Page 149 of Knot Playing Fair 2

“Oh, I hope that’s it,” Nat said. “They both deserve to know once and for all that there’s nothing wrong with them.” Heyawned and stretched. “If you’re going to be otherwise occupied tonight, maybe I’ll go wake Byron up for sex.”

“Good idea,” I agreed, darting in for a filthy kiss, simply because Icould. With my newly acquired sexual confidence, I boldly palmed Nat’s cock through his trousers, not letting up until he groaned into my mouth and started rutting shamelessly into my hand.

“Christ, woman,” he panted, after I pulled away with a sharp nip of his bottom lip. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

“Love you, too, Nat,” I told him with a smug smile. “I’ll enjoy the mental picture of you getting rammed over the back of Byron’s couch tonight, as punishment for interrupting his beauty sleep. Hmm.... maybe with one of his ties stuffed in your mouth? That way, you won’t wake up the household while we’re trying to sleep.”

Nat made a choked noise and pressed his palm against his rock-hard dick, as though he needed the pressure to keep from coming in his pants.

“Goodnight, dear,” I said sweetly.

“Goodnight, she-demon who’s apparently possessing my wife’s body,” Nat growled in response.

I swallowed silent laughter and headed upstairs.

Princess was on guard duty at the top of the stairway, greeting me with a friendly meow as I approached the landing.

“Emiel? Luca? It’s me,” I called softly, before mounting the final steps.

“Hi, Mia,” Emiel said, as Princess twined around my ankles, purring.

I had to hold in a spontaneous ‘aww!’ of cuteness as I took in Luca, fast asleep and drooling in Emiel’s bed, his upper body curled into a trusting comma shape against the alpha’s broad chest.

At our voices, he stirred, blinking at me owlishly.

“Oh—hi, Mia,” he greeted in a sleep-rough voice. “Sorry, didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“You needallthe sleep, Mr. Insomniac,” I told him. “In fact, webothneed all the sleep. Once the restaurant sells, let’s just sleep for, like, a solid week.”

“Kay,” he said groggily, pushing away from Emiel’s shoulder. I tried not to smile at the wet spot he’d left behind on the alpha’s worn T-shirt.

I set my bag aside and plopped down on the edge of the mattress, sitting sideways to look at them. “So, what’s up?”

Luca stretched, and I captured one of his bare feet on my lap—idly running my thumb over the sharp bones of his ankle. He hummed and wriggled, not trying to tug it away.

“Luca said he told you we started doing joint therapy sessions,” Emiel began, and I nodded.

“With my heat coming up next month, Dr. Mushimba thinks now would be a good time for us to mate,” Luca said. “Before my hormones start going wonky, and so we’ll have time to settle into it before then.”

He didn’t add, ‘and time for me to get my mating gland surgically removed if it all goes horribly wrong,’ but I heard it all the same. As brave as Luca was being, I knew how terrified he still was about this. Not so much because of Emiel, but because ofhimself.

“I think that’samazingnews,” was all I said aloud. “Thank you for telling me.”

“We want you to be there for it,” Emiel said, glancing away shyly. “If you want to, I mean.”

Surprise threaded through me. “You do?”

Emiel nodded, his dark eyes returning to mine. “Course we do. You’re part of this, Mia.”

Luca nodded as well. “It’s only happening at all because of you. And... well... we’re kind of ruining things by doing this on our own, instead of having it be a pack mating during our heats. If the two of us weren’t such fuck-ups—”

I pinched his big toe without warning, and he yelped in surprise.

“Not another word,” I threatened. “You donotget to insult my future mates to my face, Luca Doyle.”

Luca flushed, red staining his pale cheeks. “Right. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, we’re going to tell the others tomorrow. But we’ve talked about it with Dr. Mushimba, and we’ve decided to do the mating in a clinical setting, in case anything, you know...”

“Goes wrong,” Emiel finished for him. He, too, looked uncomfortable. “We were hoping you’d be there, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to have Byron or Zalen there. Or even Nat. I don’t know how I’m going to react.”

---