Page 68 of The Gift
“That can happen?”
Reno tips his head to one side, a small smile on his face. “Not usually. Besides, I don’t need a knot to claim you, nor satisfy you, as past experience confirms.”
“There is that.” I smirk knowingly, and yeah, my body wets remembering our fun in the dark and our quick reunion in the kitchen. Both times were good ones, but then I sober up, remembering the original discussion. “I need time.”
“We can do that,” Reno says too quickly. They expected that as my answer.
“So why the sour moods?”
“I’m impatient, that’s all,” Ashton says with a lopsided grin, leaning against the kitchen bench and hand picking out fruit to feed me. “I want to fuck you real bad but Reno thinks you get one drop of alpha come in your pussy, and boom, decision is made by your body, and not by you or us.”
“There’s an us in this? Or is there one heat cycle?”
“Bailey, if you want us, you get us. Which you know. You were not that drunk last night, and we did talk about it a few times.” He waves his finger around the table to include them all.
“So, the entire A-team is on board? For the sake of clarification, of course.”
“Unequivocally,” Reno answers for all of them in a flash.
And I reply back as quickly as he did. “I’m in.” I nip at Ashton’s finger as I take the plump strawberry out of his hand.
And the silence is deafening, while the scent they give off is like a bomb. The four of them too; Koda’s open fire and denim scent, Reno’s dark chocolate decadence, Ashton’s rejuvenating summer rain and Henley’s potent apple and spice smell come together like I’ve been handed a bottle of the world’s most incredible bottle of perfume, made for me.
I have to hang my head, saliva pooling in my mouth making the strawberry taste like ash. And these beautiful assholes have made it necessary for me to change my underwear before I go do any work.
“You can’t do that,” I whisper, side-eyeing Ashton, when he leans up to growl in my ear, or maybe it’s a purr, either way the results are the same. Ruined panties. “Not yet anyway.”
They do it again making my body shiver as a trillion goosebumps dot my skin. I blow a steadying breath out and look up to glare at them, but am greeted by their cocky, heated, filthy dirty smiles. Low chuckles and soft growls too, like Reno promised they’d respond. I have to cross my legs and rub them together to release a little of the pressure, not being at all discrete about what I am doing.
“I have to do this interview today and go see Jenna in a few days. And you all need to uncover who my stalker is, find the omega missing from the other night, maybe add another one or two for the show, and then we…”
“Go into lockdown and take you into heat asouromega,” Henley interrupts. His voice unwavering and confident. And goddamn him for voicing, articulating what I want.
I nod agreeing. Am I ashamed or embarrassed it’s an over-eager nod of my head? Hell no.
Ashton hops up next to me, his finger hooking my blouse so he can look down my shirt, “You sure about that schedule of yours?”
They all chuckle.
“Reno, you need to fix this, right now. Or I’m going to… come all over your island bench.”
He gets up, opening a drawer in the island bench and pulling out a syringe. And that tells me that the A-team kind of set me up, but also that we’ve got a heavier discussion coming up. I knew that though; Koda already told me.
Reno takes a step towards me. I shirk back, and he stops. Ashton purposely leans into my view, looking at me.
“You good?”
I have never been a fan of needles, makes sense really, but I also know that I don’t want to be continually held back by the past. The A-team said they wanted to do this, and to me that means warts and all.
“Is it bad I’m okay with having blurry memories of what happened?” I pick up my tea, avoiding looking at anyone in particular.
“Bails, only when you’re ready,” Koda says, and I can feel the air stirring, all of them want to get up and rush over to help me, but they won’t.
Watching my tea, I keep going. “Do you get though, that I probably won’t ever go looking for a way to understand what happened? Or deal with my history the way most people do? Locking it away works for me, and I’m sure that will not change, no matter the incentive.”
I know they want to help. In the shortest amount of time since meeting the A-team I know what good people they are, hell everyone knows that. I suspect despite wanting to fix me, they’ll push me to be stronger, to make me see for myself that I’m nearly unbreakable. And then they’ll swoop in to reinforce all the positives with their praise and faith. Which is entirely different to being the lonely survivor I’ve been, but at the same time I need them to understand there are things I will not do.
“In my head there’s all these fractured fragments of memories, like half watched movies, but it’s from my life. I know it is.” I speak, staring at my hands, not because I’m ashamed, more because I don’t want to stop from telling them now that I’ve started. “And I feel like a lot of what I remember is from the end of what happened. The start of how or why I got there, it’s like it never occurred. The middle is super blurry, although I guess that’s my coping. And then it’s stupid everyday things that can lock me up, like a syringe. My mind and my body work against me sometimes, I swear it.” I shake my head trying to keep everything in neat order, including my emotions in check.
