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“I need everyone in the bedroom,” Sen said when Noah put Flick down, heading for a shower. “I know you probably want… I just need everybody in the same room.”

“You want the pack together,” Peter said.

“Well, Kade’s at Mum’s. She’s—” Aidan said.

“Distracting him from the fact that I was gone.” Noah’s eyes sank to the floor.

“Don’t. Let’s… Don’t,” Sen said, biting off the words. “Let’s go in the room. I had this whole thing…”

They filed in, Sen tearing his clothes off and flopping on the bed, Noah following suit, Flick stripping Aidan and Peter down as they did the same to her. They took up the middle of the bed, wedging her between them.

“No,” Sen said, looking down at the arrangement. “Or rather, yes. Kiss her and show her that you love her, but Noah, he needs to be with Flick.”

The woman herself looked back with a smile. “You don’t have to orchestrate everything, you know.”

“No, but I do right now. I’m sorry, Flick, guys.

This is probably not what you want now, but it’s…

riding me hard.” The pack went still when a red light flickered and died in Sen’s eyes.

He sat back hard against the bedhead. “I…” He raked his hand through his hair.

“I thought I had it sorted, that I was keeping everyone together.”

“That’s not your responsibility,” Aidan said.

“No, I know, but… Look, this whole relationship thing, the choosing. I’ve always found that difficult to cope with.

In every other aspect of my life, I get off my arse and put the hard yards in and I get the rewards.

Relationships aren’t like that. I can’t earn a mate, a pack.

But I can’t just…leave things to develop on their own.

This…” He shook his head and then stared at Noah.

“I can’t do this if we’re not straight with each other.

Tell me my mother’s being a bitch, tell me it hurts when you’re not claimed as a mate, and I’ll do my fucking damnedest to make it better. ”

“We should talk more,” Aidan said with a frown. “But what you’re talking about…” He shook his head. “We’ve been doing this for a while now. That’s not how it works.”

“We work together,” Peter said. “No one is above the other.”

“And I’m glad Flick has that. You guys are like the protective core around her.

But what’s in me… I do things. It’s what I am, who I am.

If there’s a problem, I’m on it. I’m always looking for them before they happen, trying to find ways to get around them.

If I'm not doing…” Sen looked up, his grey eyes stark in his face. “I want, need to do things for you.”

He wasn’t looking at anyone in particular, his eyes roaming around the room, alighting on each and every member of the pack before settling back on the bed.

“Then maybe you’ve got to wait to be asked.”

Noah blinked, unable to believe those words came out of his mouth, but when they did, he didn’t regret them. He felt everyone’s eyes on his skin, but he did not meet them.

“Both of us, we’ve been doing all this shit, keeping our feelings to ourselves and trying to prove…” His hands flexed, wanting to start stimming again. “Maybe that’s part of the problem. We need to ask.”

“That’s how it works,” Flick said. “In any relationship, but especially one as complex as this one. I love that you feel like you have to take the weight off me at home, Noah, but I don’t like the cost. It feels like an impossible burden that you can’t maintain.

Sen, looking for ways to smooth the way and anticipating problems is awesome, but also destined to fail.

We will fight.” They all caught the slight shiver that went through her.

“And hopefully, we’ll find our way back to each other.

I guess that’s what comes from being together for longer, of being mates.

” She glanced at Aidan and then Peter. “When you know you have a place here, you can…let go, let things happen at their own pace.”

“Then I need to sit down and have a beer with you two,” Sen said with a rueful smile. “Get some pointers.”

“That’d be good for all of us,” Aidan said, rubbing Flick’s arm.

“She’s easy to love,” Pete said, dragging her closer, the three of them watching the way Flick melted into his side.

“She deserves all of our efforts to make her happy, but you don’t need to work so hard at it.

” When her head tipped backwards, his mouth was on hers, kissing her slowly, thoroughly.

“Mostly it's just breathing her in, feeling her.” He glanced up, his eyes dark and hot now. “Everything else just comes naturally.”

So they tried it. Peter laid Flick down on the bed like she was a precious thing, and their hands reached for her on automatic.

She gasped each time a palm made contact with her body, the sound becoming a delicious moan as they swept across.

Skimming her ribs, across the soft swell of her belly, up her legs, across her sternum. Everywhere but where she wanted them.

