Page 150 of Priceless

And that hurt so much worse.

“Oh. I see.”

Everett growled, and then he was in front of me, tilting my face up to his. Pulling us closer. “If there’s one thing I do for the rest of my life, it will be to make those shadows disappear from your eyes. They don’t belong there. Understand me?”

Pain cracked through my chest. “Yes. I just…” I hated that tears came. I hated that this moment which was supposed to be joyful was nothing but sadness. I thought it had been true connection, and not a quirk of DNA. My heart cracked all over again. “I wanted it to be real.”

His arm came around my body, gathering me up while the other one buried itself in my hair. “I don’t think I ever told you when I first saw you. Did I?”

I was so still. Because if I moved I would want them, and I couldn’t. Not when it hurt like this. “When I was dancing with that asshole, yeah.”

“No,” he said, voice low and dark. “No, I’d already seen you by then. We were on the balcony at that gala, dreading being there. Then I looked down and saw you by the windows in the ballroom, a glass of champagne in your hand. Dressed in that blue that reminds me of your name. The first words out of my mouth were ‘who the fuck is that?’”

It took me a few seconds through the raging heat and hormones in my brain to understand what he was telling me. That he’d seen me from all the way across the ballroom and noticed. Long before he could have scented me.

I looked up at him, and all I saw in his gaze was love.

Cameron and Micah crowded me from both sides. “It’s true,” Micah said. “You were so beautiful. We would have come to you even if that sorry excuse of an Alpha hadn’t had his hands on you.”

“You are our Omega,” Everett murmured. “And I’m so fucking grateful that you are. But don’t you dare think, even for a second, that it’s the only reason we want you. I wanted you the second I laid eyes on you.” His mouth quirked into a smile then. “You pulled me out of thoughts that usually drown me, little nymph. You’ve been in my mind every second since then. And I wanted you before I ever scented how fucking perfect you are.”

My tears spilled over and I gave in, crying in relief. It felt silly for it to matter so much, but it did. It did. They wanted me for who I was and not what our bodies instructed us to do.

Everett kissed me softly, deepening his hold until he was devouring my mouth, consuming my lips and tongue. Everything glowed gold and fiery, the burn of heat returning in force now that my Omega understood that she was wanted. And loved.

“I’m sorry. I don’t—” my sob cut off the words. “I don’t know if I’ll always believe it.”

Cameron lined himself up with my back and eased me against him, taking the time to smooth his hands over every part of me he could reach. “Good thing we have the rest of our lives to convince you.”

“What about the year?”

Micah nipped at my shoulder. “We were never going to let you go, Ocean. This was always what we wanted. You. Just you and always you.” He laughed then. “Honestly, we pretty much invented the deal with your uncle so we could marry you. We were told we needed to marry, but we were going to fight it tooth and nail. Until you. We had no plans to do more business with Frank. Then we saw you and had to get closer. And when we scented you? We had to make you ours. It just happened to be perfect timing.”

Tilting my head to the side, Cameron kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder. Licking my skin and dragging his lips up to my ear. “It’s been delicious torture, knowing this and not being able to tell you.”

“Why didn’t you?” My voice had been reduced to nothing but breath.

Everett pulled me away from them and laid me out on the cushions, covering my body with his own. “We’d just rescued you from a man who’d fetishized you like an ass. Without a way to prove it to you, we didn’t want to look like we were the same. And then we got to know you better.” He drew his nose up the line of my cheek and nudged my head with his. “And we knew you weren’t ready. You couldn’t believe we would want someone like you, let alone wanting you for the rest of our fucking lives.”

It would have been unthinkable. I wouldn’t have believed them. Actually, I probably would have thought they were making fun of me on purpose.

Instead, they’d taken the time to show me how they felt. Backed up words with actions and proven over and over that I was who they wanted. I reached up so I was holding his face. “Please don’t hate me for being relieved that you saw me before you scented me.”

Everett grinned before he kissed me. “I could never hate you, little nymph. Not when I love you so fucking much.”

I sobbed into the kiss, overwhelmed by finally hearing those words I wanted for so long. His purr echoed twice over, the nest full of it.

“And I understand why. I hope you feel it and know how deep it goes. I hope your heart aches a little bit less.”

It did. So much. My breath hitched as I looked at him. Then Micah, and finally Cameron. “I love you.” My words still shook. “It was the fact that you would be there for me that helped me stand up to him. I admitted to myself I was falling for you, but I think I’ve been there for a while.”

Sudden heat took my breath away. And pain. Pain that wasn’t connected to my bruised face or my healing heart. Pain that demanded attention and burned like a supernova had been shoved down my throat.

Knot.

I gasped, whining. Writhing against the pain. “Alpha,” I begged. “Help.”

Everett flipped me over on the cushions and thrust into me in one movement. It wasn’t easy or gentle—it was exactly what I needed. Fiery heat flared through my bones. I’d never felt anything like this before.

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