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But I’d already told Austin and I was on a date with an adorable omega who was clearly not turned off by the situation. I just wasn’t sure how it would feel to be able to see that he was turned on by it.

“Are you sober enough to understand why I want you to tell Austin that we’re going into the pool house for another glass of wine and some privacy?” If he didn’t understand why that was important, he was definitely not sober enough to do anything else.

One long blink said his brain was processing, but it quickly caught up to the situation. “Because you need to make sure I know what I’m doing and you want Austin to understand that too. So he won’t get nuts.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t planning on doing scenes unless we were both startlingly sober, but kissing and other things didn’t necessarily need that level of clearheadedness.

At least, I really hoped they didn’t.

Again, it was another situation I’d never found myself in.

“Austin.” Dessie only had to look over his shoulder and call out to have the troublemaking omega appear like magic, nearly falling out the back door he was there so quickly. “There you are.”

Austin couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to panic or not, but he didn’t immediately start threatening to kill me again. It was progress. But the way he was taking in the scene said he was still skeptical. “Yes?”

Dessie gave him a naughty grin. “We’re going to go in the pool house to continue our conversation in private.”

Raising one eyebrow, Austin glared at him. “You’ve already had one glass of wine.”

Clearly, they’d had the wine discussion before.

“Yes.” Giggling, Dessie glanced over at the bottle on the table. “And I’m going to bring another into the pool house, but you just need to talk to both of us and make sure you know we’re both willing to do naughty things.”

Austin snorted. “I know you’re ready to do naughty things.”

Dessie’s response was another giggle, so Austin turned to me. “Are you ready to do naughty things?”

That was the million-dollar question at the very least.

Maybe billion dollar.

“I’m nearly completely sober. One glass of wine has very little impact on me.” My nonanswer had him rolling his eyes.

“Try again.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Austin glared at me. “I’m not going to let my dirty boy here push you into anything you’re not ready for just because he’s turned on.”

He was?

I must’ve given that away somehow because Austin gave me a look like he thought I was stupid before glancing down at Dessie’s lap. “Yep. Turned on.”

He was so uncouth sometimes.

Dessie was tipsy enough to giggle again, though, so he didn’t mind. “He’s so sweet and so big, Austin. He’s nice and he flirts so good. He didn’t even tell me I was weird.”

If he and I didn’t work out, we were going to have a talk about his standards being too low.

But only if we didn’t work out…because I liked his standards the way they were for the time being.

By the time he turned back to Dessie, Austin’s expression hadn’t brightened. “What if he panics and safewords?”

Oh yes. I was supposed to do that too.

Dessie looked like he wanted to pout but he took the crazy conversation seriously. “Then we stop and I tell him he did a good job for safewording. I ask if he needs some physical space and then we talk about what happened.”

Fascinating.

“That’s right.” Narrowing his gaze again and bouncing it between the two of us, he didn’t look pleased with the situation. “And if something goes wrong the first time, neither of you are allowed to get dramatic about it forever and think it’s your fault the world ended.”

The look on Austin’s face said he didn’t have a lot of faith in either of us. “I’m hoping hormones override worries, but don’t make me hold your hand about this forever. If shit goes wrong, we deal with it and you try again later.”

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