Page 105 of In Deep

Out on the water, the boys are heaving for breath, their shoulders falling and rising rapidly, but huge grins stretch over their faces as they slap each other on the shoulders, linking hands and roaring their approval.

Then Zane struggles to his feet, standing in the belly of the boat as it rocks madly. He’s peering out at the crowd, his hand beckoning someone, and I can see the word on his lips: “Rosie!”

“Go on, love,” Mrs Thomas says, giving me a little nudge. “They want you down there.”

I make my way back through the crowd, tears of joy streaking down my cheeks as I see Ollie knock Zane off his feet and into the water, and then they’re all standing and leaping into the river, hugging each other and knocking their fists against the spray.

When I meet the edge of the water, they spot me and start racing each other to see who can reach me first. Soon their heads are bobbing at my feet.

“We did it,” Zane grins up at me. And all I can do is smile and nod back, the tears still coming. “Get down here and give me a kiss, then,” he tells me.

I crouch down by the water’s edge, but four pairs of hands are on me in a moment, and I land in the freezing water with a splash.

“Fuck,” I scream, as I break back through the surface, the cold knocking the air from my lungs. But I can’t be mad, not at the joyful faces circling me. Seb grabs me first, twining his arms around my waist, holding me afloat and kissing me, and I feel Ollie at my back, his arms around me too, his lips at my throat.

I’m surrounded by all four, caught up in their embraces and their passion. No one watching this will be in any doubt as to what we are, as to what I am.

My secret’s out.

I belong to not one alpha, but four.

I’m pack.

“Claim me,” I say to their exuberant faces as they circle me. “Claim me.”

“Rosie,” Seb says softly.

“I don’t want to wait any longer. I can’t wait,” I plead.

“We can’t do this here,” Seb says, his eyes swivelling to the crowd around us, the cameras, the reporters. “Let’s talk about this later, alright?”

I nod, my pulse still thumping in my throat. Maybe he is right, maybe it’s the adrenaline and the occasion talking.

Except it isn’t. There’s an anticipation buzzing, crackling, in the air between us for the rest of the day. The alphas won’t let me leave their side. One or other of them has his hands on me for the entire day. Through the award ceremony and the debriefs. Much to my dismay, and Bob’s, I’m even dragged into the recovery ice bath once all the formalities are done.

I hope there’ll be time to talk then, but the boys are still full of the race, wanting to go over it again and again.

“How did you find that extra bit of oomph at the end?” I ask, sandwiched, shivering in the icy water, between Duncan’s legs.

“You, sugar,” Zane says with that teasing twinkle in his eyes.

“Me?” I raise my eyebrow sceptically at him in our usual game.

“Ollie said …” he gestures to Ollie.

Ollie sits up straight in the giant bathtub, puffing out his chest and lifting his chin. He swings his fist through the air. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends. For Rosie, England, and Saint George!”

Duncan snorts at the England reference.

“You’re all so full of bullshit,” I laugh.

“It was always part of the game-plan,” Duncan explains. “Leave a bit in the tank for the end.”

“Genius,” I tell them, and they grin at me like puppy dogs. Very big, muscular puppy dogs. I’m just about to bring up the claiming thing again when Bob thumps on the bathroom door.

“Time to get out of the bath! Come on, we’ve got a press conference to get to.”

“Press conference!” I groan as Duncan helps me out of the bath and into a robe. I’d forgotten we had somewhere to be next.