Page 24 of Pack’s Pledge
After that,babyit was.
It didn’t feel dangerous, when Conall was at my side, when I was waiting on him to finish up in his home office, Beau complaining that the man worked too hard, before the two of us went out on a date. Or over morning cups of coffee, when Beau asked, “How do you like your eggs, baby?” with a wink that made me flush with embarrassment. After all, Conall was there. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with the omega, making toast, or he was just down the hall.
But then there were the times that I was alone in the kitchen, and Beau would come up behind me, his fingers skimming across my hip as he reached into a drawer I was blocking.
“Hey, baby,” he’d say, low and raspy, and my mind would fill with images of him on his knees, Adrian’s cock bruising his throat, and I’d be tempted—so,sotempted—to turn around in his arms. To let him kiss me like he had that first night, to let him pick me up and sit me on the counter and wrap my legs around his strong torso and—
Then he’d smirk, and retreat, and I’d be left with warmth in my belly and a tangle of desire in my chest, and when Conall came home, I’d go to him, knowing he could taste Beau’s scent on me, wondering why that was so excruciatingly hot.
“They’re teasing me,” he said, one night, as I sat in his lap on the couch, my knees wide over his hips and my hands resting on the back of the living room couch.There was a nature documentary playing on the massive television behind me, and Beau and Adrian were out tonight; this time, I hadn’t bothered to ask where. Conall kissed me, his tongue sliding over the seam of my lips until I opened up to him. “I shouldn’t like it so much.”
“But youdolike it?” I asked. “I can—oryoucan—tell them not to, if—”
He flipped me over in one strong movement, so that I was flat on the couch with his muscular body pinning me down. His knee nudged my own denim-clad legs wide. “Britt…” he groaned, letting his hand trail from my hip up under my tee-shirt to my waist, the band of my bra, which he unhooked deftly. A small flash of pride in his eyes reminded me of the gangly teen he’d once been, and I nearly giggled. “I like itso damn much.”
“Then show me,” I challenged, and I just had time to see his eyes flash again before he lifted me effortlessly, throwing me over his shoulder.
I laughed as he stomped down the hallway to his bedroom, where my laughs turned quickly into moans of pleasure.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
Conall
I was smoothingone hand over Britt’s hair as she slept, half-asleep myself, when I heard a clatter in the hallway. Beau’s stifled laughter, Adrian’s whispered admonishment.I’d sent them away for the night, and by the sounds of it, they’d gone out drinking.
“They’re back?” Britt whispered blearily from the crook of my shoulder, and I nodded in the darkness. “What time is it?”
“Late,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Mmm,” she said, nestling down into my arms again.
If you’d cut open my chest, the glowing of my heart would have lit the room.
She was quiet a long moment, so long that I thought she was asleep. Then she whispered, “What about Beau?”
“What about him?” I asked.
“About… why he was at Ardor, I mean,” she whispered. “Do you think–”
Ah.
“Just because of where we met you, that doesn’t mean you need to do anything–be anyone, to them. Beau.”
She was very still, almost frozen in my arms.
“Of course,” she said.
My pack wasn’t like that, I wanted to remind her. I wasn’t like that. I’d worked hard to keep my personal life and my pack life separate–even if what that meant, in reality, was that I didn’thavea personal life.
Until her.
“What if I want to be?” she asked, and…
That was a question I hadn’t expected.
I wanted to protect her.
But she wasn’t mine to protect.