Page 370 of Immune

Wanting.

And the bond deepens in a way I never could have anticipated.

I pull back with her blood on my mouth. Her eyes are wide, wet, and darker than before.

“There you are,” she whispers.

I almost break, right there in front of her.

She touches her fingers to my mouth and smears her blood against my lip, staring at it like proof. Then Ewan makes a sound behind her. A soft, wrecked little curse that makes her turn her head. The moment she does, the entire room changes. Not from quiet to hunger, because the hunger has been lingering in the room for a long time. It simply changes from waiting to chosen.

Ewan’s bond hums first, bright and warm as sound. His smoke and clove curl through the room, grief and relief and want all mingled together until Dakota’s lashes flutter. Kaito follows, deep and controlled, restraint wrapped in burning wood and flannel and built in devotion rather than distance. Fletcher comes in last, steady and broad, cedar and leather and the kind of protection that opens its hands.

And mine. Frost and steel settling under her ribs.

The four bonds touch and Dakota goes very still. I feel it happen through her, not forced or stolen. Just a bigger shape forming because she’s allowing it.

Her breath comes out in a soft, startled sound. “Oh.”

Ewan laughs under his breath. “That a good oh or someone’s about to get stabbed oh?”

Dakota looks at him, flushed and trembling. “I can’t say I’ve decided yet.”

“Keeping things exciting,” he says. “Love that for us.”

Her gaze drifts from him to Kaito. To Fletcher. Back to me. The scent of wild honey and rain thickens, but not suddenly. Not violently. But there’s absolutely no mistaking it.

Heat.

Fletcher’s nostrils flare.

Kaito’s hands grip the table edge.

Ewan mutters something in Welsh that sounds like a prayer and profanity got married in a storm drain.

Dakota’s cheeks grow beautifully pink, and she says, “Well, that’s incredibly inconvenient.”

Her voice has grown breathless, and her pupils have blown wide enough that the pale hazel has been overrun by darkness. It’s not drugs, and it’s not panic. It’s want. Pure need showing over her face so obviously that I almost choke.

Fletcher pushes away from the wall slowly. “Darlin’, tell us what you need.”

Dakota swallows. Her eyes drop to his mouth, then Ewan’s hands, then Kaito’s throat, then back to me.

“All of you,” she says without an ounce of hesitation. Silence answers her, so she adds with a little more bite, “Unless someone wants to have a crisis about it. In which case, I’m accepting only written complaints and you can post them to the Bermuda Triangle.”

Ewan’s grin turns soft and filthy. “Won’t hear a single complaint from me, Tiny Terror.”

Kaito’s voice is low when he tells her, “You lead.”

Fletcher nods. “We follow.”

I say nothing and Dakota looks at me. I understand that look instantly. She doesn’t need more promises, she just needs me to stay.

Her breath shakes and then she reaches for me again. This time, it’s not for the bite, it’s for the kiss. And there’s nothing quiet about this kiss. And it’s not gentle for very long.

Dakota opens for me with a small, hungry noise that punches straight through the new bond. Her fingers fist in my hair while mine settle on her waist, careful of her bruises. When she presses closer, I feel every single tremor she tries to hide.

Ewan comes up behind her, not touching until she breaks our kiss and tilts her head back against his shoulder, leaving her taste on my tongue. He’s asking permission without uttering the words, and she gives it by tilting her head a little more, revealing her neck to him. His mouth finds the side of her neck, opposite my bite, and she shivers hard.