Page 77 of Torment Me Knot
I curl my fingers around his where he’s cupping my face. “I can't change. Neither can you.”
“I'm not asking you to change. I am telling you I am not going to.”
Lex’s fingers dig into my thigh. “I didn't know it could happen twice. When we found Aubrey we thought that was the gift of our lives. Then we saw you that day, with Espie, and something in me went still and didn't move again. I didn't have words for it. I still don't. I just know that I haven't put you down since the second I picked you up in my head.”
Ezra’s mouth presses against my throat, hot and deliberate. He kisses the place beneath my jaw and my pulse leaps against his lips.
“You think this is about circumstance?” Ezra murmurs. “About proximity? About us taking what we can get?”
He kisses lower, the edge of my collarbone.
“You think you're something we settled for because we were lonely or desperate?” His voice roughens. “Sera, you walked into our lives and everything changed. You’re not temporary. You’re not convenient. You’re ours.”
“I don't know why we didn't say any of this sooner,” Kev says. “Maybe because our heads were full of two traumatized omegas and keeping them breathing from one hour to the next. But wanting you was never the question, Sera. We were fucking idiots for not showing it.”
His words shatter me but I can’t let go. It will hurt too much when they realize that they are only pretty words. I have no doubt they feel this way now, but future them are another thing. It always starts out well. Until it doesn’t.
“You don't know me. None of you do. Not really.”
“It doesn't matter. My body knows. The whole pack knows. Every instinct I have saysher, that one, she's ours.” Kev’s voice drops. “Instinct doesn't lie about this.”
He sinks to his knees.
Kev. On the floor. His knees on the hardwood and his shoulders at the level of my belly and his face — his face is right there.
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
My clit throbs so hard the sensation echoes through my whole body.
No male would want to lose his dick in a vice like that, Sera.
The beta’s voice arrives the second Kev lowers between my thighs. Twenty-eight years later and it still has a key to my front door.
I shove it back into the dark. Not him. Not now. He doesn't get to be in this kitchen. But the conditioning wakes anyway. My body wants to close up. Push Kev back. Clamp my knees together and get off the counter before I end up at the level of an alpha's mouth and make a fucking fool of myself.
Whatever expression is on his face, it isn’t obligation or curiosity. It’s hunger. The kind that looks half-contained, half-feral, like he’s spent too long denying himself and just realized he no longer has to.
His fingers curl around my thighs, next to where Lex holds me still. “I'm going to put my mouth on you, Sera. I'm going to make you come on my tongue and we’re going to figure out together how to make you stop thinking we don’t want you. Because we’re not. I’m not.”
He presses a kiss to my inner thigh, lips soft, stubble scraping, and heat zings straight to my clit but there are things I don’t understand. The shoe is going to drop. It always drops.
“We were stupid. We were so fucking stupid.” Another kiss, higher this time, his breath hot against my skin. “I should have told you the first night. The first hour. I'm sorry, Sera. I am so sorry I let think you were anything but ours.”
“You're gorgeous. Every single inch of you. And you have no idea,” Kev breathes.
“So fucking pretty,” Ezra agrees, sliding his hands down my shoulders. “You're shaking, Sera. Tell me if it's good shaking or if it's the other kind. I'll stop us right now if you need me to.”
My thighs are shaking. So are my hands. If I let myself want this, if I let myself hope, the price tag for that comes due later, and I cannot afford it.
Lex cups my face, making me look up at him. “Eyes on me, Sera. While he does this, I want your eyes on me. I want to watch what he does to you. I want you to know somebody is watching what you're worth.”
Kev hooks my knees over his shoulders. “I'm going to make you feel so good. Going to take my time. And you're going to let me.”
“Yes.” Despite myself I'm throbbing with anticipation. I want his mouth on me. I want to feel desired. Chosen. Just for once. So I'll let them take whatever they want to give for whatever reason they think is a good reason.
Then his mouth is on me. His tongue flat against my clit. My hips jerk toward his face. I can't stop them.
