Page 63 of Knot Her Beta

I turn to find Leif standing by the couch, his jacket draped over one arm, his periwinkle eyes fixed on the front yard beyond the window.

“You good?” I ask.

As he turns, the late afternoon light catches his profile, softening the lines around his eyes. “Yeah. Just… taking a minute.”

The space between us narrows as he moves toward me.

His pheromones reach me before he does, fresh linen and sun-warmed cedar curling around me to show his interest. His hand finds my elbow, fingers warm through my sleeve, and he leans in. His lips brush my cheek, just below the corner of my mouth, and linger there.

My pulse trips, and the scent of him blooms fuller, pulling low in my belly.

“Thank you for hosting us,” he says, pitched for my ears alone. “It meant a lot.”

As he steps back, his hand slides from my elbow, fingertips dragging across my wrist, and he turns toward the door.

He takes one step.

Two.

My fingers catch the back of his shirt before my brain catches up, two fingers hooking into the fabric between his shoulder blades.

He stops.

“The guest room’s made up,” I say, my voice husky. “Jared can run you down to the docks in the morning.”

When Leif turns, the look in his eyes undoes me. Relief comes first, then heat. Hunger. Before he reins it in with visible effort.

“Yes,” he says without hesitation.

I let him go, and he shoots off a text to those in the waiting SUV outside without moving away.

A moment later, Holden’s car pulls out of the driveway, gravel crunching under tires. The sound fades, and the cottage settles around us, full of the comfortable wreckage of a good afternoon and the quiet that comes after the people you love have left.

Slowly, Leif hangs his jacket on the hook he’d claimed months ago as his own, before he gestures to the disaster left by the gathering. “Let’s get this picked up, and then we can put on a movie?”

I clear my throat. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll make the popcorn,” Jared announces from right behind me.

I startle a little, so caught up in my Omega that I didn’t notice my Alpha joining us.

Both men chuckle before Jared pads away into the kitchen. A rustle of plastic sounds, then the microwave hums to life. Soon, kernels start popping in staccato bursts. Jared whistles off-key, the cheerful tune carrying back to us.

And still, neither Leif nor I have moved to pick up the mess.

Instead, he inches closer, the space between us shrinking one small step at a time. “May I kiss you?”

I lick suddenly dry lips. “Yes.”

His hands come up to cradle my jaw, his thumbs at my cheekbones, his breath unsteady. Then his mouth claims mine, and he kisses me with the fervor of someone who’s been holding it back for months, one hand sliding into my hair and tightening there, the other holding my jaw steady as if afraid I’ll pull back.

A purr tears loose from my chest, the vibration carrying into his mouth. His breath hitches. Then my mouth opens, and his tongue sweeps in deep, his fingers tightening along my jaw as if the sound of me undid the last of his restraint.

An involuntary sound escapes before he pulls back, and his forehead drops to mine, both of us breathing hard.

“I don’t hear the popcorn popping anymore,” he says.

“No,” I agree. “We should probably at least put the couch back together.”