“Or?”
Some impulse seemed to throb inside me, leading to that word spilling from my lips.
“Or our brother could finally share what happened with our mate.” Max’s look wasn’t entirely friendly when his focus shifted to Lucien. “What actually happened? You were evasive right up until when Sage walked into our offices.”
“Because she was the one. I knew that on some level, and I think she did too.” Lucien’s eyes were on me, not his brothers. “Dinner was fucking torture because I couldn’t stand not having my hands on you. I slid one up your thigh, under the very proper white tablecloth, and you damn near choked when I pushed it higher.”
“I thought I was going on a date,” I croaked out, “not getting fingered in a restaurant.”
I was trying for snarky and failing, badly. My gaze dropped down to Lucien’s mouth, seeing the thick stubble there, knowing just how it felt now when he pressed it against my skin.
“I didn’t. I was a very good boy and waited until you’d had you fill, while the food tasted like dust in my mouth because it wasn’t what I wanted to taste. But I waited, didn’t I, Sage? I waited like a good little boy until we got to the car.”
They moved as one then, Lucien’s hands sliding higher and higher until I could feel the edge of his palm against my underwear, but Tobias? He reached down and grabbed my other knee, separating my thighs just slightly, watching me the whole time.
“Talk to us, Sage. Is this all right?”
Was it? I was in a club, so my brain instantly wanted to shout no, but it was also in a club where plenty of people were doing all sorts of sexy things to each other. The way Max was standing made sense. He blocked the view anyone else might have of me, closing the space down so it became just the four of them.
With me at the centre.
“Is this what you want?” I asked Max. “You need to know?”
He smiled then, a crooked lopsided thing at odd with his alien eyes, before he leaned down.
“I want everything you’ve got to give, Sage—all of it. If you want to get the fuck out of here, have a shower, and put your jammies on, I’ll snuggle around you and hold you tight while we sleep. If you need downtime, I’ll rub your back and stroke your hair until you unwind. If you’re hungry, I’ll get you food. If you just want alone time, I’ll go to fur and lie across your doorway, make sure no one tries to get in.” His thumb brushed against my cheek. “But something tells me that’s not what you want, not yet.”
I leaned into his caress, turning my face to feel the rasp of his calluses against my skin, the warmth of him, my mate. The mark of my neck started to tingle, and that feeling intensified as Lucien petted my inner thigh.
“Is it?”
Max’s question was insistent, forcing me to answer it before we went any further. My eyes flicked open, even though I wasn’t aware that I had shut them. I stared at each one of them, my pack of hungry wolves, before I flopped back against the booth.
“Is that what you want?”
I didn’t just ask him. I asked every single one of them, and the response was instantaneous.
“We’ll want everything you choose to give us,” Beau said, no trace of the man who graced the gossip pages now.
My eyes slid to Lucien’s, and somehow, that felt too close, too intimate, because what we’d shared? That was the way it had been. I opened my mouth, and the words came spilling out.
“He was too fucking hot.I had to psyche myself up in the bathroom to go home with him,” I said.
“Sage—”
I pressed my fingers to Lucien’s lips then, silencing him. If he wanted me to tell the story, I would, my way.
“But when we got into the car, it felt…right. Exciting, scary, panty meltingly so, but still fucking terrifying.”
“You didn’t act like it at all,” he replied, pulling away from my hand but then falling silent again.
“Then he asked me if I wanted to play a game.” Low rumbles from the rest of the guys made clear just what they thought of that idea. “He would tell me what to do and I’d do it, within reason.”
“So you broached this idea with Sage early on then,” Tobias said.
“Probably because I knew it was going to come to this. No matter how shitty things were between us, we were still a pack and any mate of ours needed to suit all of our needs—all of them,” Lucien repeated for emphasis.
“And what did he tell you to do?” Max prompted.