“See, you know when it's the right time to do what she needs,” Peter said when they all zeroed in on the parts of her body that would give her the most pleasure.

Finger traced nipples, slid between her thighs when her cries reached a certain pitch, lips kissed hers, tongues sliding between them.

For Flick, it was a dizzying maelstrom of sensation, sucking her under, pulling out all the tension that had been riding her body for the last day or so.

“So how do we do this?” Noah asked, his heart pounding as he forced the words out. Peter, Aidan, they knew Flick, knew how to make her happy. He could trust their advice, he decided, though it still cost him to verbalise it.

“That’s for you two and Flick to decide,” Aidan said. “The first time with your mate… You never get that back. It’s still just as amazing, but there’s something special about it after you’ve bonded.”

“How do you want to do this, Noah?” Sen asked. The other man noted the flash of red in his eyes, the tension in his arms.

It was nice, just to be asked, even if he wasn’t sure he needed to.

Just being with them, it filled all the cracks inside him, and frighteningly, a whole lot more.

He felt a little over stuffed, with them, the bond, their love.

But, as his eyes ached, staring down at Flick, who was slowly stroked higher and higher, he found himself smiling and turning to his packmate.

“You had something planned, didn’t you?”

Sen nodded quickly. “It… Flick, can I tell him or do you want to?”

Her eyes opened reluctantly, but when they did, they softened as they looked upon Noah.

“We… I had always intended to make you my mate. I was talking it over with Sen, and that prompted me taking him. Yesterday morning, in the shower… I could feel it thrumming inside you. That was all preparation for what was supposed to happen last night.” She reached up and stroked his cheek.

“I didn’t think you would want the whole hoopla of a party.

I bit Sen, figured we’d get the party done, and then… ”

She gasped as Sen pinched down hard on her nipple, effectively silencing her, much to her delight.

“Maybe it’ll be the last time I do this, maybe it won’t. You choose, mate. Do you want what we’d planned or…?” he asked.

Noah’s eyes flicked from Sen’s hands to Flick’s gasps, his heart racing at the thought. To step into the unknown. What would they do? How would it play out? The tension built inside him, making his muscles tense but his cock rock hard.

“We don’t have?—”

“Yes,” he replied, then said it again when people didn’t listen immediately. He’d keep saying it until they did, but his pack all nodded, Flick’s a little belated as hands continued to roam around her body. “Yes.” The word was said to himself now, an acknowledgement of what he was about to do.

There were no guarantees in relationships, no guidebooks, no set of simple rules you could follow. There was only this—jumping in, doing your best, being prepared to put your heart on the line, and hope the other person is willing to do the same.

The guys moved with well-practised ease that made it clear they’d talked about this, which warmed Noah somehow. He watched Sen retrieve restraints from the bedside drawers.

“We’re gonna tie you up now, baby,” he said, stroking Flick’s face as Peter’s lips went to her nipples and Aidan slid between her thighs. “What’s your safe word?”

“Pineapple!” she gasped, Noah’s eyes darting down to see that Aidan had slung her thighs over his shoulders and buried his face between her legs.

Noah watched the man work with singular dedication, seemingly lost in her taste.

His mouth watered, remembering exactly how she’d tasted the last time he’d done the same.

“Good girl,” Sen said, then proceeded to tie her to the bedhead. Noah watched how the man examined the way the restraints held her, the tension in her arms before sliding over next to Noah. Sen winked at him, then bent down and suckled on her other nipple to the musical sound of her cries.

Noah felt like a lightning rod, a terrible, desperate pleasure riding him as he saw this all play out.

He’d wanted to be more decisive, to communicate better about what he needed, but he was struck dumb.

She was so fucking beautiful, her hair wild, her lips pouting, her cheeks flushed, the dried blood on her neck drawing his eye.

The other men watched him as he shifted on the bed, taking position by Flick’s head, leaning over her, panting, before dropping his lips down to hers.

Flick was frantic, her tongue thrusting past his, her mouth wide to take as much of him as she could. Her groan was muffled as he sucked on her tongue, gripping her lips between his teeth, until he finally pulled away with a pop .

“Noah…” she moaned as he turned her head to one side, running his tongue along the new mark he’d left and cleaning it of blood and venom, glancing up to see her writhe with each lick.

“Aidan,” Sen said.