Chapter 56 Elijah
ELIJAH
My chest is still heaving when it’s over.
Finley’s sprawled on Jayden’s lap, trembling and flushed, eyes closed like she’s already halfway to sleep. Her hair sticks to her damp neck, her lips are swollen from his mouth, and there’s this…this glow about her that makes my chest ache so hard I don’t know what to do with it.
Meanwhile, Jayden’s still wrapped around her like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever touched. As though he can’t believe he was allowed to touch her at all. And if he doesn’t hold on to her, she’ll disappear.
Maybe that’s why I can’t stop staring. Why I don’t want tonight to be over.
Jayden glances up at me, slow and heavy-lidded, and for one terrifying second, our eyes lock.
Then his gaze drops.
Down my body.
Pausing on the wet patch darkening the front of my jeans.
My heart stutters so violently I think it might stop altogether. Heat storms up my throat, crawls across my face, until my whole body feels like it’s buzzing, lit up and shaking.
I have to move.
Before either of them says anything, I push to my feet, muttering something that might pass for “be right back”. My steps echo too loud in the hallway as I duck into the bathroom, bracing my hands on the counter like it might keep me from flying apart.
I splash cold water on my face. It does nothing—my reflection looks the same as I feel, wrecked and hungry and strung so tight my pulse trembles at my temples.
Grabbing a small towel, I run it through warm water, adding a drop of body wash to it before I go back to the couch. I need to do something useful instead of staring. Of overthinking the buzz that’s overtaken my whole body from what I just watched. From what I felt.
So I can breathe without drowning.
By the time I come back, Jayden’s head is tipped toward Finley’s, his palm rubbing slow circles on her thigh, and I’m gone all over again. Just watching his tenderness for her.
“Eli,” Jayden says softly, voice low enough not to wake her. His eyes roam up my body, finding mine like he can hear the storm in my chest. “You okay?”
I should nod. I should lie.
Instead, the words scrape out of me like I’ve swallowed broken glass. “I didn’t even touch myself.” My throat tightens. “Just… watched you. Both of you. And I—” Shame flames my face as I stare down my body to the wet patch on my jeans. “I couldn’t stop it.”
Jayden doesn’t smirk when I chance a glimpse at him.
Doesn’t look away from me or down at the obvious mess he’s already seen.
His jaw shifts like he’s holding something back, then he says, steady and careful, “I need to know this wasn’t too much for you, Eli.
That we’re not pushing you somewhere you don’t want to go. ”
I shake my head, gripping the towel like it’s the only thing keeping my hands steady.
“I want it, JJ. I want to be better,” I admit, voice low. “For you both. I don’t want to keep being…” My breath shudders. “Broken.”
Something tight eases in Jayden’s face. He nods once, slow. Like he sees all the splintered pieces of me and still wants me here anyway.
I move before I lose my nerve, kneeling beside them and refolding the towel to the warm side.
“Let me,” I murmur, because they’ve spent years taking care of me and now, it’s my turn.
Jayden hesitates, then leans back, letting me close.
Finley barely stirs as I clean her, my hands careful on her sensitive skin. It’s so pretty with Jayden’s marks on it, covering the scars. While I take care of her, she just makes a soft, sleepy sound and curls instinctively closer to Jayden’s bare chest like she belongs there.
When I glance up, he’s watching me with that same quiet intensity he’s holding her with, like he can feel the shift happening inside me. Like he knows I’m falling for him while he falls for her—and it doesn’t feel wrong.
It feels like home.
When I finish, Jayden gathers Finley into his arms. She tucks her face into his neck, already half-asleep, as he stands and steps out of his jeans.
Peppering gentle kisses to her temple, he starts toward her room. Panic sucker punches me into gear, moving my feet after him.
I don’t want him to go. To leave Finley… or me.
“JJ.” Jayden glances back at me. “Stay. Please.”
“Eli…”
“Don’t leave her. Stay here… just for tonight. Please.”
I can’t read his expression, but he nods once and carries her down the hall.
I follow as far as the doorway. Watch him lay Finley in bed and carefully slide in next to her before he pulls the blanket up over them both.
Finley curls into his side instinctively when his arm wraps around her waist like he’s done it a thousand times before.
Watching him do for her what I can’t, should hurt. Seeing him give her what I can’t, should kill me.
It doesn’t.
It makes me ache for something bigger than myself.
So much so that when he tells me, “Come here,” I go to them.
His hand pats the bed on Finley’s other side, and I can’t stop myself from laying next to her.
