Page 71 of Knot on the Market

The promise in his voice, that they're not going anywhere, that they're going to take care of this ache that's eating me alive makes me sob with relief. For the first time since this heat started, I believe that maybe, maybe I'm going to be okay.

More than okay. Maybe I'm going to be exactly where I belong.

"We're here," Callum agrees, his arms tightening around me. "All of us."

"And we're not going anywhere," Julian adds, his hand still gentle against my overheated skin.

As Dean moves closer, adding his warm, comforting scent to the mix already saturating my nest, I feel something shift inside me. Not just the physical need, though that's still overwhelming, but something deeper. The last walls I've been holding onto crumble away, leaving me open and vulnerable and utterly certain of what I want.

I want them. All of them. Not just for tonight, not just to get through this heat, but for everything that comes after. The quiet mornings and busy afternoons and all the small moments that build a life together.

I want to choose them, and I want them to choose me back.

And as three pairs of hands begin moving over my overheated skin with increasing purpose, as their combined scents wrap around me like the most perfect blanket I've ever known, I realize that maybe they already have.

Maybe we've been choosing each other all along, and this is just the moment I finally stop fighting it.

The thought settles into my chest like a promise as Dean's calloused fingers join Julian's and Callum's on my skin, and for the first time since I arrived in Honeyridge Falls, I stop thinking about what I'm running from and start focusing on what I'm running toward.

Them. This. The beginning of something beautiful built from broken pieces, just like Julian's poem said.

Just like I'm finally brave enough to believe I deserve.

"Please," I whisper against Callum's throat, the word carrying all my need and want and the growing certainty that this is right. "Please don't stop."

"Never," Dean promises, his voice rough with emotion. "We're never stopping, Lila."

And as their hands continue their gentle exploration, as my body responds with fresh waves of heat and slick and desperate need, I believe him completely.

This is just the beginning.

But already, it feels like coming home.

Chapter 22

Julain

The scream that tears from Lila's throat as she comes apart between us reverberates through my chest like a physical blow. My fingers are still buried inside her molten heat, working her through the aftershocks while Dean's hands continue their ministrations on her breasts. Callum holds her steady beneath us, all of us breathing hard as her orgasm slowly ebbs.

But even as her body goes limp with temporary satisfaction, I can smell the deeper need still burning beneath her skin. The heat isn't satisfied, won't be satisfied until she's been properly knotted and filled.

My cock throbs painfully against my jeans as my alpha brain roars one word over and over.Claim.

But I can't. Won't. Not like this.

I force myself to keep my movements gentle as I slowly withdraw my fingers from her slick heat, even as every instinct screams at me to strip naked and bury myself inside her until she can't remember her own name. She's in heat. She's not thinking clearly. Whatever she thinks she wants right now, she needs someone with enough control to make rational decisions.

Someone who won't take advantage.

Even if it kills me.

And God, it just might. Her scent is so concentrated in this small room it's like drowning in liquid want. My alpha hindbrain catalogs every detail, the way she's positioned over Callum, the slick coating her thighs, the desperate little sounds she's making and demands immediate action.

Take her. Knot her. Make her yours.

"Julian," she whimpers, and the broken way she says my name nearly shatters what's left of my control. "Please... help..."

The plea cuts through the haze enough for logic to reassert itself. She's asking for help, not claiming. She trusts me to know what she needs, even when she can't think straight enough to know herself.

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