Page 96 of Knot on the Market

I'm careful not to wake her or the others as I extract myself from the tangle of limbs and sheets, pressing a soft kiss to her temple before padding downstairs in just my boxer briefs. The morning light streaming through her kitchen windows feels different, somehow warmer, more like home than the house I share with Levi and Elijah.

Because this is home now. This house, this woman, this impossible beautiful thing we're building together.

The new coffee maker is already programmed. Julian's doing, probably, because of course he thought ahead to morninglogistics. The man plans for everything, including making sure we'd wake up to fresh coffee after a night that changed everything between us.

I pour myself a cup and settle at the kitchen table where his laptop still sits from yesterday, closed but surrounded by the evidence of his research spiral. Notes about optimal positioning and interview protocols scattered like he was trying to solve a puzzle that couldn't be solved through analysis alone.

Poor guy. I found him and Lila in quite the compromising position when Callum and I showed up for dinner, and while the sight had sent heat straight to my cock, it also made something tender settle in my chest. Julian needed taking care of, and Lila had seen it, given him exactly what he needed without being asked.

The way she looked at the three of us after. Like she wanted to give us everything, take everything we had to offer in return, had nearly undone me completely.

"Morning."

I look up to find Callum in the doorway, hair messed from sleep, wearing yesterday's jeans and nothing else. His chest is bare and marked with what looks suspiciously like teeth marks on his shoulder. Evidence of how the evening progressed after I lost the ability to think about anything except Lila's hands and mouth and the sounds she made when we touched her.

"Sleep well?" I ask with a grin.

"Eventually." His voice is rough with satisfaction, and when he moves to pour his own coffee, I catch sight of scratches down his back that make me remember exactly how vocal Lila got when Callum used his mouth on her. "You?"

"Like the dead. Best sleep I've had in years."

It's true. Something about being in her space, surrounded by her scent, knowing she's safe and satisfied and ours, had let me relax in ways I hadn't even realized I needed. No part of my brainworrying about whether she'd be there in the morning, whether this was real, whether I was fooling myself about what we meant to each other.

For the first time since this thing between us started, I'd fallen asleep without a single doubt about where I belonged.

"Julian still upstairs?" Callum asks, settling across from me with his coffee.

"Bathroom, I think. Man takes longer showers than anyone I know."

"Probably trying to process what happened," Callum says with the hint of a smile. "You know how he gets when his careful plans get disrupted."

That's putting it mildly. Julian had approached last night like he was conducting a symphony, careful attention to every touch, every response, making sure Lila was thoroughly worshipped while we learned exactly what made her fall apart in our hands. But somewhere in the middle of it all, when she'd pulled him down for a kiss that was pure hunger and demand, his control had snapped completely.

Watching Julian lose himself in her had been almost as intoxicating as touching her myself.

"He'll adjust," I say, meaning it. "We all will. This is new territory for everyone."

Footsteps on the stairs announce Julian's arrival, and when he appears in the kitchen doorway, his hair damp from the shower and wearing yesterday's clothes, there's something different about his posture. Less rigid. More settled.

"Morning," he says, accepting the coffee cup Callum hands him with a small smile. "Sleep well?"

"Better than I have in months," I admit. "You?"

"Remarkably well, considering." He settles into the chair beside me, close enough that I can smell his soap and the lingering traces of Lila's scent on his skin.

"Considering?" Callum prompts gently.

"It feels right," Julian finishes, wonder in his voice. "All of us together. I can't bring myself to analyze it to death when it feels this good."

"Probably because some things aren't meant to be analyzed," I point out, remembering Lila's words from yesterday. "Some things just are."

Julian nods slowly, like he's testing out the concept. "I'm learning that. Slowly."

The comfortable silence that follows is interrupted by soft footsteps on the stairs. Lila appears in the kitchen doorway wearing one of my t-shirts—I keep leaving them here on purpose and she keeps wearing them—and nothing else, her hair tousled from sleep and her skin still flushed with the kind of glow that speaks to a thoroughly satisfying night.

The sight of her hits me like a physical blow. She's beautiful every day, but there's something about seeing her in my clothes, in her own space, surrounded by the evidence of our presence, that makes my chest tight with possessive satisfaction.

My shirt hangs loose on her frame, the soft cotton skimming places these hands have touched and claimed. The hem barely covers her thighs, and every step she takes reminds me exactly what's underneath that thin fabric.

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