Page 27 of My Pucking Family

Benny makes a beeline for her, with that stupid shit-eating grin on his face, and pulls her into a hug. “Thank you for letting us come home, Luna. We know it was you. He would have kept us locked out forever.”

With a growl, I pull her from his embrace and back into mine while she giggle-snorts and swats at me, mumbling something about an overbearing alpha before she returns her attention to Benny. “Why did you call me Luna?”

“Oh, sorry,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck. “Since Roman is our Alpha, his mate is our Luna,” he explains.

I can see the wheels turning in her head already. “It's not something you need to worry about. Being a Luna is as much or as little as you want it to be, and we can add it to our list of tasks to work through,” I finish with a smile.

She nods and turns to the rest of the men. “Sorry, he kicked all of you out because of me.”

Andrei speaks before anyone else can, “We don't mind. Really.”

He's so short and awkward with her; I'll have to figure out what that's all about too.

Slate just nods and claims his barstool at the end of the island and buries his head in his laptop, hopefully still digging into any connections between India and my father, as well as who took Leera.

The twins plop down on the couch and are arguing over what to watch.

I turn back to Leera to find her taking everyone in with that sweet and soft smile, and my heart just continues to soften.

“Roman, do you know what I did with my phone? I want to add everyone’s numbers to my phone so I have them in case of emergencies, or if you end up kicking them out of the house.” The ornery twinkle in her eyes makes me want to kick them out all over again.

“I don’t remember where you left it, but you start looking, and I’ll grab my phone to call it.” I call back to her over my shoulder as I walk towards the kitchen while she dismantled the couch cushions.

While I hit the call button, her phone immediately starts ringing from the other side of the kitchen, and a surprised laugh escapes me, much louder than I would have expected.

Everyone’s attention turns to me when I hold up Leera’s phone for everyone to see, one eyebrow lifted in question to Leera.

She bolts towards me, giggling, when she snatches the phone and holds it to her heart. “I didn’t know what to put for your contact name, so I decided to have some fun with it!”

The men are all laughing with us now, and it takes a solid seven minutes for us to get it out of our system. Leera straightens, having doubled over in laughter, and is now wiping tears from her eyes.

I lean forward to plant a kiss on her forehead. “I love it.”

The blinding smile I’m rewarded with could stop my heart.

“Men, grab your phones and text Leera’s number with your names, so she has them all.”

They all pull out their barely used phones, and her phone slowly starts pinging with all the messages, and she’s furiously typing as she adds them all to her phone.

Now that that’s taken care of, we resume our restful evening, and I'm once again struck with the realization that everything just feels right when she's here with us.

21

Ican't decide whether falling asleep or waking up in Roman's arms is my favorite. As I lay here, currently cocooned in his embrace, I think about the whirlwind of the last few days.

That heat.Whew.We've shared a few more steamy kisses, but we haven't had anymore physical interactions since it faded. My brain is happy with myself for setting boundaries and thankful that he is taking them seriously for me. My body and my heart are mad at my brain and worry that maybe it wasn't as good for him since he hasn't tried to engage in more.

The day after my heat was peaceful normalcy and gave me an unexpected glimpse of what my life moving forward could look like with Roman.

That next day was a little less lighthearted. After Roman brought me breakfast and coffee in bed, complete with a small bouquet of wildflowers, we put on some fresh lounge clothes, sat down, and really discussed everything going on in my life. All the things I kept tabling for later because I wasn't ready to deal with them. I wasn't ready to discuss them because having to sit down and talk about something made it a real, living, breathing thing that could hurt you, but it couldn't be delayed any longer.

Roman and I had set up our own little war room in the living room to make sure we had enough space to map out and discuss everything we needed to tackle.

First on the list was my schooling and living situations. We agreed that I would take my classes online for the rest of the semester. It wasn't worth going through the turmoil of attending physical classes if I couldn't enjoy them. At the end of the semester, I would re-evaluate how I felt about everything and go from there.

As far as the living situation, my head and heart were in substantial disagreement.

My head kept saying: It's too soon to live with him; I want to be a strong and independent woman; I will miss Zoey; and I want a normal college experience.

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