Page 9

They chatted and snacked. I knew I should pay attention. This was important to them. But my whole being was consumed with feeling Mackenzie under my fingers. I took a risk and dropped an arm from the back of the couch to rest on her upper arm. I traced lazy circles there. She reached forward for more popcorn and fingers slid to her rib cage.

Mine.

The word circled my head. Raw, possessive, and tender at the same time. My fingers stilled. I shouldn’t be touching her as if Iowned her. Like she read my thoughts, she reached for my wrist to rebuke me for being so forward.

No. She pulled my arm around herself like a living blanket and placed my palm right over her breast. My breath caught.

I glanced at Ren. He was focused on the TV, but his head was turned slightly toward me. A smile pulled at the corner of his lips. He had Mackenzie’s feet in his lap.

I circled my fingertips, feeling her heavy in my hand, her nipple getting hard. She was mine, ours. No one else got to touch her like this.

And then… she purred. She actually purred. The sound vibrated through my hand, right into my very soul. I shuddered, feeling her aura all around me, slipping into the places inside me I never wanted to look at. Claiming me, making me hers as much as my bite mark made her mine.

My phone buzzed again. Daisy would have to wait. Everything outside these walls would have to wait.

I had more important things on my hands.

THEO TWILL

The frying pan sizzled as Justice cracked in the eggs. I leaned against the counter, watching him cook like he did every morning. There was an absent precision about it. He kept glancing at his watch, letting time tell him when the egg was done, rather than how it looked in the pan.

I wasn’t going to let my thoughts stew, yet again, on how much we were fucking up all his routines. Everything about his life was different now. Ours too, but it affected Justice the most, probably. And me second.

My first few days in this apartment had been disorienting. I probably would have woken up every day in a panic if Mackenzie hadn’t been wrapped around me every morning. I still technically had my old apartment. I had been dragging my feet with packing it up completely, and I wasn’t sure why.

The toast popped, and Mackenzie bumped my hip as she reached for the butter. I stifled a yawn. We had stayed up picking apart the first night of “Operation CuddleDom.”

She had declared it a success, save for one side effect she hadn’t anticipated. “It took everything I had not to just climb him like a tree,” she had admitted. She rode me, whispering in between gasps what her next plan was. As we came, I covered Justice’s bite mark with my mouth, and she called out his name into my ear.

I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and ended up puttering around the kitchen for hours before everyone woke. I had debated for a solid half hour if I should rearrange the utensil drawer. I couldn’t decide if that would fuck up Justice’s headspace or not. Like, would he be distressed when he couldn’t find a spatula?

I blinked and watched Justice slide his eggs onto a plate. Ren had been right about Justice, right about everything. His fork hovered above the plate, and he shook his head like he was just noticing all of us here. He joined us at the little breakfast table, putting his plate down.

“What’s on your schedule today?” Ren asked, scrolling through something on his phone.

“Product demos this morning. And then a sit-down with marketing. Investor calls. Nothing terribly exciting,” Justice said, cutting into his eggs, breaking the yolk. “Should be home by six.”

I stifled a gasp at the burst of sunshiny warmth coming from our alpha. Mackenzie had noticed, too. We connected across the table, sharing a moment of shock at feeling Justice through our pack bonds. “Home by six” had made him go all warm and fuzzy.

“I’ve got that focus group for Twist,” she blurted, stuffing toast in her mouth. “Ellen thinks we might be ready for packaging mock-ups next week.”

I did the same. It was a cover for our stupid grins. She and I had consumed enough pack romance novels to know that you were supposed to feel your alphas once they’d bitten you. We talked about it endlessly and searched all the omega messageboards. We even considered posting anonymously on the “am I the problem” board. Ren had said we both should take a course on auras, but we had figured it would just develop naturally.

“That’s ahead of schedule.” Justice nodded approvingly. I saw how his eyes lingered on her as she got up to get more coffee, like he was calculating how long until it would be appropriate to touch her again.

“What about you, Theo?” Ren asked.

“Nest consultant at three,” I said casually. Ren nodded. It was a code word. We were going to head to my apartment and figure out what needed to be done. Mackenzie’s anxiety spiked whenever we talked about my apartment. Ren thought it was an unnamed fear that I had had a whole independent life before meeting her and that I might want to go back to that. I thought it was more her bumping up against the realization that Daryl had been a shithead and had wasted her life. Either way, we didn’t want to cause her distress unnecessarily.

“I should go.” Justice stood and put his plate of untouched eggs in the sink. He made it a few steps before pausing. Mackenzie whipped her head around to me as the feeling of nervousness hit the edges of my awareness.

He turned back around and crossed the room to Mackenzie. He placed an awkward kiss on her cheek before heading for the hall, almost like he had stolen that kiss.

I followed him, heart suddenly pounding, snagging the bag out of the fridge along the way.

“Justice, wait,” I called. I’d been up since five preparing it, and now I was unsure.

He turned, eyebrows raised in question.