Page 39 of Perfectly Naïve
Before Liv can finish opening her mouth to answer, Liam cuts her off, closing the distance between them as he says, “Can I speak to you?” His eyes cut to us. “In private? I just...you’re here, and they’ve had you all to themselves, and I just need a minute to...”
Liv rolls her bottom lip between her teeth as she considers, but it doesn’t take her long to come to her conclusion. “Of course.” She glances at the rest of us, suddenly looking unsure. “If that’s okay? I know I haven’t finished my presentation. I have ten more slides of data to review with all of you.”
I chuckle, because this woman has no idea how far gone we are for her. We don’t need a presentation to convince us to cuddle and fuck her. But we do need to have a discussion before agreeing to anything, to make sure we’re all on the same page. Because while I’m happy to teach Liv everything there is to know about pleasure, pleasing an alpha, and being pleased by one, I sure as shit refuse to let her use that knowledge with another pack.
If I do this, I’m all in, and while I suspect my packmates are all in—including Liam, if his dewy-eyed wonder is anything to go by—I need to be sure. Not only is Liv’s scent enticing in a way no other woman’s has ever been, but she’s smart, funny, and captivating in every way.
She belongs with us, and we need to tell her.
“Of course you can go catch up with Liam, smarty-pants. Don’t worry about the presentation, all of that can wait. We’re not going anywhere.”
Liv flashes me a grateful smile, but her attention isquickly pulled away from me when Liam laces his fingers with hers and gives them a gentle tug. We all stare, utterly silent, as he leads her down the hall to his room. Until we hear the door snick shut.
“What the fuck?” Hayes looks at Sawyer. “Did you know they knew each other?”
Sawyer shakes his head. “Nope. I didn’t see that coming. But I doubt Liam did, either, if his expression when she asked us to teach her how to suck a dick was any indication.”
We all chuckle at that. The dude had looked like a deer caught in headlights. I know the feeling. I almost choked on my tongue when she so bluntly outlined what she wanted from us. It has me curious about what else would have come out of her mouth, given the chance to finish going through her slides.
I wish I could be a fly on Liam’s wall right now. But my brothers and I have things to discuss, so finding out how they know each other can wait.
“I’m not the only one who realizes she’s it for us, right?” I look between my twin and Sawyer, not actually needing Hayes to answer me. Twin telepathy is real, and I know Liv has already broken through the grumpy fucker’s walls. And Sawyer? He’s halfway to being in love already.
“Obviously,” Hayes says.
Sawyer runs a hand through his hair, his eyes flicking toward the stairs, as if he has X-ray vision and can see what Liv and Liam are up to. “I have no idea how I’m going to tell her brother, but I’m not letting her go. Even for him.”
Nodding, I can’t help grinning. “Good. Then we make her ours.”
“No games,” Hayes says with a grunt. “I know she wants to learn whatever she thinks she doesn’t know, and we said we’d play this by ear, but I don’t want to do that shit. If we do this, we court her for real. Because that’s what she deserves.”
“Agreed. She’s too smart, anyway. She’d see right through our bullshit.” How Liv doesn’t already sense we all want her is beyond me. Unless she does, and she’s just not interested in us that way? But I can’t think about that. Too fucking depressing.
“Her mom will be a problem.” Sawyer sighs deeply. “She never liked me, even as a friend for Henry, but she’d agreed to let my mom bring me along when she nannied, so it was either deal with my presence or find a new nanny. If I wasn’t good enough for her little boy, I definitely won’t be good enough for her daughter.”
“That’s bullshit,” Hayes bites out.
“She’s one of those high-society types. She never treated Liv well, in my opinion. It’s why I didn’t mind letting her tag along with me and Henry when we were kids. Because all Liv wanted was someone to play with, someone to let her be silly and get muddy. Maybe help her climb a tree.” Sawyer sighs. “Even as a kid, Liv was smarter than everyone else in the room. And twice as awkward. Her mom always tried to fix that about her.”
Fix my perfect smarty-pants? Impossible. She’s already damn near perfect. But maybe that’s why Liv doesn’t seem to understand that we’re all in. For real, not just for sex lessons. Though, I’mreallylooking forward to the sex lessons.
I adjust myself, and Hayes groans. “Why the fuck do you have a boner right now?”
“Just thinking about our girl,” I say with a grin.
Sawyer pinches the bridge of his nose like the annoyed older brother archetype he so often falls into with all of us. “Can we please focus?”
“Will Liv let her mom push her around?” Hayes frowns deeply at the thought of that. Not that I blame him. I don’t like the idea of anyone pushing our omega around. Except my brother, when we’re fucking her together. We’ve perfected theart of the sexual good cop, bad cop. He’s all gruff and bossy, and I’m sweet and attentive. But in the end, we always leave our partners sobbing in pleasure, begging for mercy.
“She’ll probably try.” Sawyer’s lips twist with displeasure. “But Liv seems different since she got back from London. More confident. I don’t think she’ll let her mom influence her, but that doesn’t mean I like the idea of her having to deal with that kind of garbage.”
I have to agree, but that means we’ll need to make sure our omega has the room and encouragement to grow in her confidence. And if shit really hits the fan, we’ll just kidnap her and take her away from it all.
Joking. Mostly.
“We need to make sure Liam is on the same page before we tell Liv we want to court her.” Hayes eyeballs me like he knows I’m entertaining kidnapping our omega as a viable option to overcome any and all obstacles that may try to keep her from us.
But shit, he’s right. And while I don’t think Liam’s going to be an obstacle, the two of them obviously have a history, and that could throw a wrench into our plans. I’m going to choose optimism.
