15. Leah
LEAH
For the first two hours on the highway, I keep checking the side mirror.
A gray sedan has been behind us for twenty miles, and I’ve watched it the whole time with my hand tight around the seatbelt, until it finally turns off toward a farm, and I let go and realize my fingers ache.
Emmett drives with one wrist draped over the wheel.
He glances over. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Checking the mirror.” He reaches across the console and puts his hand on my knee. “Nobody’s following us, Little Mouse. We had security follow us for the first forty miles, and we have security at the cabin.”
I look at his hand, at the long, thick fingers, and I think about where those fingers have been, and then about where Declan’s have been, and then, because apparently, I’m this person now, about both at the same time.
I cross my legs and look out the window and hope neither of them can tell.
I turn in my seat. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Emmett squeezes my knee.
“We’re not taking any chances with your safety, Leah,” Declan says from the back, not looking up from the window, where the lake is starting to show in flashes between the trees.
Nobody has ever looked out for me like this. Not a foster parent, not a caseworker, not a boyfriend. These two act like I’m something worth protecting, and part of me still doesn’t know what to do with that.
Another part of me knows it can’t last. You don’t get to date two men at once without something breaking eventually.
They say they’re not jealous, and I believe they mean it, but meaning it and living it are different things.
And we haven’t fully addressed that I’m falling for their brother too. My ex-boyfriend’s twin.
And now that I’m thinking about him, I have to ask, “When did Rowan say he was coming up?”
“Tomorrow,” Declan answers. “He has some work he needs to finish up.”
I lean my head against the window and think about last night.
Emmett made his mother’s ragù. He’d never made it before, not for anyone. The sauce simmered for two hours while Declan taught me how to get out of a wrist grab in Emmett’s home gym.
When Emmett finally put the bowl in front of me, he didn’t sit down. He just stood there with a dish towel over his shoulder and waited.
It was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I told him so. And I might have been mistaken, but I swear his eyes glistened with emotion, even if it was only for a fleeting moment.
“Can I ask you both something?” I say now, watching the trees slide past.
“Anything,” Emmett answers.
“It’s two days in one house, and Rowan gets here tomorrow, and I don’t know how this works.
If I go to bed with one of you, do I owe the other one something?
Do I take turns? Am I supposed to feel guilty every time I pick a room?
” I shake my head at the window. “I don’t know how to do this.
And I’m not sure either of you does either. ”
Emmett flicks a look at the rearview mirror.
Declan answers, taking his time. “You don’t owe anyone anything,” he says. “There’s no rotation. Nobody’s keeping a tally.” His eyes find mine in the mirror. “When you’re with Emmett, I’m not losing you. You’re still mine.”
“What he said,” Emmett adds.
I lift my head from the window and look over at Emmett. “I really want to know what you’re thinking.”
He shrugs one shoulder and takes a curve a little faster than he needs to. “If you want me, come find me. If you’re with him, I’ll cook. Nobody’s going to sulk, Little Mouse. Let’s just have some fun.”
And with those words, I’m able to relax.
The lake house is not a cabin. I don’t know what I’d been picturing, something with a wood stove and a mounted fish over the mantel, but what comes into view when the gravel drive finally opens up is a long, low structure of glass and dark timber that looks less like it was built on the hillside than like it grew out of it.
The lake spreads out behind it, wind riffling the surface, ringed by pines, and there isn’t another roof in sight in any direction.
“Rowan designed it,” Emmett says as he puts the car in park, which explains everything.
Inside, the whole back wall is glass, and the water is right there on the other side of it, so close that the light off the surface moves across the ceiling in slow ripples.
Emmett heads straight for the kitchen without breaking stride, flinging open cabinets and checking the refrigerator to ensure his staff stocked the cabin with everything he requested. Declan lifts my bag off my shoulder without asking, sets it by the stairs, and tips his head toward the deck.
“Come see.”
The deck runs the entire length of the house and steps down to a dock that reaches out over the water.
He walks me to the very end of it, and we stand there together with the wind coming off the lake, cold enough that I pull my sweater tighter.
The water is slate-gray and choppy at the posts beneath us, a heron picking its way along the far shore.
I inhale, breathing in the scent of nature. “It’s quiet.”
