Page 69 of Believe it or Knot

“We’ll be fine,” Liam reassures me, even though his scent is sharp with sour lemon. “We’ll go out and give them something. Plus, the cops will be here soon enough to deal with this piece of trash. The team will be enough to keep us safe.”

Damn right they will. I trained the security team myself, but it doesn’t mean I want to leave my pack members.

“Rafe,” Gray hardens his voice into a command. “Go.”

I give a jerky nod to my prime alpha and scoop my beta into my arms. She lets out a whimper of pain that has me worried she’s hurt more than she’s let on. “I’m fine,” she whispers when all three of us growl. “I promise, I’m fine. I just want to go.” She looks up at me with watery aqua eyes. “Please, can we go?”

I press a kiss to her forehead and nod. “Of course, conejita. We’re going.”

“Car’s waiting in the alley,” Jones says, quietly so no one else will hear. I pin him with a hard look.

“Where the fuck were you?”

His jaw ticks, and he drops his gaze. No answer is forthcoming. No excuse. He knows he fucked up. We all did.

“Rafe, it’s okay,” my girl whispers. “Please. I want to…”

“I know,” I say, hefting her higher against my chest so I can kiss her forehead. “I know. We’re going.”

Gray steps up next to us and presses a tender kiss to her forehead, cupping her cheek softly. I catch the darkening in his eyes when he takes in the bruise forming on her face in the unmistakable shape of a handprint. A low growl rumbles out of him as he spins away, strides over to Patrick, draws back his three thousand dollar loafer and kicks him in the stomach.

“Gray!” Sorrel’s protests. And it is a protest.

She’s too soft, too sweet, to want us to take pity on the man who held her at knifepoint, who threatened to take her from us in a very permanent way. I’m not sure she fully understands how alpha instincts work, but she’ll figure it out in time, get used to our overprotective ways and the need to hurt anyone who hurts her.

Gray pins her with an unimpressed look that she meets with one of her own. “I think he’s been hurt enough,” she mumbles.

Liam barks out an unamused laugh. “Not nearly enough, lovely. But he will be.”

I bundle Sorrel out of the restaurant and into the waiting car. It’s a nightmare setting her into the seat, not keeping her in my arms, but I have to leave the rest of the team with Gray and Liam, so I have to be the one to drive us away from the veritable shit show our first date with our girl turned out to be.

As soon as I’m in the driver’s seat, my hand seeks her thigh of its own accord, gripping it through the silky fabric of her dress, thumb stroking back and forth to soothe her.

She’s quiet the whole way, staring out the window, her lip caught between her teeth. She’s so fucking beautiful it makes my heart ache. Even with tears on her cheeks and her makeup smeared, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.

When we make it back to the pack house, I ignore her protests and sweep her into my arms, carrying her up the stairs straight into the en suite of her room. The one I hope will be hers for the rest of our lives, though we mostly sleep in Liam’s nest as a pack.

Once she’s steady on her feet, I leave her to clean up, retreating to dig through her suitcase to find her comfiest clothing, only to change my mind and head to our rooms, collecting clothing that smells like us, like pack. One of Liam’s oldest t-shirts, a pair of Gray’s boxer briefs, one of my zip up hoodies.

She steps out of the bathroom, freshly scrubbed and smelling like steam and soap, wearing nothing but a towel and eyes the pile of clothes I’m holding. “I thought you might like… When Liam’s upset, he likes to wear our clothes, I thought you might like the same thing?”

She bites her lips again, a pretty flush spreading over her cheeks as she nods. “I’d like that.”

My cock throbs and I have to tell it to calm the fuck down, because our girl is traumatized and the last thing she needs is me trying my damnedest to have sex with her. I clear my throat and drop the clothing on the bed. “Good, I’ll just go change while you get dressed.”

I hightail it out of there, with the image of all that tan skin, every inch of her body playing in my head. Fuck. Fuck. Maybe I have time to jerk myself off before she needs me.

I discard that thought as soon as I have it. I don’t want to risk her being dressed before I am and wandering around to find me, only to see me with my cock in my hands.

Although the idea of her eyes on me while I pleasured myself to thoughts of her? Yeah, that does nothing to help my raging erection.

I’m dressed and sitting on the couch staring blindly at the TV when she pads into the living room, looking like a wet dream in my pack’s clothes. Her hair is loose and damp, hanging down to her waist in wild waves, that I know will only get wilder as they dry.

She hesitates a few feet from me, eyeing the space on the couch next to me, before she meets my eyes. I open my arms in invitation, and with a relieved little huff, she rushes over and settles onto my lap sideways with her ear pressed over my heart.

“Is it weird?” she murmurs into my chest. “That I understand him? That I get where he’s coming from?”

I hug her tighter, my fingers slipping under the hem of Liam’s shirt to stroke her skin, soothe her. “You aren’t a pack you just get over, Rafe,” she says. “Being the center of your attention and then having it ripped away? I get why he’d be so angry, so desperate to get back to you.”

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