Chapter 8
Eight
Gage
“ J esus H. Christ,” I murmur under my breath. Blood rushes south, making my dick the only head I can think with.
Not something I’m used to. Keeping everyone in line, on track, and focused is more my style.
She’s a fucking virgin. Was. And now I am a monster. What the hell have we done? She can’t be more than twenty. Tops twenty-one. I should have asked for her license the second she glided that sweet fuckable ass into The Society earlier.
I couldn’t stop myself. Seeing her walls stretch over the head of my cock was the end of my control. I doubt I had any to begin with. Something else out of character. We invited the sweet thing over to see how compatible we were. Some wine, pasta, and Rush’s garlic bread. Good conversation.
Not sex.
But what did we do?
“Fuck me.” I plant my feet wide and rock back on my heels. Morning light is just breaking over the edge of the water. It’s my favorite time of morning and this one is coming in with a storm.
We agreed to this stint with the club for a little downtime. Get our heads on straight.
Not to get attached. But last night felt like we were personally stitching together strings that tie us to her.
I have grappled with the rules we’ve lived by for a while now. She’s pushing boundaries just by sleeping in my bed.
I turn around and watch the honey-haired beauty snuggle up to my brothers through the balcony window. It’s late enough in the summer that the heat is fading into autumn. Cool mornings and warm afternoons. I love this time of year and like to leave the balcony doors open.
After coming down from the high of our first session together, we all showered, fed our guest, and made sure she went to bed where she’s been for the last five hours. Tucked between all of us softly breathing. Trusting us with her safety. Which blows my mind. I’ve never seen someone trust so easily. Hasn’t her family taught her anything? When three guys invite you into their home the only thing you should do is run.
But not Belle. She fell into our arms and gave us the sweetest gift.
What the fuck do I do with that? I’m already struggling to find the peace I need to move forward with my job. Adding the stress of her to our lives seems like asking for shit to go sideways more than it already has.
I dig my thumbs into my eyes and try to erase the sight of the death I’ve seen.
But when I close my eyes, instead of seeing the bodies and haunting eyes of those I’ve killed, I see her. Belle. The beauty. Sweet and innocent.
I smirk at her attempts to get us to make love to her after we all piled back into bed for the night.
Make love. Where the hell did that come from? I turn to brace my hands on the railing and watch as the sun fights with the darkening clouds in its slow ascent.
I haven’t loved someone other than my brothers in a long time. This isn’t that. Infatuation? Sure. But love? Fuck. What’s wrong with me?
The second we dried her off she nuzzled into my borrowed T-shirt and seeing her wearing my clothes had me tenting the sheets all night.
Somewhere around four in the morning she’d stirred awake and reached out for me.
My cock jerks awake at the memory and tests the elastic fabric of my sweatpants. She gripped my shaft with her delicate hand and fell asleep holding me. I chuckle low at the idea my cock is her sleeping pill.
What the fuck was that about? Not that I am complaining. Honestly, I haven’t slept that well since my first tour overseas.
I palm my phone and pull up Raja’s name. Two rings and he picks up.
“Just waking or just getting to bed?” I ask.
“I have a better question. What day is it? Did you find a girl?”
I turn back around and lean against the railing, hooking my ankles. “I think we did.”
“Think?”
“Okay, fuck, man. We did. Three nights from now you will have your sex show. She gets scared I will break the contract and you can bill me for the penalty. We will sign before going on stage.”
A grunt feeds through the earpiece. “I haven’t heard you sound so torn. Ever, now that I think about it. She’s that good?”
I pause. Through the window, I see Aziel wake and head to the bathroom probably to shower. He can’t seem to live without feeling water on him first thing in the morning. Must be the Navy man in him.
“I don’t know yet.” I end the call and pass a steamy mug of joe to Aziel when he joins me a few minutes later, dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his hips.
We both welcome the sun’s rays as they feed through the branches of the surrounding pines. It has momentarily won against the darkness prowling closer, but the shadows always wins in the end.
