Leilani.

These brothers would be the death of me.

Gosh, I have been saying that for so long that now, it is beginning to look like my reality, because tell me why one minute, I was sitting on my stool, wracking my brain to understand a very complicated design that the engineering team back at Frostclaw. Inc had come up with in my absence, and in the next minute, I was tumbling to the floor like a pack of cards.

But it wasn’t just that.

Zevran was falling with me.

He had fallen with me!

The last thing I saw before my head struck the floor was his wide eyes and his mouth that had been rolled into an o-shape as he muttered something incoherent to me.

I felt the impact of my body hitting the floor for only a second before something warm enveloped me, and then I found myself in his arms, pressed tightly into his chest while his back was forced to suffer the rest of the impact.

"Urghh!" He groaned when his back and the back of his skull struck the floor, and I winced like I was the one who had suffered that hit.

However, just as I tried to stand up, he did too, and we both ended up bumping our foreheads against each other, causing a loud groan to slip out of both of our mouths as we crashed again to the floor.

I cried out; "What the effing hell is wrong with you?!"

"I could ask you the same but I know that it’s not our fault!" He clapped back at me, earning himself an eyeroll from me.

I was about to respond to him when I found out that somehow... I do not know how, I was almost straddling him. And while he laid on the floor on his left side, my right leg was trapped under his body while the left was resting on his waist.

This posture, however, made him feel way closer to me than he has ever been and I felt heat rush to my face and to my core way before I could get a hold of the sensations running across my body.

I hissed; "get off!"

"I think you should first," he whispered softly, "you’re sitting right on top of me."

I noticed the way he refrained from using the word: ’straddling’ and the way he tried as hard as possible not to touch me. And even though I could clearly see his chest rising and falling rapidly, and feel the tremor running up his body, he didn’t lean close. Instead, he sounded soothing— too calm really— as he drawled;

"I’ll lift my body off the floor slowly so that you can take out your trapped leg, is that okay?"

The way he talked like I was a child he wished not to offend dissipated all kinds of ill feelings I held towards him. It also took away part of the embarrassment I once felt and I carefully began to do as he had told me... one movement after the other...

Until...

"What the hell happened here?" A different voice snapped, pulling me out of my small bubble.

The shock made me fall back into Zevran’s chest for the second time today, and when I raised my head to find Maya standing there with a flask in hand and a mischievous smirk across her lips, I almost lost it.

I snapped; "What the hell are you doing here?"

"And what the hell are you doing there?" She drawled, wriggling her eyebrows at me. The way she said that word: ’you’ made my already hot cheeks burn even hotter and made the strange warmth searing through my veins burn ten times hotter.

I also do not know how or when, but one minute, I was back to Zevran’s chest and the next, he hoisted me up, helped me to my feet and stood behind me, whilst scratching the back of his neck as he said to Maya;

"It’s nice of you to come around."

"Yes, Alpha," she murmured playfully, "I just think I came at the wrong time."

Again, she pinned a look while she said that, signifying that she meant the position she had caught us in earlier and that made me inexplicably nervous.

I stifled a groan from escaping my lips and turned away, dragging her out of the living room as I went until we stepped out of the house where I shoved her in front of me and screeched;

"Can I come and live with you?"

She froze then slowly cocked her eyebrows at me; "Huh?"

"I know that what I ask of you is a little too much but can I please... pretty please, come and live with you and Gavin?"

Her eyes thinned as they raked from the top of my head to my toes, and then suddenly, as if something had occurred to her, they widened;

"Was he trying to force his way with you when I walked in earlier?"

And at first, I didn’t understand what she meant by that until the words played and replayed themselves in my head over and over again on a loop. I scrunched up my face and gagged.

"Oh no! No! Eww! They may be everything but not that!" I cried, feeling my face heat up one more time. "He wasn’t trying to force himself on me or anything of the sort. We had both fallen!"

A couple beats of silence settled between us when I said that, one that was later disrupted when she sighed, crossed her arms over her chest and asked softly;

"Then what is it, Leilani? What exactly is the problem?"

It wasn’t until she asked that question that I realized how tongue-tied I was. How confused and bothered... and hot these brothers were making me feel. I also realized how—

"Will you tell me?" She asked, snapping me out of my trance and I immediately nodded.

I stuttered; "I don’t know... I don’t even think there’s a problem. I just... Maya, I don’t know what is happening with me these last few days."

She watched me closely as if seeing me for the first time. And as her eyes raked my body for the nth time, I couldn’t help but notice the understanding gleaming in her eyes like a thousand fairy lights.

Understanding not annoyance, frustration or anything of the sort.

"I do not really understand you," she drawled softly, "...are they treating you badly, or are they not?"

"They are not." I said simply. Truthfully. "If I’m being honest, then I’d say they’ve been too good to me. Too good that I no longer hate them... and that’s strange because I’ve spent most of my life hating them and swearing them off."

"And now it feels weird that the people who once felt like hell on earth are now your safe space?" She asked softly and I nodded, not answering.

"You’re falling for them." She drawled simply, and that had my eyes widening as I shook my head at her.

"No, I am not."

"Yes, you are." She snapped, and then in a softer voice, she continued; "...and I am sorry, I cannot ask you to come live with Gavin and I because we do not have enough security which you need. You’re safe here. You’re protected and that’s all that matters."