Page 43 of Knot Their Safe Haven (The Omega Rebellion Movement #3)

CARVED INTENTIONS

~DANTE~

T he private pavilion glows with string lights and jack-o'-lanterns, our own corner of autumn paradise that Alessandro and Alexis secured with their portion of today's carefully orchestrated dates.

Fair trade—we handled location scouting while they handled logistics, and now here we are, three adults about to make absolute fools of ourselves with pumpkins and knives.

Velvet's laugh rings out again, bright and uninhibited in a way that suggests the Riesling is doing its job.

She's sprawled on the blanket between Damon and me, silver hair spilling everywhere, still wearing those ridiculous pumpkin stockings that have been driving me insane all day.

Her cheeks are flushed pink, eyes bright with mirth as she watches my twin butcher what was supposed to be a bat.

"Damon, that looks like a drunk butterfly had sex with a ceiling fan."

"It's abstract art," he defends, turning his pumpkin to display the massacre. "You just don't understand my vision."

"Your vision needs glasses." She reaches over, trying to salvage one wing. "Here, if you just—no wait, that made it worse."

"How is it worse?" He studies his creation with genuine confusion. "It has character now."

"It has trauma. Your bat needs therapy."

I can't help the chuckle that escapes. For twins who share everything, our artistic abilities diverged somewhere around kindergarten. My pumpkin displays a decent wolf howling at the moon. His looks like roadkill got ambitious.

"Not everyone can be Michelangelo with a carving knife," Damon grumbles, but he's smiling as he watches our omega lose herself to giggles.

She's beautiful like this—relaxed, unguarded, not the Rebel Queen or the Haven founder or anyone except Velvet, slightly wine-drunk and covered in pumpkin guts.

Orange pulp decorates her white blouse where she got enthusiastic with scooping.

Seeds stick to her fingers despite multiple napkin attacks.

There's a smear of something on her cheek that I desperately want to lick off.

"Show off your masterpiece," I encourage, needing distraction from thoughts that'll get me in trouble.

She turns her pumpkin with ceremony. It's a phoenix, wings spread in flight, detailed enough that you can see individual feathers. The craftsmanship is borderline professional.

"Where did you learn that?"

"Foster home number seven. Mrs. Chen believed idle hands were the devil's playground, so every October we carved approximately three thousand pumpkins for various church fundraisers." She traces one wing with obvious pride. "I got competitive about it."

"Of course you did," Damon and I say in unison.

"What? I have a healthy sense of competition."

"You have an unhealthy need to be excellent at everything," I correct.

"That's what makes her perfect for us," Damon adds, reaching over to tuck silver hair behind her ear. "We also have unhealthy needs for excellence."

"Among other unhealthy needs," she mutters into her wine glass.

"Such as?"

Her eyes dart between us, pink tongue darting out to wet her lips in a gesture that absolutely isn't calculated to drive us insane except it absolutely is.

"Probably shouldn't discuss those in public."

"This isn't public," I point out, gesturing to our private pavilion. "Alessandro made sure we'd have complete privacy for exactly this reason."

"So we could discuss unhealthy needs?"

"So we could do whatever came naturally without witnesses."

The temperature shifts, sexual tension crackling between us like static before storms. Velvet sets down her wine glass with careful precision, and I recognize the look in her eyes—evaluation, consideration, decision.

"Tell me what you like about me."

The question catches us both off-guard.

"What?"

"You heard me. What specifically do you like? Because twenty years with men who could never articulate it beyond vague assertions has left me curious what actual attraction sounds like."

Damon and I exchange looks—one of those twin communications that happens without words. He nods slightly. My turn first.

"Your competence," I start, watching her eyebrows rise. "The way you run meetings like a general planning campaigns. How you can eviscerate someone with words sharper than any knife. Your laugh when you're genuinely amused versus the polite one you use for strangers."

"The way you smell at different times of day," Damon continues seamlessly. "Coffee and determination in the morning. Wine and rebellion by evening. Right now you smell like autumn and want and something uniquely you that makes our brains stop working."

"Your silver hair catching sunlight. The way you bite your lip when thinking. How you pretend not to need anyone while desperately craving connection."

"Your legs in those stockings that should be illegal. The sounds you make when you eat something you love. How you kiss like you're trying to steal souls."

"Your intelligence that terrifies weak men. Your compassion that saves broken omegas. Your fury that could reshape the world if properly directed."

"The way you've started trusting us despite decades of betrayal teaching you otherwise."

We're both leaning toward her now, pulled by gravity she doesn't realize she generates. Her breathing has changed, chest rising and falling faster beneath that white blouse with its orange bow.

"Together?" she asks softly.

We know what she means without clarification.

"How you can tell us apart," we say in unison. "How you see us as individuals while accepting we're a matched set. How you don't make us choose between being ourselves and being twins."

"Every other omega has wanted to separate us," I explain. "To claim one and tolerate the other."

"Or wanted us to perform twinness for their fantasies without acknowledging we're different people," Damon adds.

"But you see Dante and Damon while accepting we're also Dante Damon. Singular and plural simultaneously."

She's quiet for a long moment, processing our words with that brilliant mind that probably shouldn't be this attractive.

"I'm glad you're older," she finally says.

"Than?"

"Than Alessandro. Than what society expects.

Than what I thought I wanted." She fidgets with her wine glass.

"There's something taboo about being nearly forty with a thirty-five-year-old claiming me.