A long dock we had built when we bought the place extends into the water. As tempting as a swim sounds, I have to admit last night left me tired as hell. Besides, the undercurrents this time of year can turn deadly.
“Can’t sleep?”
I take a deep gulp of my black coffee not ready to share the mess of shit I’m feeling. I don’t think I can put it into words if I try anyway.
“Yeah, sleeping isn’t coming easy but for a whole other set of reasons than usual, though.”
“She’s not what I expected either.” My brain zeroes in on the worry that darkens my friend’s expression.
“What has your face lookin’ like you’d rather punch me than talk?” We both drink more coffee as he considers his words. Aziel isn’t one to just blurt out everything he thinks. He likes to chew on his thoughts and then offer up whatever tastes best. Usually, the sugar-coated shit as to not hurt people’s feelings.
But when he’s with Rush or me, we get the unvarnished version of Aziel.
“We have how many shows in the contract with The Society?”
“To start a week straight and then decide how many and how often.”
Aziel nods. “You felt what I felt last night, didn’t you? Rush did too. Hell, he hasn’t let her out of his arms since she arrived.”
Aziel pauses. “She trusts us and I know the instant comfort we feel with her will cause us pain in the end. This girl gets emotionally connected with just a kiss.” He hisses through his teeth. “If we see this contract through there is no way she is walking. She’s not the kind of girl who does a quick fling. You can see long-term written all over that irresistible body.”
What is left unsaid is felt the hardest. Can we walk away from her when the contract ends?
We both stand silently looking at Belle in my bed. The three of us are assholes for what we did to her last night. We should have walked away back at The Society and picked one of those other women.
The thought churns my gut. We should have dumped the whole thing. Acid burns the back of my throat at the idea of just picking some random stranger to sink our cocks into.
But isn’t that what we did? Belle doesn’t feel like a stranger at all. Her sass, quick wit, and willingness to seek pleasure and be pleasured spoke to me in a way no other woman has.
“It feels like we’ve known her our whole lives. How is that possible?”
I’m speaking low but my brother hears me. “I don’t know, man. How is anything we share possible?” Hard blue eyes swing from Belle to land on mine. “How did I come back from the dead? How do we read each other so easily? How is being so connected to another person so strongly that you feel them in your bones real?”
Fuck. Me.
He’s asking all the questions I don’t have answers to. None of us do.
“You’re not afraid of her not being able to walk away. You’re scared shitless you can’t.” I drink in the way our girl drapes her leg over Rush’s hip. His possessive hold on her even in his sleep. “We all are. Even Rush.”
Aziel re-hooks the end of his towel and I give him an option to consider.
“How about this? We help Raja, do as our CO commanded, and see how we feel about our rule after a couple of times with Belle on stage. Maybe we can make a relationship work.”
“Fuck the rule, man. That no relationship shit is done for me.”
Aziel tosses his coffee over the deck, his face turning a ghostly pale, and memories of his near-death skitter across my memories. I know because I see it when he’s stressed and it’s one of the reasons our commanding officer has ordered us to take some downtime.
My gut clenches and I have to remind myself that Aziel didn’t die on that mission. That he isn’t dead now. He’s just frustrated and scared.
His voice is rough with emotions when he speaks again. “I can feel you’re thinking the same as me, but you always have a hard time letting go of control. One thing is for damn sure, though, brother. You can’t hide from what happened tonight with Belle. We’re all tired of death.”
Aziel pauses, dragging my gut through the trenches of darkness we’ve shared with his sudden silence.
He takes his eyes off Belle to look at me with remorse seemingly eating him from the inside out. His next words punch me in the gut, but I can’t say I didn’t see them coming.
“I want out. The question only you can answer is do you want out, too? The CO knows this last mission was rough on us and our time is coming to an end anyway. I’m going to ask for my papers.”
“And Rush? Have you already talked with him?”
