Page 21 of Secret Heart
“Yeah, that’s not going to work this time, firecracker.” He wraps my hair around his hand. “He’s here through the end of May.”
My stomach drops to my feet. “It’s temporary?”
“Yep,” Beau says. He pulls on my hair until I finally tip my head to see him. His frown is deep, his eyes as serious as Ethan always is.
Why is that more painful than him moving back permanently?
Maybe because it makes me feel even worse for wanting to plaster myself against him until that shattered, heartbroken look was entirely gone from his face.
“Talk to me,” he says, firm enough I know he won’t let me leave this porch until I spill the roiling mess inside me. “I can see all the thoughts swirling.”
“I…” My throat closes.
“You wanted to comfort him. You held yourself back. Why?”
I can’t admit it. I swallow to try and alleviate the lump in my throat. My hands tremble against my stomach.
“Firecracker,” he murmurs. He squeezes my knee and then supplies the words, just like always. He says it without dropping his gaze. “You still feel something for him.”
I nod and close my eyes. He presses his lips to mine for a heartbeat before dragging them along my jaw.
“A lot of something,” I admit.
I shouldn’t, though. Right? We’d never committed to anything more than a summer of fun, and we’d stuck to that even right up until the end. And then Penny happened, and I couldn’t get in contact with him. Beau and I built something together just the two of us. I’m not an Omega, hardwired to desire more than one partner. So why can I not shake the fact that I want Triston even after him being gone for nearly two years?
He runs a thumb around the shell of my ear, and I shiver.
When he pulls away, I manage to focus on him, all of my guilty thoughts still swirling.
“Me, too,” he whispers.
Something settles low in my belly, a heat that I haven’t felt since that summer. I try to stuff it down until I can’t feel it anymore along with my own attraction to Triston. None of us are who were were then.
“I don’t think I can do another no strings dynamic.”
Beau gives a small half-smile, just a twitch of his lips. “There’s no way for this to be no strings anymore. There is a very clear, very thick string attaching the three of us currently sleeping in her crib and cuddling her favorite dog plushie.”
My heart crowds my throat, and another pulse of my scent floods the air.
“He deserves to know her, firecracker, to have a relationship with her.” He’s so quiet, so unwavering, the same steady rock he’s been since I told him I was pregnant. “You don’t get to decide what that looks like for him. All you get to decide is the dynamic between the three of us.”
“All three of us?”
He runs his palm up my thigh, pushing up the sweatpants I’d changed into when I’d gotten home. “If you don’t want a trio, then we won’t be a trio.”
“Did you ask him?”
Beau shakes his head. “With our family listening to every damn word? When I sent you home to avoid another fight with your brother? Absolutely not.” He runs his thumb over my lips, his hold still tight in my hair. “But you and I need to be on the same page before anything potentially happens in the next couple weeks.”
I breathe in his scent and try to think past the overwhelming urge to settle the agitation I’d seen Triston trying to hide.
“What if he doesn’t and…?”
There’s that fear that everyone will leave, rearing its ugly head after I thought I’d dealt with it.
“Not what I’m talking about,” he says. “If he doesn’t, then it’s a conversation we don’t have to navigate. I’m talking about if it’s something that might be a possibility, all right? You get to decide. If you don’t, then it’s not on the table. Even if he wants it. Even if I want it. Understand?”
Slowly, I nod. He loosens his grip on my hair, and I settle back against his chest. The crickets grow a bit louder around us. Eventually, I sigh.