But you two are forty-two. Alexis is forty-two.

It feels... balanced. Like I'm not robbing cradles or being predatory. "

"Predatory," Damon repeats with amusement. "Yes, you definitely seduced us against our will."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

The challenge hangs between us, heavy with possibility. She looks at the carved pumpkins, the empty wine bottles, the privacy of our pavilion as evening deepens around us.

"What do you want to do now?" I ask, voice carefully neutral despite the want coursing through my veins.

She laughs, but it's different—darker, edged with something that makes my cock take interest.

“Honestly? I want to strip out of these clothes and see which of you is better at covering me with pumpkin guts.”

I nearly lost control of my wine glass. The way she said it—sharp, unblinking, as if she were requesting a dessert menu instead of proposing the single most erotic, unhinged spectacle this side of a Renaissance bacchanal—stole the breath right out of my lungs.

Damon coughed, caught between laughter and disbelief, while I worked my jaw, trying to realign my brain with the rest of my body.

Velvet ran her tongue casually along her lip, as if tasting her own provocation. She tilted her head, regarding us both with a predatory sort of amusement, and I realized she was enjoying our total, stupefied paralysis.

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than planned.

“Isn’t that the point?” She spun her pumpkin on the table, sending a crescent of seeds skidding across the blanket. “I had the distinct impression we were supposed to try things that scare or excite us today. Pumpkins are only the beginning.”

I could sense Damon recalibrating, his hazel eyes darkening as he tried to summon a retort that would one-up her.

But Velvet owned the moment, balancing herself between us, radiating smugness and vulnerability in equal measure.

She leaned back on her palms, arching slightly, and let her gaze rest on Damon.

“Would you actually do it?” she asked, voice suddenly soft enough that it could have been mistaken for shyness, if not for the impish glimmer in her eye.

Damon grinned, recovering his composure. “Only if there’s a prize for the winner,” he shot back.

“Winner gets what?” she replied, drawing it out for maximum effect. Her eyes flicked over to me, and I felt the challenge like a physical touch.

“First taste,” I said before thinking. The words just appeared, shameless and direct, and hung there between us, raw as a peeled nerve.

Silence. Velvet’s cheeks deepened from pink to scarlet, her breath catching in her chest. She didn’t look away; she held my gaze, daring me to take it back. I wouldn’t.

Damon, never one to let a moment pass, leaned in until his mouth nearly brushed her ear. “But if we’re both champions, you’ll have to settle the tie,” he murmured.

She shivered, but didn’t retreat. “What if I want to be the contested ground?”

“Oh, darling,” I said, “you already are.”

We all broke then, laughter erupting between us, a tangle of nerves and joy and relief that neither of us had crossed the line too far. Velvet wiped at her eyes, trying to regain composure, but every time she glanced at Damon’s pumpkin “bat,” she lost it again.

“Imagine the headlines,” she managed between giggles. “‘Rebel Queen Found Dead, Consumed by Pumpkin Kink.’ The press would have a field day.”

“At least you’d go down in history,” Damon said, straight-faced.

“Not the first time history’s been made on that blanket,” I quipped, and this time Velvet didn’t even pretend to hide her snort.

The tension had changed—no less charged, but now braided with something more electric: the sense that we could say or do anything, and it would be met, matched, amplified.

I felt lighter than I had in years, like the world had shrunk to the size of our candlelit corner, and all that mattered was how we filled it.

I reached for the wine, refilled her glass, refilled Damon’s, then set the bottle aside. “If you’re serious,” I said, “we’ll need some ground rules. No pumpkin in the eyes. No knives after the first drink. And?—”

“And a safe word,” Damon interrupted, ever the responsible twin.

“Let’s not pretend we’d ever stop if she said please,” I countered, just to watch her reaction.

Velvet pretended to be scandalized. “You two are monsters.”

“Guilty,” I agreed, already strategizing how I’d paint her with orange pulp and claim my prize.

She watched us for a long, loaded moment, spinning the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, and when she spoke, her voice had cooled, but her eyes hadn’t lost their spark.

"But," she continues with obvious regret, "since pumpkin intestines don't actually taste good and would probably cause infections in unfortunate places, I guess we should head home."

My twin and I lock eyes again. Another silent conversation, this one faster.

"What if," I say slowly, "we substitute pumpkin guts with something more... palatable?"

Her eyes widen. "Such as?"

"Whipped cream," Damon suggests with studied casualness. "Maybe some brown sugar. Cinnamon. You know, autumn flavors that actually taste good when licked off skin."

The flush that spreads down her neck disappears beneath her blouse, and I desperately want to follow its path.

"You wouldn't actually." But her voice wavers, uncertainty mixing with want.

"No one's coming here," I point out, gesturing to our isolated pavilion. "Alessandro paid for privacy until midnight. The festival's a quarter-mile away. We're surrounded by trees and absolutely no witnesses."

"You're serious."

"Dead serious," we confirm together.

She looks between us, and I can see her mind working—calculating risks versus rewards, propriety versus desire, the omega who saved thousands versus the woman who hasn't been properly touched in decades.

"This is insane."

"Sanity is overrated," Damon counters.

"We could get caught."

"By who? The pumpkins?"

"It's probably illegal."

"Definitely illegal," I agree cheerfully. "Want to try anyway, brother?"

Damon's grin matches mine—dangerous and delighted.

"I'll get the whipped cream."