“That’s the point.” He’s beside me, his sleeve brushing my arm, but not touching me otherwise. “Nobody gets out here without us knowing. You can stop looking over your shoulder, Leah.”
I hadn’t realized I was still doing it until he said so. My shoulders drop, and I watch the heron take off.
“House tour,” Emmett calls from the top of the deck stairs. “Come on. I want to show you the good part.”
The good part turns out to be a bedroom at the far end of the house, down a hall lined with black-and-white photographs of the lake in different seasons.
Big bed, white linens, one entire wall of glass looking straight out over the water.
A door onto a private slice of the deck with a single chair on it.
A bathroom with a tub deep enough to swim in.
“Yours,” Emmett says, leaning against the doorframe.
I walk into the middle of the room and turn a slow circle, taking it in.
I look at the bed. Then at Declan, who has come down the hall behind his brother and is standing in the doorway with my bag in his hand again, and at Emmett beside him with his hands in his pockets.
How is it possible that both of these guys are mine? Even if it’s not forever. And how is it possible that they have feelings for me, too?
“I have an idea,” I say.
They both wait.
“You said I don’t have to choose.” I sit down on the edge of the bed. “If that’s really true, then I’d like to break this bed in. With both of you. At the same time.”
Declan drops my bag on the floor.
“Well,” Emmett says, “there goes my plan to show you the boathouse.”
Declan unbuttons his cuffs, one and then the other, and rolls his sleeves back. “The boathouse can wait.” He looks at me. “You’re sure.”
It isn’t quite a question.
“I’m sure.” I’m not sure of anything else in my life, but I’m sure of this. “I’ve just never done anything like this. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Declan crosses the room and stops in front of me, and I have to tip my head all the way back to see his face. “You’ll figure it out.”
That’s all it takes. Something in me goes hot and liquid, and I slide off the edge of the bed onto my knees on the rug in front of him and reach for his belt.
His hand closes around my wrist before I get the buckle open.
“No.”
I look up. His eyes have gone dark.
“On the bed,” he commands. “Hands and knees. Facing me.” He glances over his shoulder at his brother without letting go of my wrist. “Emmett’s going to make you come from behind while you suck my cock. That’s how this starts.”
Emmett is already pulling his shirt over his head. “Always trust Declan to have a good plan.”
I get up. My legs aren’t entirely steady. I climb onto the bed and turn to face the headboard, and Declan strips his own shirt off and kneels on the mattress in front of me, and behind me the bed dips as Emmett climbs on and settles his hands on my hips.
“Off,” he says, tugging at the hem of my sweater. “All of it.”
I pull the sweater over my head and drop it off the side of the bed. I’m not wearing a bra under it; I haven’t been all day, and I wonder now whether some part of me planned that part.
Emmett’s breath goes out of him in a rush. “Fuck, Little Mouse. I never get tired of seeing you naked. It’s like unwrapping a present every time.” His hands slide up my ribs and cup my breasts from behind, thumbs dragging over my nipples until they tighten. “Declan, look at her.”
“I’m looking.”
Emmett’s hands slide back down. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of my leggings and my panties together and peels them down my thighs, working them off over my knees, and the cool air touches my already-wet pussy, making me shiver.
He swears under his breath, and then his palm slides up the inside of my thigh and cups me, just holds me there, warm and possessive, one finger resting lightly on my clit without moving.
Then his finger moves, just barely, and I hear how wet I am. So does he.
“Already, Little Mouse? We haven’t even started.” His finger presses my clit, with slightly more pressure. “I bet you were wet the whole car ride, thinking about fucking Declan and me.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Good girl.” Declan’s voice comes from above me, low and even.
He takes my chin in his hand and turns my face up to his. He’s opened his pants while I wasn’t watching. He’s hard, thick and heavy, glistening at the tip. He wraps his other hand around himself and drags the head across my lower lip, slow, painting it.
“Open up, Leah.”
I do.
He pushes into my mouth, watching my face the entire time. And at the exact same moment, Emmett’s hands spread me open from behind, his tongue finding my center.
The sound I make is muffled around Declan. My whole body jolts forward, and Declan’s hand steadies my head. Emmett’s mouth is hot and wet and everywhere at once, licking in long, filthy, unhurried strokes from my clit to my opening and back again.