Page 95 of The Butcher

“He’s not as pretty as you, but Nashy is a sight to behold.”

Nodding, I turn toward Clay’s voice, ready to agree with him, but all of the words in my head disappear, and never make it to my tongue. Nope, I just freeze, my eyes go wide, and my jaw drops.

My beta—our beta—is sitting where he was before, but now… Now, he’s totally, completely, absolutely naked. He is also super erect, and not the least bit shy about it. Not that he has anything to be shy about, I’ve seen alpha dicks shorter than his so he should be very proud of himself, but wow, I was not expecting to turn around and see that.

“Bear trap,” he says with a smile as he leans back on his elbow and clasps his hands over his stomach. “Big one.”

No kidding.

From what he said, male betas are not built the same as male alphas. Lack of a knot is the biggest difference, but Clayton made it sound like their dicks were teeny and their balls were almost nonexistent.

That is not the case for my beta, and if he looks like this when he’s aroused, I can only imagine how Nash or Bram look, and I definitely don’t need to be thinking about any of this because I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be suffocated by my scent if I do. I don’t think I’ve stopped perfuming since I started touching them.

“Pardon?” I ask his erection.

Which makes both Nash and Clayton chuckle. “Bear trap, pretty girl.”

“Is that what you named it?”

Now they’re full on laughing, and even though it makes me smile, I can’t stop staring at the dick that’s staring back at me.

“No,” my beta says. “I wasn’t talking abouthim, but now I think I do need to give him a name just so you don’t call my boneritever again.”

“Sorry.” My eyes flick to his and I try like hell to keep them there. “I wasn’t sure what you were talking about.”

Clayton arches a brow, his expression changing from playful to skeptical so quickly my stomach drops, then he nods toward his leg.

He gives me time to register what I’m looking at, probably waiting for some horrible reaction or a ton of questions. I do have questions, I can’t deny that, but he just answered one of them now that I can clearly make the connection.

Clay isn’t wearing his prosthetic.

He was when he came in so he must have taken it off right along with his pants.

I knew about it already, he was very upfront when we first started spending time together, but I think it was more for himself than it was for me. Did it make me curious? Yes, I wanted to know what happened to him that called for the need to amputate, but that’s about as far as things went. I didn’t, and still don’t, care if any of them are missing pieces because they are mine, and there isn’t anything in the world that will change that.

“We were hunting,” Clayton says after a few seconds. “In the woods, close to some remote cabin.” Nash shifts around uncomfortably behind me as a heaviness settles over them. “It was dark, we found our target, but our target found us, too. We scattered, took off to get the hell out of dodge but I stepped right into a fucking bear trap. Had to shoot my fucking leg off with a sniper rifle to get out of it.”

My eyes widen. “You shot your leg off?”

“Yeah.” Clay shrugs. “The trap was chained to a tree, there was no way I was getting out of that, and we were about to become the hunted so I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Did Mona do it?”

“Her and Rex.”

“When did it happen?” I lean forward, looking at the marbled skin that sits about three inches below his knee, the reddish-pink patches of scar tissue that almost blend into the remaining tattoos.

I see Clayton look to Nash out of my peripheral vision, then back to me when he says, “A year, maybe? You’ve been with us, what, three months now?”

My face heats but I nod. “I think that’s what Mona said.”

“So, yeah, it’s been about a year since I left a part of me upstate forever.” He shifts around a little as I reach out, assuming I’m trying to touch the part that’s left. “I don’t think you’re going to want to?—“

Instead, I point to an absolutely gorgeous tattoo of a tiger on his thigh, the front paw down over the top of his knee, the colors so vibrant it looks like he just had it done. “I like this.”

Clayton immediately frowns. “What?”

“This.” I trace backwards from the paw, following the cat’s spine up his thigh, all the way to the tip of the tail that curves over his hip toward his abdomen. “It’s gorgeous.”

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