Page 33 of Knot Your Karma (Not Yours #1)
Karma
The moment we get inside my house, pre-heat decides to graduate into full-blown heat, because apparently my biology has zero interest in easing into things like a normal person’s would.
I’m burning up from the inside out, which is ridiculous because it’s October and I can literally see my breath, but apparently heat doesn’t consult the weather forecast before staging a hostile takeover of your thermostat.
When I press my palm to my chest, it burns fever-hot, heartbeat thundering so hard I can feel it in my teeth. I have to move, have to organize, have to make everything right before I lose myself completely to whatever’s building inside me like a storm I can’t outrun.
“Okay, so this is going to sound completely insane, but I require blankets—like all the blankets—and also the soft things, and the bedroom has to be flawless before I turn into one of those omegas who can only communicate through frantic whimpering and really specific organizational demands that probably don’t make sense to anyone but me?—”
I’m already pulling cushions off my grandmother’s antique sofa, my fingers trembling so badly I nearly drop half of them.
My vintage sweater clings to damp skin, fabric suddenly unbearable against nerve endings that feel raw and exposed.
I’m moving too fast, nearly tripping over my own feet in the rush to make everything right.
The ache builds like wildfire under my skin, making rational thought slip away piece by piece.
“Karma,” Reed says, catching my elbow when I stumble, and the contact sends electricity straight up my arm. “Talk to me. What’s the priority list here?”
“Everything!” I sob, because I can’t slow down enough to organize thoughts properly.
“Bedroom blankets, water, I don’t know what else but I know there’s more, and I require it ready before I completely lose the ability to think in complete sentences and just start making those embarrassing omega noises that romance novels never adequately prepare you for—oh God, I’m already making them, aren’t I? ”
My knees buckle without warning, and I catch myself against the banister, fingertips digging into polished wood. The hallway tilts sideways for three heartbeats before snapping back into focus. Between my thighs, slick starts to gather, and the sensation makes me whimper with want I can’t control.
They move immediately—Reed heading toward the kitchen with determined efficiency, Adrian taking the stairs two at a time, Declan staying with me as I continue my frantic preparations with movements that feel less coordinated with each passing moment.
“The bedroom,” I pant, abandoning the living room nest halfway through. “Private, safe—I want all of you there when this completely takes over and I lose whatever dignity I have left.”
I’m already heading upstairs with an armload of cushions, which is probably not the most dignified way to start a heat cycle, but my legs are shaking so badly I’m just grateful I haven’t face-planted into my grandmother’s antique banister.
The afternoon light streaming through lace curtains feels too harsh, too exposing. I yank down the vintage roller shades with trembling palms, plunging the room into golden dimness that finally feels right.
Adrian shows up carrying what looks like my entire linen closet, which would normally send me into organizational panic mode, but apparently heat makes you prioritize nest-building over proper folding techniques.
The maritime quilt has to go in the exact center—not close, exact—with the compass rose pattern pointing toward the door so I can see anyone approaching. My grandmother’s wedding quilt layers perpendicular, creating a cross pattern that feels essential in ways I can’t explain.
“This arrangement makes sense,” Adrian says, helping position pillows where my urgent gestures indicate. When he moves one pillow two inches right, my whole body tenses until he shifts it back. “Better?”
“Ideal, yes, but also—something’s wrong, it’s happening too fast, like my body just decided to skip the entire warm-up phase and jump straight to the part where I become a frantic mess who can’t function without?—”
I break off, pressing both palms to my sternum because my heart is hammering so hard it might crack my ribs.
“Oh fuck, this is really happening, isn’t it?”
The manageable restlessness I’ve been dealing with suddenly escalates into full heat, and it hits like a freight train. My scent glands burn along my neck and wrists. The room tilts again, and this time it doesn’t stop—everything spinning as fire floods my system.
