted by something that wasn’t made of silicone.
It didn’t make a single bit of sense. After the warehouse, after Blaze... I shouldn’t have wanted to be within a hundred yards of an alpha’s dick.
And yet, in a different way, it madeperfectsense. This pack had come for me. They hadn’t left me alone in the deepest levels of my personal hell. Nat and Byron had saved me. Then Zalen had saved all three of us by finding us and calling the cops there. While all that had been going on, Emiel had kept Mia safe—when I was sure all he’d wanted to do was to wade into gang territory and start randomly bashing heads.
Now Emiel wanted us to mate each other. He wanted to make sure Mia would be safe fromus, as much as from outside threats like SSG. But unlike me, he was also brave enough to move forward, even when ‘forward’ felt scary.
The thing was, I’d been noticing that it didn’t feel as scary now as it used to feel, even as recently as a week ago. Especially tonight, with champagne and dancing and sex still rushing through my veins like a cocktail of the finest drugs.
As much as I’d enjoyed it, the scene in Byron’s room hadn’t been about me. I probably could havemadeit about me, if I’d wanted to. I’d be lying if I said the idea of letting Nat fuck my passage hadn’t occurred to me. Nat feltsafein a way alphas didn’t—a nice, beta guy who was mostly just happy to be there.
And maybe he and I would do that, at some point. I hadn’t forgotten the feeling of Nat’s arms around me, the only thing holding me together as the world around me fell apart. His actions in the warehouse hadn’t been the actions of a thoughtless or selfish man... even if he had, objectively, done thoughtless and selfish things in the past.
But, I mean, whohadn’tdone stupid stuff in their lives? Certainly not me. Since I’d gotten away from Blaze the first time, ‘selfish’ had pretty much been my middle name.
Hell, there was an element of selfishness to what I was doing right now.
“Emiel?” I called softly, stopping just below the level where I’d be able to see into his room.
The reply was immediate. “Yeah? Everything okay, Luca?”
Footsteps crossed the room, and then Emiel and Princess were peering down at me in the stairwell.
“Everything’s great,” I said, with perfect honesty. “Can I come up?”
“Course,” Emiel replied. “You can come up anytime. Don’t need an invitation.”
I resumed climbing the last few steps. “Well, the rest of us have doors. Which makes it a bit easier to let people know not to come in.”
Emiel scoffed. “In this house, we just pick the lock if there’s a door in the way.”
I winced, but it was obvious he was only teasing. And wasn’tthatsomething? Emiel,teasingme.
“Picking locks is a terrible habit, and we should stop doing it,” I said virtuously.
He grunted. “Until the next time someone’s being a stupid dick about stuff, maybe.”
I thought about that for a couple of seconds. “Being a stupid dick about stuff is a terrible habit, and we should stop doing that, too,” I decided.
“Sounds like a solid plan,” he agreed. “Now, why are you up here? Thought you’d be in a big old cuddle pile until morning.”
I’m still horny, I thought.And you have handcuffs.
“I’m too wound up to sleep,” I said instead. “Thought I’d come up and see how you were getting on with Mia’s book.”
Not that I really had to ask. The tent in the front of his joggers was testament enough to the fact that mafia dragon-shifters were apparently doing it for him.
“The plot’s really stupid,” he said without judgment. “But I like some of the sex scenes. This one alpha guy has a forked tongue that can—” He seemed to remember who he was talking to, and cut himself off with a cough. “Anyway, the sex scenes are good.”