“Not yet. But I’d like us both to do that.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Aziel tracks my gaze to see the same thing I do—a piece of heaven waiting for us in my bed.
“I want the peace you see on Rush’s face right now. I want to wake up to more than your ugly fucking mugs seven days a week. I don’t want to worry about not coming home. We are not getting younger. We wait much longer and we’ll end up like my uncle and his friends. Old bastards with no one to love them.”
“Damn it.” His expression is a bleeding reminder that life can go by in a flash and when you finally look up it’s all over. I curse harshly. “Fuck. Okay, I hear you, man. I hear you,” I gruff out a laugh.
Glory and honor shouldn’t be a motivator in life. The first years of our military service were just that. Wild adventure, travel, and knowing you made a difference. Hero shit you never got to write home about.
Now, just a few years short of forty I’m having a hard time justifying my need for adrenaline rushes. Especially when I can get that right here with my brothers and one lovely Belle.
I track Aziel’s movements across the deck and back to bed where he tucks in behind Belle. And I kid you not, her breathing grows easier and from the looks of it there’s an upward tilt to the corners of her lips.
I never thought I would see the day a woman held the possibility of making us completely whole, but she’s in my bed with my brothers right now so I know it’s real.
Those two let emotions drive them. Hell, maybe I do too. But more times than not it’s usually in the opposite direction.
We grew up on the same street, went to school together, went into the military together and became SEALS together. I know what they want, what drives them. And they know me. We forged a bond long before the military. Shedding blood together and for one another only made that connection stronger. Maybe it’s what holds us together.
A year back Aziel nearly died while working to take down a cartel leader. A really nasty piece of work who sold anything that could turn him a profit. Sugar, avocados, women, children, men. And drugs. Lots of fucking heroin, fentanyl, and a new drug that has hit the streets. Some designer shit that is still killing people called Euphoria.
It took us nearly losing one of our trio to learn our connection went deeper than just friendship.
It goes soul deep. And if you ask me, it is the only reason Aziel pulled through though he flatlined three times after taking a direct hit from an exploding IED.
It should have killed him instantly. No way in hell do I think it was sheer luck that he didn’t die. The doctors and nurses are full of shit in that department.
It was us. Rush and me.
I watch my brother in the arms of our woman and give a silent prayer that he’s still among the living. It’s the millionth one in the time since that day.
After wrapping up the mission, Rush and I dropped everything to be by his side. The days we were away I barely ate and Rush, I don’t think he slept from the worry. We secured our target and that is when a miracle happened, according to the doc.
For a week he danced on the edge of death. Fuck, this is going to sound nuts, but hear me out. Within mere hours of us arriving at his bedside, the man who flirted with the reaper for nearly eight days regained consciousness.
Shocked the holy shit out of all of everyone.
Everyone except Rush and me.
The doctors called it a miracle. To us it sealed our fate. The first time we saw the blue of Aziel’s eyes Rush and I knew our lives were connected in ways none of us could ever describe. But we knew we would share everything in our lives: our home, our pain, our joys and even the women we take to bed.
After a couple of crash and burns with a few ladies who thought we were freaks, we decided relationships were not for us. No woman will ever understand our bond. It’s better to leave it at that. Besides, if we get killed that will only leave someone heartbroken and I don’t need that on my shoulders.
The first night Aziel walked out of the hospital we made a pact: Live together, love together, die together. We catch shit about it from the boys back on base, but we don’t care.
Thunder echoes over the vast waters of Lake Michigan.
When we get her on stage and between us it will be beautiful to see her uncover what I suspect is a wilder side of a very woman who is just beginning to discover herself. My mind wants to take my thoughts deeper and wonder if her soul will seek out and forge with ours. So I let it wander through the fantasy as shadows grow long overtop the cabin. The sun relents control to the bursts of lightning flashing across the horizon.
I only hope the storm rolling in isn’t an omen of what’s to come.