Wetness slides down my inner thighs—warm trails that cool in the October air and make me shiver. My underwear is already soaked through, slick mixing with arousal until I smell like claiming and yearning and forever all wrapped together in a scent that makes my own mouth water.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I gasp, gripping the bedpost as my legs nearly give out. “It’s starting—real heat, not just the preview anymore—and I crave things I don’t even have words for because apparently heat makes you lose vocabulary along with any sense of appropriate social boundaries?—”
I can’t even finish the sentence because hunger is clawing at my insides like a living thing, making me ache in places I didn’t know could ache, hollow and yearning and empty in ways that make tears spring to my eyes.
Declan’s rain-soaked wood floods in first, sharp and commanding, and the scent hits me like a drug—making my mouth water and my thighs clench and recognition flood my chest for the first time in months.
“Jesus Christ, Karma, your scent just?—”
“I know!” I whimper, because I can smell myself—vanilla and sea salt intensified to the point where it’s drowning out everything else, so rich and urgent it makes the air thick enough to taste.
“I can’t think, everything hurts in the best worst way, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to say things that would make my grandmother roll over in her grave, but I require—please, I require?—”
“Hey, look at me.” His voice cuts through my spiral with authority that makes me focus despite the chaos in my head.
“We’ve got this handled, okay? Step one: get you comfortable.
Step two: take care of every single thing you crave.
Step three: repeat until you’re completely satisfied and probably can’t remember your own name. ”
Reed settles next to my disaster of a nest, and his ocean-breeze scent mixes with Declan’s in ways that make me take these deep, automatic breaths like my lungs just remembered how to work properly.
“So here’s the situation,” he says with that diplomatic calm that makes everything feel manageable.
“You’ve got full heat hitting like a freight train, three men ready to provide whatever care you require, and the most structurally sound nest I’ve seen outside of interior design magazines.
Also, you look absolutely gorgeous falling apart like this, in case that wasn’t clear. ”
Adrian’s sandalwood arrives last, earth and warmth that settles low in my belly. Together they create a blend that doesn’t exist in nature—a scent combination that makes every cell in my body purr with recognition.
Their combined scents create feedback loops—their presence making me respond stronger, which makes them respond stronger, until the air tastes like home and claiming and everything I’ve been craving without knowing it.
But it’s not enough. Nothing’s enough. I ache for skin, for touch, for being filled and claimed and marked until there’s no doubt who I belong to.
“Okay, so this is probably going to sound completely frantic and possibly anatomically ambitious, but I want all of you, like right now, in whatever configuration makes the most sense, and I know that’s probably greedy omega behavior but apparently heat makes me lose all sense of reasonable expectations?—”
My voice breaks as another wave crashes through me, making my skin hypersensitive and my thoughts scatter like leaves in wind.
“Easy, sweetheart.” Declan moves toward me with protective intensity that makes every instinct I have sing with recognition and relief.
His palms frame my face, thumbs warm against my cheekbones, fingers gentle but sure.
“Been wanting to take care of you like this since day one. Gonna make everything better now.”
When he touches my overheated skin, the contact sends electricity straight through me, so intense my back arches involuntarily. Every nerve ending has gone hypersensitive, and his touch feels like lightning and salvation all at once .
“Want you naked,” I gasp, already clawing at the buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers that shake so badly I can barely work the fastenings.
“Want to feel you, all of you, want skin contact before I actually combust from hunger, which I realize probably isn’t medically possible but heat doesn’t seem particularly concerned with anatomy textbooks?—”
“Easy,” Declan murmurs, but his own hands are just as urgent, pulling my sweater over my head in one smooth motion. The fabric catches on my wild hair, and he works it free with gentle efficiency that makes my chest tight with more than just heat. “Let me help.”
My bra follows immediately, and when the cool air hits my overheated skin, I arch toward him with a broken sound of relief. His shirt joins the growing pile on my grandmother’s hardwood floors—expensive fabric discarded without thought because nothing matters except getting closer.
When he works my jeans down my hips, his knuckles brush against my hipbones, and the simple contact makes me gasp like he’s touched me somewhere far more intimate. Everything feels electric, hypersensitive, like my nerve endings have been rewired for maximum sensation.
“So beautiful,” he says, voice rough with reverence as he takes in my naked body. His jeans and boxers disappear in quick, efficient movements, and then we’re skin to skin for the first time, and the sensation nearly levels me.