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Luca stirred, taking a shuddering breath. The movement lifted my hand, which still rested loosely over his ribcage. I hummed reassuringly, rubbing a circle over his heart while he woke up enough to remember where he was and who he was with. His pulse sped up beneath my palm, but after a tense moment, it began to slow again.
There had been a period of time when I’d thought that maybe Luca and I could date each other, the way betas did. It would have felt safe... or so I’d believed. Watching movies together. The occasional dinner out. Having sex that was light and fun.
But Luca could not be extricated from his alphas. What he had with Byron was the most obvious manifestation of that, but it wasn’t theonlymanifestation. The connection extended to Zalen and Emiel, too. I remembered Zalen pulling Luca’s chair out for him, that very first night at the singles bar when we’d met. I’d been convinced the two of them were together after seeing them interact for less than thirty seconds.
And Luca had been so quick to go running after Emiel when he’d had a cage fight, despite the dangers of returning to gang territory. There was no planet where these four weren’t meant for each other.
While the adolescent omega that still lived inside me—brimming with her starry-eyed dreams and her illicit romance novels—might want to be a part of that, I was still a married career woman with a business to save and a husband to...
Well, okay, in reality I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the husband I still cared about, but could no longer trust as a romantic partner. One thing I couldn’t do, though, was ignore his existence.
Gah. I felt like my brain was running in circles, a spring coiling tighter and tighter.
“Alarm’s about to go off,” Emiel murmured. “You two awake?”
He already knew we were, but he allowed us the polite fiction. Luca gave an unhappy little grunt. I yawned and stretched.
“Yeah,” I said. “Mostly. Thanks for staying with us, Emiel. I think we both slept a lot better than we would have otherwise.”
Luca made another wordless noise, one that might have been grudging agreement.
“I... liked it,” Emiel said, characteristically hesitant. “Watching over the nest, I mean. Never really done that before.”
I felt a little pang at the idea of the World’s Most Protective Alpha Teddy Bear never having had the chance to guard omegas in a nest. It was a strange reaction, given how little experienceIhad with those same kinds of rituals and instincts. I’d slept alone in a beta-style bedroom for most of my life, and even after I was married, Nat hadn’t been big on cuddling. Much less staying up half the night to guard against threats that didn’t exist.
“It’s nice to do the things we’re meant to do,” I decided, snaking an arm around Emiel’s waist and squeezing.
Reluctantly, I straightened away, Luca rolling into a bleary-eyed sitting position next to me. And, god help me, I didn’tmeanfor my gaze to flicker over Emiel’s lap as I moved. But there it was—a massive hard-on tenting the gray sweat pants he’d been wearing when he rushed downstairs to see what was wrong last night.
I ripped my gaze away, trying and failing not to remember how that giant cock had felt when he was splitting me open with rough, wild thrusts. Saliva flooded my mouth. I swallowed it down convulsively and didn’t say anything. Neither did Emiel.
Luca, who couldn’t have failed to notice the change in our scents no matterhowearly it was, apparently didn’t feel the same need to adhere to our code of silence. He eyed the telltale tent and scooted back a bit, crossing his arms and dragging his knees up to his chest.
“I’m going to buy you something, Emiel,” he said, his tone carefully neutral. “And you can throw it in the trash, or stick it in the back of a closet, or whatever. But people like us? You should know that we don’t have to live like monks forever, just because some stuff has been ruined for us.”
“Dunno what you mean,” Emiel muttered, not meeting Luca’s eyes.
“Yeah, you do,” Luca shot back, without vitriol. “But like I said, it’s up to you what you do with it. You won’t hurt my feelings. Right now, though, I need to take the world’s longest hot shower and get ready for work.”
“Okay,” Emiel said, climbing to his feet. He hesitated. “Um... if you need someone to watch over your nest again, you can just tell me. If you want, I mean. Picking locks is a pain in the ass.”
My heart swelled until it ached. “And if you’re having a bad night, Emiel, you can tell us, too,” I offered. “Not only is picking locks a pain, but it’s probably not great for the doorknob, either.”
“Maybe,” Emiel said, after a long moment.
Yeah... maybe,” Luca echoed softly.
It was probably pushing my luck, but I pressed a kiss to Luca’s temple, and another to Emiel’s, before I left for my own shower.
Neither of them protested.
Zalen was waiting in the kitchen when I came in to grab a bite to eat.
“How are they?” he asked quietly
I drew breath, considering the best way to put it. “I think they’re both doing okay, all things considered.”
He nodded and got up to pour me a cup of coffee.