Page 55 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

I go willingly. My head finds the spot below his collarbone, the place where his heartbeat is steadiest, and I press my ear there and listen. Thump. Thump. Thump. Alive. Present. Mine.

"Thank you," I say against his chest.

"For what?"

"For staying awake. For watching over us. For being the one who keeps the lights on while everyone else sleeps."

His arm tightens. His chin rests on the top of my head. "Someone has to."

"Not always you."

"Always me." His voice is quiet, certain. "That's my job. That's what I do. JD leads, Knox charms, and I keep the lights on."

I tilt my head back and look at him. Without his glasses, his face is different, softer, more open, the sharp lines blurred into something approachable. His dark eyes are tired but warm, and the scowl that usually lives between his brows has smoothed out.

"You're more than the lights-on guy, Deklan."

"Am I?"

"You're the heart," I say. "JD is the backbone. Knox is the spark. But you're the heart. The thing that keeps everything alive."

He stares at me, and I watch his throat work, swallow, swallow, swallow, and then he kisses me.

Not like last night. Not hungry or desperate or driven by the consuming need of the scent-match. This kiss is soft and slow. The kind of kiss that doesn't ask for anything but gives everything. His lips move against mine with a tenderness that makes my chest ache, and when he pulls back, his eyes are wet.

"Willow." He says my name like a prayer.

"Deklan."

"I love you."

The words fall over me, not with a crash, but a deep, sure settling. Like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Like the last note of a song resolving into silence.

"I know," I say. "I love you too."

He pulls me closer, and I curl against his chest, and we stay like that while the morning brightens around us and the two Alphas sleep and the city wakes up sixty-eight floors below.

A squeal shatters the peace.

Lily's voice, high-pitched, delighted, and approximately three times louder than any human being that small should be capable of, cuts through the penthouse like a siren.

I'm on my feet before I'm fully awake, moving toward the door with the instinctive urgency of an omega responding to a child's call. Deklan catches my wrist.

"Clothes," he says.

I look down. I'm naked. Completely, utterly naked, and covered in evidence of last night that would be deeply confusing to a two-year-old.

Right.

I grab JD's discarded t-shirt from the floor, it falls to mid-thigh, massive on me, and pad barefoot down the hallway. Behind me, I hear Knox's groggy laugh and JD's rumbling - what the hell - as they wake.

Lily is in the kitchen. Grace has her in the high chair, and Lily is systematically dismantling a banana with the focused intensity of a demolition expert. Her dark curls are wild, her cheeks are smeared with banana, and when she sees me, her face splits into a grin so wide it crinkles her eyes.

"Willow!" She extends her banana-covered arms. "Up! Up!"

I cross the kitchen and lift her out of the highchair, banana mess and all. She clings to me, arms around my neck, legs around my waist, face buried in my shoulder, and she makes a sound. A small, satisfied hum.

"Missed you," she mumbles against my neck.