Page 51 of Ruffled Feathers

“I mean, I guess you’re okay in the laundry too,” she teased, and he launched himself at her playfully. She laughed and slapped at his back, and while it should feel like I was interrupting a moment, it didn’t. When his hands came up to tickle her, she squealed. “Help me, Lancelot!” she giggled, reaching out a hand to me.

I took her fingers. “Sorry, Tills, you poked the dragon, and now you have to pay your dues.”

“Traitor!” But she still wiggled out from underneath him and crawled over to my lap, hiding herself beneath my arms.

Sonny leaned back on his elbows. “Oh I see, you brought in a knight to save you. Well played, little Omega.”

She snuggled firmly into my arms, nestled between my thighs, with her body pressed right along mine. I’d never felt anything more perfect in my entire life.

As she laid her head on my chest, the warm afternoon wind picked up pieces of her hair and blew it across her face. “Thank you for saving me again,” she murmured, her big eyes looking up at me. “Do you want me to move?”

God no.I never wanted her to move again. I wanted to stay in this moment forever, with her resting between my thighs, a smile on her face and mine. This was the most picture-perfect moment I’d ever experienced.

So I shook my head. “I like you right there,” I told her softly, and was rewarded with a smile so brilliant, it threatened to steal my breath.

Her face was still tilted up to mine. “I like it too.”

God, I wanted to kiss her. Just a little. My eyes flicked to Sonny, and there was no jealousy on his face. If anything, his face was encouraging me. His expression screameddo it!I still couldn’t believe he was so open to letting me touch the girl of his dreams.

But when I leaned down and brushed my lips across hers, barely a whisper of a kiss, it changed my whole world. She sighed happily, her eyes closing briefly, and I knew she was it for me. I could fight it as much as I liked, but there would be no other girl for me, no other person on this planet who could make me feel what Otillie-James did in that moment.

She didn’t deepen the kiss, or push for more than I wanted to give. She just rested her head back against my chest.

I loved Otillie-James Baler.

And it scared me down to my very core.

Sonny passed me a bottle of Coke and one for Tills, and the day went on, like that one moment hadn’t changed my entire life. She stayed in my arms, with Sonny feeding her pieces of food as they talked about things and people. Most of them, I didn’t know, but a few I did.

She told us her theory about the guy she saw in the police lineup being in the back of an episode of that animal rescue show she watched, and I had to admit, it was kind of hinky. It could be a coincidence, but my gut said that there was more to it, and Ialwaystrusted my gut. Strat had told the cops, but I knew that look in Otillie-James’s eye. She wasn’t going to let it drop.

It was the same determined look she’d had in her eye when she was just going to “run surveillance” on the garage where she thought they were having cockfights.

I still had nightmares about how wrong that could have gone. I’d been out at a VA group therapy session that night, but I definitely would have gone with her, if I’d known she was going to break in and steal the damn chickens. I hadn’t known her plans until she’d appeared with a half-dead rooster and a police escort.

Shuddering, I bundled her closer. She was a handful, but I wouldn’t have her any other way. Who wanted a boring, docile Omega when you could have someone like Otillie-James? You didn’t know if you were going to have to hand-rear a baby lizard or bail her out from the police station. Maybe it was handy that she now had two lawyers in her Pack.

Her and Sonny were softly talking about their parents arriving tomorrow, and what that would mean for them.

For the Pack.

Our Pack.

“I’m going to have to move out,” she said, her sigh brushing across the skin of my bicep. “I can’t imagine going through myheat in that house, and I’m not sure Citrine would appreciate another Omega there either, despite the fact she loves me.”

Sonny had her foot in his lap, massaging the arch. “You can always move in with me. Or Truett has a spare room that’s just housing his gym equipment.”

She frowned. “Won’t your Alpha get upset if I was spending more time with him?”

That was the thing about the designations. It made the disparity between your head and your heart even more pronounced. Because while Sonny might see the logic of her moving in with Truett, his Alpha would be riled by the fact that she smelled more like him. Spent more time with him. Slept in his bed every night. Not that she had to create a roster and follow it religiously, but jealousy could spring up from the smallest of slights. Not to mention Strat, and how it would go with another Omega.

No, I wasn’t sure that was a solution at all.

“You could move in here,” I told her casually. She glanced up at me, surprised, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like all her animals weren’t already here. “You could all move in here, if you wanted. It could be, like, a Packhouse.” I said the words lightly, like it wasn’t a turning point in our relationship, in our lives, to move in together. One step closer to being a bonded Pack.

I could feel both of their gazes running over my face, probably appraising whether I felt obligated to do this out of some weird sense of gratitude. I could have told them I didn’t—this house had come to me for a reason, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe Matt had been taking care of me from beyond the grave, nudging Otillie-James my way.

It made me feel less guilty when I thought about it like that. When I was happy and not drowning in survivor guilt, it made me feel like I was just following orders once more.

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