Page 51 of Knot All that Glitters: Part 1

Haven moans, hips rolling up to meet his thrusts. “Be a good girl, and keep our cum inside you, okay? It makes you smell like ours.” He lifts his eyes to glare at me. “Well, almost ours. We’ve still got one more to go, don’t we?”

I shake my head. “No.” I try to say the word with conviction, but it comes out as a whisper. Hale grins. He knows I’m barely holding on, that I’m about to snap, to give in. But more than anything, when I claim Haven—if I claim Haven—I want to know that she’s actually mine.

“Creed?” she says my name in that husky voice of hers and I’m so fucking tempted to give in, to give her what she wants, what she needs. If there wasn’t the game still at play, if I didn’t know that Jude set up his phone to record, down near Haven’s feet shooting up her body for the perfect shot of her pussy and her face, if I hadn’t seen how the three of them remain conscious of the camera, moving around it so she’s always fully in frame, I might actually give in.

My cock is throbbing and my jaw is throbbing, my tongue hungers for her taste. I want to lick up every drop of her arousal, bury my face between her thighs and never come up for fucking air, but I don’t want them to record it. To add points to the scoresheet for me, which I know they will.

I stroke a finger over her flushed, sweaty cheek, and it makes my palms tingle with the need to stroke over her entire body, to feel her lush little frame under mine, her softness give way for every hard inch of me. But… “Not here,” I say quietly, not bothering to expound.

Her mouth parts and her lower lip quivers. Tears form in her pretty gray eyes. “You don’t want me?”

I should just tell her I don’t. I should end this now, give a reason for my keeping my distance. If I reject her, maybe she’ll keep her distance too, make it easier on me so I don’t feel like I’m tearing myself apart over what is right and what I want to do, what my body craves.

But the moisture shimmering on her lower lashes makes it so I can’t lie to her. “I didn’t say that, baby girl. I want you… I just... want to take it slow, okay? I’m not one to just dive into the physical stuff, and I’m not into public fucking.”

Her eyes drop to my cock, straining against the zipper of my wet jeans. “You seem to like it just fine.”

A sharp bark of laughter from every one of my pack mates. They know I’m lying through my teeth. And they could make this better for me and for Haven by just promising not to record us together, not to use it against her. But they won’t. Not yet.

Which means I have to bide my time.

Haven lets out a shaking breath. “It’s okay, Creed. You don’t have to lie.” I am lying. I was. And it’s like she can feel it, feel that I’m being untruthful. “You don’t want me and,” she nods as she blinks, sending those hovering tears over her temples to wet her hair. “That’s okay. It just… I’ll have to find-” she cuts off and stares up at the sky.

“You’ll have to find what, angel?” Tic asks, sounding like he already knows, and he hates what she stopped herself from saying.

“I’ll have to find a pack that all want me. That’s-that’s all.” Her lips curl into a tremulous smile, one that breaks my fucking heart as she cups my cheek, thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, so I’ll…” She flicks her gaze at the other alphas and I growl to have her eyes back on me. “I’ll leave,” she finishes simply. “I’ll go home.”

“No, you fucking won’t,” Hale snarls, the depth of his anger at the idea a dead giveaway for how he actually feels for this girl.

Haven pushes up until she’s sitting and, as she does, the mask she wears around everyone else, everyone except Ren, slips over her face. She smooths the skirt of her dress down her thighs, covering her pink and swollen pussy from us. “We know this won’t work if one pack member isn’t all in on me, right? I’m not going to force Creed to spend time with me if he doesn’t want to.”

“I want to,” I say.

But she ignores me. “Honestly, it’ll be better for me if I don’t… If we keep going as we’re going, I’m going to get attached and I’ll be fucking devastated when you break up with me.”

“Who says we’re breaking up with you, button?”

Her gray eyes flit to me and away as she shrugs. “It’s okay. Really. It’s best if we know it’s not going to work out now.”

Hale barks out an unamused laugh. “Stop trying to break up with us, mouse. It’s not happening.” He tilts his head to glare at me out of the corner of his eye. “Creed wants you.Badly. He’s just taking it slow, playing the long game.”

My jaw ticks as I grit my teeth around the need to tear him apart, to lay into him. How can he still be so fucking focused on the game? How can that be all he sees when Haven shines like the fucking sun, blinding with her warm brilliance?

Haven’s looking at me now with a hope in her eyes, like she needs me to confirm it. I glance at Jude’s phone, knowingit’s still running, recording every fucking interaction. I swallow thickly and resolve to ignore it.

Here is an omega asking for reassurance fromheralpha, one of them at least. I don’t know if she’s even admitted it to herself yet, but that’s what she’s doing. Already thinking of us as pack, as hers.

I lean forward and press a soft kiss to her mouth. Nothing like I want to do, nothing deep and hungry. My tongue doesn’t breech her lips, doesn’t taste her. I keep my hands away from her lush little body, one planted on the blanket by her hip, the other resting lightly against her neck. It would be so fucking easy to press my palm against her throat, tighten my fingers to hear more of those delicious gasping moans she makes.

But I don’t. I do nothing more than press my mouth against hers, softly, gently, reverently.

It’s what she deserves from me, from us. And I hate that’s not what she’s getting.

I pull back and she leans forward, chasing me. But I hold her back with my palm on her neck. “I do want you, baby girl,” I murmur softly. “Badly. But all of my reasons from before stand. And I-” I hesitate, not sure how this will be received by my pack mates, but she needs to hear the truth from me to help her settle. “I want you to be sure about us, really fucking sure, before doing anything physical with you. Because once I start, I won’t be able to stop. I won’t be able to let you go. You get me?”

A furrow appears on her brow as she takes in my words, mulls over them. Then she smiles softly and cups my cheek, thumb brushing against my bottom lip. “You’re protecting yourself, Creed. I get it. Believe me, I understand how important that is.” Her other hand comes up to join the first, holding my face steady as she meets my eyes. “You’re safe with me.” It’s a promise. One I know she means. Haven will never hurtme. Would probably never even think of hurting me, but that’s because she doesn’t know why she’s here with us.

Once she finds out, that might change.

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