Chapter Twenty-three
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania
One week later
Dux dried the last dish, put it back in the cupboard, then glanced over at Briley. She was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of green tea that Drake had made her. She looked good today, well-rested and happy, and Dux caught her eye and returned her smile.
“So,” he said, closing the cupboard door. “That’s dinner all cleaned up. We brought over some ice cream for dessert, so when you’re ready for that, just say the word, babe.”
“Ice cream, huh?” Briley said. “What flavor?”
“ All the flavors we could get our hands on,” Drake said. “We learned from the whole ‘we brought chocolate, but Mama was craving salted caramel’ debacle.”
Briley laughed. “I was happy to eat the chocolate, and you know that damn good and well. It wasn’t my idea to go out at eight p.m. looking for salted caramel ice cream at every corner store for thirty miles.”
“And in the end, we got back here at ten o’clock, with no salted caramel ice cream,” Dux said morosely. “We utterly failed on the ice cream mission, and we swore to never do that again.”
“So!” Drake said brightly, opening the freezer. “Here we go: salted caramel, cookies and cream, cinnamon, pistachio, mint chocolate chip –”
“Ooooh,” she said. “Mint chocolate chip sounds great.”
“ Not salted caramel?” Drake teased her, taking the jumbo tub out. “After all that?”
“Nope,” she said cheerfully. “Not tonight, thank you. Maybe for breakfast, on top of my pancakes or in my decaf.”
“You got it.”
Drake scooped the ice cream into a bowl, cocked his head, added one more scoop. Briley had gained surprisingly little weight during the pregnancy, mostly because she’d eaten poorly before the men had moved to Pennsylvania and started helping out. They knew that shoveling sugar and fat down her throat wasn’t ideal, but at least they had her eating boatloads of vegetables and healthy protein again.
“Here you go, darlin’,” Drake said, depositing the ice cream in front of her. “Dig in.”
“That’s too much,” she protested, even as she took a massive bite. “Ohhh… that’s good.”
The men grinned at her as she polished off her dessert in a few minutes, then stared into the empty bowl dolefully, as if seeking the answers of the universe.
“More?” Dux asked her, moving towards the freezer. “Maybe the cinnamon this time?”
“Noooo,” she said, still looking into the bowl, now with a bit of a smirk. “I want something else.”
“Oh, boy.” Drake was already mentally heading for the door, ready to go hunt for whatever the craving de jour was: so far, they’d had salted caramel ice cream, cantaloupe melon, garlic bread, and chilli halloumi, though not all at the same time, mercifully. “What is it that you want, darlin'?”
“You.” Briley stood up from the table, turned that clear green gaze on them, unflinching and unblinking. “ Always you. Both of you.”
Without a word, they moved across the kitchen to her, without a word, they each took a hand and led her upstairs to her bedroom. Then clothes were off and thrown on the floor, hands were moving over hard planes and soft curves, lips were roaming over every inch of slick, sleek flesh.
When they laid her down on her bed, Briley begged with her need and desire. Right away, Drake was between her splayed thighs, his tongue teasing her just enough to keep her dancing on the knife-edge, while his brother was on his knees above her, his cock in her eager mouth. She reached out blindly, one hand on Drake’s head, directing him for her pleasure, the other gripping Dux’s hard ass, pulling him closer, tighter, deeper.
When Briley came on Drake’s tongue and fingers, her muffled cries set off Dux; he came in her eager throat, groaning her name as he did. And even as she recovered, gasping and shaking and almost in tears, Drake stood and flipped her over gently, supporting the curve of her growing stomach in his large hands. Then without a second of pause, he was inside her, taking her, fucking her. Loving her.
Feeling him moving so deep and strong, slowly plunging and thrusting, made Briley start to lose her mind again. Unable to believe how completely these men could just take total control of her body, her emotions, her heart, she started to shake with release.
Dux knelt on the bed in front of her now and took her face in his hands, forcing her eyes up to his. His thumbs traced the curve of her lips while his fingers gripped her neck, holding her in place, holding her exactly where he wanted her.
“Right here, babe,” he murmured. “ Right here .”
“Oh, God ,” she whimpered, staring into those mesmerizing eyes, feeling his twin speed up and move harder behind her. She was beyond caring about anything except reaching the orgasm that was just there , just seconds away. “Please. Please, please .”
Dux kissed her now, his mouth moving over hers, his tongue moving in time with Drake’s thrusts. And when she came again, gasping into Dux’s mouth, her pussy clenching and releasing on Drake, she almost collapsed.
But she didn’t, of course; they caught her and held her up. Just like they always had.
**
“So, babe.” Dux smoothed Briley’s tumbled hair back off her face, loving how sated and satisfied she looked. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Ummmm.” She cocked her head at him. “I hoped more of what I was just doing… unless you guys have other plans?”
“We do.” Drake gave her a lingering kiss on her sweet lips. “We’re going to a wedding.”