Curled up on my side, I stay stock still with Jayden’s eyes on me. They’re heavy with sleep and it doesn’t take long for his quiet, breathy snores to fall into sync with our girl’s even breaths.
Our girl.
I like that. How it sounds in my head as I carefully slide out of the bed and head to my room.
Even with the melatonin and the Trazodone, I don't trust myself not to wake them with my nightmares, or worse the sleepwalking. It hasn’t happened since I started taking the meds, but now that I’m weaning off them, I’m afraid it’s all going to come back. And I don’t want to hurt them with it.
My collapse has scarred them enough.
In my room, I strip down with shaking hands. Finley’s scent clings to my skin, to the air, to the soft panties I pull from the pocket of my jeans when I fall into bed.
Heat smothers my lungs as I press them to my face.
Jayden was right. She tastes so damn good. Better than every memory I’ve ever hoarded of her, better than I could’ve imagined.
But it’s not just her face I see when I close my eyes.
It’s the broad line of Jayden’s shoulders braced above her. The rough drag of his voice when he told her to say his name. The way his release shook him apart while I watched, rooted to the floor and coming apart right along with him.
And the worst part—the part that terrifies me and thrills me in equal measure—isn’t the wanting.
It’s how safe it felt to want.
My teeth clench around the soft cotton as I fist my cock, pumping hard while their echoes riot through my head.
Her frenzied cries. His guttural groans.
The slap of skin, the wet sounds of her taking him deep, the sight of his fingers gripping her thighs hard enough to leave proof behind.
“Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck—” The curses rip free as my strokes turn rough, frantic. My pulse is howling, hips jerking up into my fist as the heat builds hotter, tighter, meaner.
I can’t control it. Don’t want to.
The tsunami hits fast and brutal, my body bowing tight as I spill across my stomach in sharp, shaking spurts. The memory of his release, hers, mine—all tangled—blurs behind my eyes until I can’t tell where one ends and the next begins.
I keep working my fist until it’s too much, until every muscle unclenches all at once, leaving nothing but ragged breaths and the smell of sex in the air.
The panties slide from my teeth to my chest. I hold them there, right over my hammering heart, clutching them like a lifeline while the room finally stills around me.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I don’t feel like I’m drowning.
I just feel… hungry.
For them. For more.
For everything.
The sun is creeping up in the sky when I wake up sprawled naked over my rumpled sheets. It takes my brain a moment to catch up with itself. With the events of yesterday and last night.
A whisper of excitement flutters in my stomach, bubbling up my chest as I slowly sit up.
When I brush my hair from my face, Finley’s underwear is threaded around my wrist. A tangible reminder that last night actually happened.
It wasn’t a vivid dream my subconscious concocted from the afternoon we spent together.
It was real.
My blood instantly heats. The memory of Jayden and Finley together intensifying when I rub my hand over my face, dragging a long inhale of the fabric wrapped around my wrist.
What the hell am I doing?
Pushing up to my feet, I head for my bathroom. Toying with the skin-colored lace while I pull them from my wrist and knot them around my fingers as I pause in front of the mirror to get ready for my first day back at training.
The adrenaline pumping through me has me soaring high.
Things are good.
Last night was insane. Incredible. And fuck…
My thoughts crash to a stop when my stare catches a glimpse of the necklace around my neck. An unexpected gift from my grandmother when I left Havenview.
That woman had never given me anything other than punishment.
Every chance she got to assert the fear of God over me, she took it.
It doesn’t matter that the moment she gave me this necklace, was one of the nicest we’ve shared because whenever I see it in my reflection, whenever I take it off or put it on, it’s the punishment I recall. The consequences of sin…
“I’ll bleed it out of you, boy,” Grandmother shrieks, her hand tangles in Finley’s hair, dragging her from her back door to the kitchen drawer where she keeps the sharp scissors.
When Fin’s tears finally whimper past her lips, my chest pulls apart at the choked sound.
“We didn’t do anything, grandmother. I promise.” Desperation drags my voice into a high-pitched yell when she cuts the ends of Finley’s hair suddenly. “Stop!”
“How dare you raise your voice at me, in my house that you desecrate with…with…” A disgusted scowl twists her face with every haphazard swipe of the scissors. “With your sin. Your vile actions. Boys and girls don’t touch.”
The sun-bleached lengths of Finley’s hair float to the floor. Her curls unraveling like chestnut ribbons in the air.
Her hair is so pretty.