Page 80 of Into the Fire: Before

Brooks flushed with satisfaction, finally leaning toward my omega for a quick but still heated kiss. They both broke away smiling. I turned to Lin, who watched them with such serenity on his face I sighed. My heart felt like it would explode, or melt. Could something both melt and explode?

Lin’s eye slid to mine, and heat rushed through me.

Definitely melting over here.

He swallowed, sitting up a little straighter on the bed. “You know you couldn’t, right?” he finally said.

“Couldn’t what?” I asked.

“Scare us away,” Brooks answered, all teasing and jesting gone from his demeanor. Nothing but raw, breathtaking joy shone from his eyes.

Lin moved closer, grasping one of my hands in his and resting his other on Taryn’s thigh. He swallowed, a little wrinkle marring the space between his thick brows. “We want you.”

Taryn snorted. “No duh,” she said, leaning in to give a giggly kiss to Lin’s neck.

The corner of his lips pulled up, enchanted with Tipsy Taryn even as she missed his point entirely. A point which made my heart race and my stomach flip.

“Always, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear as he tenderly tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “But…but we want you, both of you, more than just sexy fun.”

I sat up straighter, hoping I was managing something akin to a look of composure. “And you’ve…you’ve all spoken? And agreed?”

Lin gave a bit of an equivocal head bob, eyes dimming for the first time.Well, that’s reassuring.

As though he sensed me pulling away, he squeezed my hand, giving it a gentle pull. “He wants this too. I know he does. It’s probably why he’s being as pigheaded and surly about it as he is.”

I wanted to believe him. Maybe I already did.

My weekly sessions with Caine had given me a peek beneath his thick, rough exterior. I knew he cared. I knew his distance came from fear of vulnerability, discomfort with it, more than any negative feelings toward those he distanced himself from.But could I subject myself—not to mention Taryn—to a possible future in a pack with a member whotoleratedus, even if somewhere deep down he cared? Taryn and I wanted them. All three of them, grumps and all. Problem waswantsandneedsdidn’t always overlap. And weneededlove, support, affection. Me more than most alphas probably, and Taryn because of her very nature. Would two-thirds love be enough?

Taryn and Brooks had their foreheads rested together, breathing deep. Brooks was a bit choked as he breathed out, “I want to fall asleep each night with you. And wake up and watch you eat fish sticks for breakfast like a psychopath.” That coaxed a throaty chuckle from Taryn. “I want to bring you a warm cloth when you get headaches. I want to be so drenched in your scent that my patients get a whiff of omega whenever I enter the room.” Brooks dipped his head down, leaving scorching open-mouthed kisses along the column of her neck as he breathed, “I want to run my tongue over my bite on your skin while I’m fucking you.”

Taryn’s eyes practically rolled back in her head, and mine along with them. Lin’s fingers squeezed mine, and I snapped my attention to him. Tears shone in his eyes, one escaping and tracing a silver path down his cheek. The room was heavy with our combined arousal, even Brooks’s beta aroma a strong presence. Lin didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. In his silence, I felt his cosignature to every sweet, sexy nothing Brooks continued to whisper in my omega’s ear.

Rolling up to my knees, I crawled over to Lin, straddling him and twisting my fingers in his short hair. A shaky breath escaped my lips as I pressed them gently against his. “I’m not ready for bites,” I whispered against them.

“We don’t have to,” he breathed back. “Not until you both are.”

Not so long ago, the notion that I could have even one mate of my own choosing—one who saw me, fulfilled me, one who madewherever we were together a home—had been a pipe dream. Then along came Taryn, upending my world in every exquisite way possible.

Could I let these men do it again?

As Lin leaned forward, kissing me with renewed fervor, I released that question. It didn’t need an answer tonight. His words, at least in this moment, weren’t about making a forever decision. Only an assurance that forever could be on the table someday.

Blood rushed in my ears, the sounds of Brooks and Taryn already naked and sliding together pushing my arousal even higher. Maybe the wine had affected me more than I realized, or maybe I was just that fucking gone for them, but I barely registered my dress and underthings coming off, or Lin’s.

My awareness began and ended with his bare skin on mine, on his fingers taking an experimental swipe through my already soaked folds before immediately lining himself up and thrusting in.

God, his touch—theirtouches, all of them—were extraordinary. A tingling like millions of tiny champagne bubbles ran through my body. Lin held me with such tenderness, cradling my head with one hand and his other wrapped around the small of my back, giving me the leverage to move against him.

I liked to be in charge for sex with men. Call it kink, call it taking back my commanding alpha after it had been suppressed for so long. But as Lin groaned and rolled on top of me, the unease that usually came never did. Instead, I just…let go. Fell into the fuzzy drunk feeling creeping in from the edges of my mind and reveling in his weight on me, the stretch of him inside of me, the power with which he fucked me.

Oh,god, right there, right there, almost—

Cool air kissed my bare breasts and torso as Lin’s weight lifted off me. My eyes snapped open to see Taryn on her hands and knees, having just pulled his torso up off me while leaving his cock seated inside. With a voracious hum, she leaned down and flicked her tongue over my exposed clit.

“Oh, fucking hell,” I gasped. My omega used the tip of her tongue, circling and flicking and lathing my swollen clit with attention.

Well, two could play that game.

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