“Oh, right!” she exclaimed. “Zoe and Scars! How did I lose track of time like that?”
“You’re a bit distracted by the timing of other things,” Dux said, his large hand running over her stomach before lowering his mouth to the babies, giving them a quick kiss. “Only a few short weeks to go before we meet you two in there.”
Right away, his son and daughter kicked at him, and he laughed. He loved when he could feel them against his palm and his lips – he and Drake both did, and Drake also set his hand on Briley’s abdomen. Briley smiled, despite the manic disco that was now happening inside her. It wasn’t terrifically comfortable, but she loved seeing the soft, almost vulnerable looks on these men’s faces. It was like they were listening to their children talk to them, and she knew that on some level, there was communication happening. The twins responded to their fathers’ voices, and their touch, and when she was being loved by them, the babies felt that love. Briley knew that they did.
“As I was saying before the twins so rudely interrupted,” Dux said, smiling again at the answering indignant kicks. “Are you free this weekend?”
“You know I am,” Briley said wryly. “I’ll just be sitting around growing two humans, and eating my way through all the ice cream in the freezer.”
“Nuh-uh, darlin’,” Drake said. “We’re inviting you to the wedding, as our plus one.”
“Well, plus three ,” Dux said cheerfully. “But Zee and Scars are cool with the babies hitching a ride.”
“They – really?” Briley was surprised; she’d assumed that the wedding was a closed thing, for Road Devils members only. She knew that Wolf was off to Utah soon, ready to hand himself over to that fucking snake Viper Grant, and the MC was on high alert, locked down and suspicious of outsiders. She’d been prepared to be alone for the weekend, and she totally understood that. “Are they sure?”
“Of course.” Dux ran his fingers over the curve of her hip, watched as she stretched a bit under his touch, like a cat in a lazy sunbeam. “They’ve been asking for you to come. It was us who were hesitant, babe. We wanted to be sure that you’d be safe back in Denver.”
“And now you think that I will be?”
“Wolf called us a few hours ago, just before we came over for dinner,” Drake told her. “He didn’t go into any details at all, but he made it clear that he’s pre-negotiated everything with that fucker Grant and his new VP. We don’t know exactly what Wolf’s given them, or promised to give them, but the man has kept his word. He’s made sure that we’re safe, all of us.”
“For now,” she said hollowly, worry once again settling over her like a dark cloud. “ Just for now.”
“Hey, now,” Dux said gently. “Don’t ever bet against Wolf Connor, Briley. I mean never . OK, yes, we’re all worried about him and for him – but if he’s managed even this much, then we have to believe in him. He’s the smartest guy we’ve ever known, with more survival skills and street smarts than anyone in the club.”
“Including Ice?”
“Hands down,” Drake confirmed. “Look, darlin’… none of us like what Wolf is doing, not even slightly. We know why he’s doing it, though, and we trust his judgment, more than we trust our own on most things. If he says that he’s given The Highway Hellions enough to get them to back off us – all of us – then that’s exactly what he’s done.”
Briley looked at them and saw their worry for Wolf, but she also saw those astonishing, vulnerable looks that meant that their good, shining hearts were beating on the outside of their bodies, that they were being as open and generous and honest as they could possibly be. These were the looks that made her love them, a little bit more every day.
That was when she knew the time had come to speak her own heart.
“OK,” she said softly. “I’ll come to the wedding. And now I’d like to ask you two something.”
“Shoot, babe,” Dux said. “We’ll give you anything that we can.”
“I know that you will. You always do.” She took a deep breath. “When we get back from Denver, would you two – would you live here with me? Like – permanently?”
“You mean… you want us to move in?” Drake asked in a hushed voice. “For real and for good?”
“Yes,” she said simply, not even a little bit afraid of telling them the whole truth. “I love you. I love you both, and want us to be a family. I realize that we’d be a kind of odd one but it’s the best, most pure and beautiful idea of family that I could possibly imagine. I want this to be our home, our bed, our children… I want everything to be ours .”
“ God , babe,” Dux said, his eyes the softest blue that she’d ever seen them; he lowered his wicked mouth to her breasts, sprinkled warm kisses over them. “We love you too, so much. You have no idea.”
“We love all three of you,” Drake said. He stroked her thigh, slowly inching towards her heated center. “We love you more than we ever thought it was possible to love someone… especially two someones that we haven’t even met yet.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’?” she said with a gasp as Dux’s lips found her nipples, as Drake’s fingers found her pussy. “Yes, you’ll move in?”
“Yes,” they said at the same time. “ So fucking yes.”
Just before she gave herself over to the rising tide of sensations, Briley had a few fleeting rational thoughts. She knew that they had a lot to figure out over the coming months and years – legalities and paperwork and bills and wills – but she also knew that she was up for it. She was eager and excited about it, actually, all of it.
I’m all in, if it’s with them .
Then the waves of pleasure began, and for a while – for quite a long while, actually – Briley thought no more.
**