Her Knotty List (MVP: Most Valuable Pack Book 4)
Her Knotty List: Chapter 14

There’s been a horrible mistake.

My wedding? My pack? The ninety-five-percent scent-matches that were supposedly “perfection?”

Nope.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

There’s no way that was true. Not when I’m standing here with these three men, absolutely drowning in the perfection of them.

Separately, together. It doesn’t matter. I’ve never perfumed this hard before, ever. Even during my heats.

Just the thought of the word “heat” in reference to these three alphas makes a desperate whine build in my chest. Micah shudders against me, pressing an erection into my belly while he clutches me closer. “What’s wrong, sweet girl? Tell me and I’ll fix it.”

What’s wrong is I don’t have any panties on so I’m currently pouring slick into Knox’s borrowed pajama bottoms.

All of them notice. Zane closes in behind me, pressing his hot, hard chest into my back. I sigh and squirm closer, absorbing the tingles that race down my spine.

“Do you need us to get you off, baby?” he murmurs, dark and delicious. “I could hold you in my lap while Micah works these pants off. My offer stands—I’ll give you my knot if you want it.”

The suggestion ought to horrify me. Instead, my core cinches tight and another burst of perfume escapes. That horribly achy, empty feeling I’ve only ever associated with heat echoes deep inside me.

“I—I don’t know what to do,” I tell them, too overwhelmed to remember to be coy. “The pack I left last night were supposed to be my scent-matches, but this… this feels stronger. Almost like…”

“Mates.”

It’s Knox, standing right where I left him. His chest heaves while intensity spins in his blue eyes. Power pours off him, every bit as thick as his pine-and-cedar musk.

My knees wobble and my vision tunnels. When I sway and he still doesn’t move, my heart sinks. Another raw whine scrapes up my throat.

Micah cups my head against his chest. “It’s okay, sweet girl. We’ll get this figured out.”

I burrow closer, practically hyperventilating. Zane presses against my back, sealing me between two walls of muscle.

This is insane. I don’t know these men at all. Not even their last names. But their scents make me feel high—hazy and euphoric—while somehow sharpening every nerve in my body.

I keep telling myself I’ll push them away. But then I breathe, and it’s just… right.

I’m in the right place. Every fiber of my being believes that.

Zane seems to agree. His hips grind tight to my backside while he bends to inhale against my neck, nuzzling past my wet curls. Tension grips his body. The growl that rolls out of him feels more primal than the last.

Micah stiffens and reaches over to Zane’s shoulder. “Hey. No.”

Knox closes the space between us, snapping forward to bark out a strangled command. “Take a walk, Zane. Now.”

I feel Zane’s desire to rebel. His frame rattles while he restrains his urges, eventually ripping himself off my back and flinging himself toward the exit. “I’m sorry, baby,” he mumbles. “I’ll be right back.”

Some fuzzy, hysterical part of my mind wonders if I should tell him there’s a nice fake pussy upstairs. But a moment later, a door snaps open and I assume he’s gone in search of fresh air.

Maybe I should follow him. My thoughts are starting to lag, my stream of consciousness buffering a bit.

Knox’s nostrils flare as he watches me blink at the place where Zane used to be. The pack’s most dominant alpha still looks like he’s ten seconds away from roaring the roof off the place, but he grinds his jaw and nods over to their stove.

“She should eat,” he grits to Micah. “She needs her strength.”

Normally, I hate it when alphas talk over my head. But the bright fervor in Knox’s eyes makes it less condescending and more… sincere. Protective in the purest sense—one where he doesn’t want me to worry about anything. Not even what he’s saying.

Micah nods, his broad chest and shoulders expanding on a breath that shakes as he exhales. “Right. Are you hungry, Emma?”

The earnest look on his face might be cute, if I were sane. I’m not, though. And my Omega wants to know why he’s using my real name instead of the endearment he gave me before.

When I make a pitiful sound, he sweeps me off my feet and sets me on the nearest barstool, bending his big body low to put us eye-to-eye. I flutter my lashes, trying to focus.

It’s way harder than it should be—this man is unfairly sexy in a classic tall, dark, and handsome sort of way. A perfect fantasy fireman.

I have to keep breathing, I remind myself, remembering my friends’ cautionary tales of passing out the first time they met their mates. I can’t look any weaker or more ridiculous than I already do.

With a stiffness to his gait that wasn’t there before, Knox rounds the kitchen island and goes to their gas range, pulling breakfast off the warming section. Micah watches him, dark eyes wary in a way I don’t understand.

Maybe they aren’t close? Or they’ve had a fight recently? Or they’re a new pack?

It seems as good a question as any to distract myself from the magical, snowy sweetness rising off Micah’s throat.

“How long have you guys been a pack?” I ask, skirting my eyes to Knox.

The flannel-clad alpha snaps his gaze up, past me, to Micah. There’s an odd beat of thick silence before he sighs, scratching his short beard and sliding those icy irises over to me. “We aren’t, omega.”

A pin drops in my mind.

Which is now completely empty.

The hot firefighter cocks a rueful grin. “This is Knox’s place. He and I have met a few times in town, but we aren’t friends. And Zane isn’t even from here. He was camping nearby when he saw smoke from the crash and called it in. I was the one who answered. Knox was walking his dog nearby and happened upon your accident.”

My mouth drops open. “Y-you mean… you guys aren’t a pack?”

They both look at one another. Knox’s features harden while Micah’s pull into a grimace. “Afraid not,” he admits.

The instinct to huff in quick, desperate breaths finally overwhelms me. I suck both their scents into my lungs, panting hard while my thoughts tilt and spiral.

Well.

I tried.