Page 78 of Iris
“You should be in bed. Where’s Freya?” Killian asks as the woman in question comes in.
Mouthing sorry to Killian and turning to Xavier to do the same she gives me an unreadable look.
“There you are, monster.” She reaches for Emmie. “Daddy’s right. You should be asleep.”
“I heard Icy.” She tries to squeeze Xavier. “Dance with me, Papa.”
Xavier grins and sways with the little girl and my heart melts down into a puddle. And then I happen to glance at Killian. He’s definitely put the predator away as he holds his phone and takes a photo of them and it makes my legs wobble.
How can two dangerous men be so sweet when it comes to the little girl?
I want that, I suddenly think with a surge of need so strong, so out of nowhere I don’t know what to do with it. I want that. I want this little girl as mine, bonding us, and I want these men and?—
Holy shit. I stop. Where did that all come from?
This is most definitely not what I want. The happy family situation. The norm. I don’t want that. I’m against that. For me, anyway, but I push a hand against my stomach as that surge rolls through me again.
I walk up to Killian and swipe the bottle, taking another swig.
He takes the opportunity to sign at Xavier, who nods.
Emmie’s asleep, flopped against her Papa, the owl in danger of falling. But Killian comes to the rescue and catches Delores as Xavier hands their daughter to Freya. Killian gives her the owl.
When they’re gone, Killian takes the bottle, sets it down, and pulls something off a rack and swirls it around me. It’s long, soft. A ,.
“Let’s go,” he says.
It’s like coming home.
Outside the street’s alive but in here, a boarded-up storefront, it’s a different type of life. One I feel I could reach out and touch.
The snippets of conversation I catch are full of hope and determination. And it all rushes through me like electricity.
I’ve never seen so many different people, and it’s like a tiny cosmos, worlds mingling in a snapshot.
Flanked by Killian and Xavier, I breathe it all in. Xavier’s presence soothing against my skin as his close proximity sinks like heat into me. And Killian’s? It unnerves. His fingers stroke over my back, over the silk, stopping where the first frill on the skirt begins.
It’s like being pulled in two directions, the calm and the storm, but it also weirdly centers me, as if they merge to become something else completely.
For a moment, I look up at Xavier. He’s both on guard and in his element which makes no sense unless I think to him in the bar with Emmie. There, where it’s his domain, where he belongs, there’s a part that silently announces what’s his and what he’ll do to protect it.
And Killian? He’s got a deadly, wild streak, something that’s reckless, makes me breathless and I know by the hand on me, he’s announcing I’m theirs.
Theirs.
A weird thing and I stop my wayward heart from losing control, from bouncing off the walls it’s not a pack theirs. It’s not an Alpha claiming an Omega theirs.
It’s I’m with them for the evening.
If I can focus on that, I’ll be fine.
Besides, I don’t want to belong to anyone. And as adorable as Emmie is, I’m not looking to be a mother.
But urges push and pulsate in me, urges that are new, that make me smell every person in here, from the scent of spiced bread to delicate tea. From a new car to the pages of an old book.
Blackberries and warm sun on citrus. Leather and honey and spice.
Those last two twine around me.
