Page 115 of Torment Me Knot
“There’s money in omega control and trafficking,” I say.
“If we'd known.” Kev’s voice is rough at the edges. “If we'd had this information earlier — you might have been found. Both of you. Years earlier.” He stops. “I should have dug harder. I should have—”
“Don't do that. Don't take on Axel's sins. Or Wallace's,” Aubrey says. “And Wallace will pay the same way for what he did to Espie. I'll make sure of it.”
His vow moves through me, bound by grief, sorrow and heat. He means it. Every word.
“Aubrey.” My voice comes out soft. “We all suffered. Not just me.”
His damaged fingers find mine.
“I hate that it happened to you,” he says.
I clench his hand. “But the good thing, theonlygood thing, is that it brought us here. To each other.”
Aubrey strokes my cheek, my jaw, but the tremor in his hand grows as sorrow floods our bond. Sorrow for all the years they stole from us. Sorrow for the pain inflicted on us because of a designation. Ezra makes a low sound and Lex shifts closer to us. Our alphas are protecting us. Comforting us.
Kev’s nostrils flare as he scents our distress. “I need to kiss you, Omega. Need to make sure you’re all right. That is if you…need that too.”
Aubrey stills. The damaged fingers in my hand loosen. His cedar deepens, chamomile thickening warm with his desire. He looks at Kev, his eyes clear.
“Yes, Alpha,” he says. “I would like that.”
Kev cups Aubrey’s face with both hands, thumbs resting along his jaw as he leans in. The kiss begins slow and careful, deliberate enough to give Aubrey room to pull away if he wants to.
Then Aubrey makes a broken sound against his mouth and grabs fistfuls of Kev’s shirt, and restraint disappears completely.
Kev groans under his breath and hauls Aubrey tight against him, one hand sliding to the back of his neck to angle him exactly where he wants him. Aubrey rises onto his knees in the nest, pressing into Kev’s chest, his body moving instinctively againsthim as cedar crashes through the patio air in a wave dense enough to flood my lungs.
Kev breaks the kiss to drag his mouth along Aubrey's jaw, his throat. Aubrey tips his head back, baring his neck, his breath coming apart in small urgent pieces, and Kev puts his lips against the pulse there and bites softly and Aubrey shudders full-body and sayspleasein a voice that has nothing performed in it at all.
Lex's sandalwood deepens beside me. Ezra's purr climbs a register.
Kev pulls back far enough to look at Aubrey's face. The flushed jaw, the bitten mouth, the eyes fully present and wanting.
Kev drops his forehead to Aubrey's. “Thank you, Omega. Thank you for letting me kiss you.”
Kev presses one more kiss to his mouth, soft this time. Then he eases Aubrey back and turns to me.
“Espie. May I kiss you too.” Kev holds out his hand. Open, waiting.
I look at his hand. Then at his face. At the tiredness around his eyes that's been there since Sera left and has only gotten worse. I know what this hand has done. Held Aubrey through months of nothing. Built a greenhouse because I needed one. Let me go at every single turn when letting go was the harder thing.
I put my hand in his and he pulls me into his lap, settling me astride him, his palms spreading wide across my hips. The solid weight of him beneath me pulls a breath from my chest. He holds my gaze for one beat, searching, making sure. Then I close the distance and press my mouth to his.
He kisses me like Sera isn't missing and the clock isn't running. Like there is nothing else in the world right now except this patio and this nest and his mouth on mine. His hand slides up my spine, and the other tightens at my hip, and every pointof contact sharpens. Kev groans against my mouth as his tongue slides against mine.
Lex puts his hand at the back of my neck. Ezra's palm spreads between my shoulder blades, his purr moving through me from behind. Aubrey rises to trace a path along my collar bone with his hot tongue, and I am held from every direction, Kev's chest at my front and Lex's hand at my nape, Aubrey beside me and Ezra's warmth at my back.
Kev drags his mouth to my jaw. My throat. He finds the place beneath my ear and lingers. “When we get her back. I want everything.”
I fist Kev’s shirt, because I know now. This is where I belong. There’s no version of my future that doesn’t include them. “You'll have it. All of it.”
We all feel the missing space where Sera should be. His thumbs press into my hip bones, one slow pass as his breath shudders.
His phone rings. His mouth goes flat as he answers the call. “Adrian.”
My heart starts racing as his scent turns sharp and bitter at whatever Adrian says.
